[LEAPSECS] Leapsecs Listserve Moving.

[M. Warner Losh]

In message: <723B1ACF-1749-44D4-A974-DCFA68D4A8A0 at noao.edu>
            Rob Seaman <seaman at noao.edu> writes:

: Where we differ  

: is perhaps that I regard issues of mean solar time as being also  

: pragmatic and real-world.


Yes.  I don't care if my mean solar time is 9:45 or 10:15.  But the
clock on the wall says 10:00 and that's when my weekly meeting starts

:-).  I don't see why a few minutes either way would matter, and the

inevitable drift off by an hour can be handled as a special
daylight-savings event every few centuries by changing the offset to
TAI.  Such an approach would only work if there was a good way to
distribute DUT1, and all users of DUT1 could tolerate increasingly
larger values.

But for now, we have leap seconds, and there seems no concensus behind
the 'simpler is better' approach above.  Mostly due to the DUT1
issues.  We're 10-20 years away from being able to do something like
the above, and with those time horizons, it is easier to just have
leap seconds happen and cope with the complexity they generate.  Also,
solutions that will work for a century or so are easier to implement
(eg Bulletin C-33 could have said something like:
  from 2006 January 1, 0h UTC, to 2008 January 1, 0h UTC  : UTC-TAI = - 33s
  from 2008 January 1, 0h UTC, to 2010 January 1, 0h UTC  : UTC-TAI = - 34s
  from 2010 January 1, 0h UTC, to 2011 June 1, 0h UTC     : UTC-TAI = - 35s
  from 2011 June 1, 0h UTC   , to 2013 January 1, 0h UTC  : UTC-TAI = - 36s
  from 2013 January 1, 0h UTC, until further notice       : UTC-TAI = - 37s
)

So idealistically, we're opposed (never vs continuous).  Practically,
we're not so far apart.


: 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.


The leap hour thing is silly.  It is an attempt to split the baby in
half.  Get people to agree today to something that can't possibly be
implemented, then later once no leap seconds happen push for that
silly leap hour thing to be tossed out as well...

Warner