[LEAPSECS] Leapsecs Listserve Moving.

[Rob Seaman]

On Feb 1, 2007, at 9:13 AM, M. Warner Losh wrote:


> I'm just saying that the high-precision time keeping gear that's  

> out there will fail.  I don't care about plumbing,


Well, sure we do - temporal plumbing, the distribution of time  
signals through those "tubes" that Ted Stevens loves.  (Unless he was  
thinking the internet is driven by vacuum tubes - never thought of  
that before.)


> when additional time slots are selected, much gear will need to be  

> updated replaced.


A bonanza for the vendors :–)


> When I first got into this game a couple of years ago, it took me

> months to find out when leap seconds were permitted.  There's much

> contradictory information about who is in charge of issuing them, when

> they can be issued, etc.  The standard that you refer to hasn't been

> accepted universally.  Who really controls it?


I'm not sure it's contradictory so much as absent data.

Maybe this new list will resolve all our difficulties.  Our  
statements are all converging.  I'm certainly deeply skeptical that  
the ITU has the authority to screw with civil timekeeping worldwide  
on a whim.  And whether it is obvious, I'm also very sensitive to  
arguments based on pragmatic real-world constraints.  Where we differ  
is perhaps that I regard issues of mean solar time as being also  
pragmatic and real-world.

I'm convinced that if we could focus on technical and user issues we  
could start to make progress on forging a new consensus.  (We can  
start with an assurance that any new standards will be made publicly  
available.)  Having the ALHP hanging over our heads is a useless  
distraction.

Rob