[LEAPSECS] nails in the coffin of mean solar time

[Greg Hennessy]

>> To codify existing practice. We don't use GMT any more, we use UTC. It 

>> isn't even clear that with the closing of Greenwich observatory if GMT 

>> even exits.

> 

> I didn't say GMT, I said mean solar time.  


I know you didn't say GMT, but that's what GMT is, and our laws 
currently don't correspond to what we do. I don't know about you, but 
that's a bad idea in my view.

 > Practice and statutes worldwide have identified civil time

> with mean solar time since the eighteenth century.


I disagree with this. Current practice (but not statue) identify civil 
time with UTC. You may wish to argue that it shouldn't, but that's a 
different argument.


> This is the case 

> because it is the only logical choice for a civilization located on the 

> surface of a planet (orbiting a single star anyway, but the "Rare Earth" 

> hypothesis likely takes care of that).


False. It is *a* logical choice, there are other possible logical choices.


> Bzzzt!  See above. 


That is very rude. You aren't a game show host with the ability to 
determine the correct answer.




> If that were the intent, one might have expected some enthusiastic 

> booster of rational timekeeping to mention the fact of these upcoming 

> statutory improvements to online communities of similar enthusiasts like 

> leapsecs, ntp, or time-nuts. 


Why should they? leapsecs is a bunch of people with no power talking 
about how to bell the cat. You severely overestimate the influence of 
leapsecs, or those other mailing lists.



> With zero irony, let me say that if this is some classified DOD chain of 

> reasoning that this agnostic for one sincerely prays that you know what 

> the hell to do about DUT1.


Well, one of the reasons you don't want DUT1 to expand in size is due to 
the installed base that would break. Have you ever considered that DoD 
might have a larger installed base of things that would break if 
existing practices changed?