[LEAPSECS] We can all be winners

[M. Warner Losh]

In message: <1062ADB7-49B9-4374-9FA1-A0E0BABB6D1C at noao.edu>
            Rob Seaman <seaman at noao.edu> writes:

: M. Warner Losh wrote:

: 

: > Leap seconds was a short-sighted agenda.  The goal was noble,

: 

: Wow!  Even I wouldn't ascribe nobility to leap seconds :-)


Well, not in how they were thrust upon the world.  However, the goal
of keeping astronomical and atomic time in sync was a worthy one.


: > but the implementation was flawed.

: 

: Yes.  Many shortsighted technical projects adopted UTC when they had  

: no business doing so.  The fundamental fix is to relayer these  

: nonconforming projects on timescale(s) better suited to their purpose,  

: not to fundamentally redefine UTC to no longer represent universal time.


Experience has shown that multiple time scales lead to confusion.
Look at the problems that have been enumerated here when a GPS
receiver starts up cold.  It knows right away what the GPS time is,
but takes as long as about 20 minutes to know what the UTC time is.
This causes grief for those systems that want to start faster than
that to display UTC time.  Other examples have been proffered.


: > Changing things to be less flawed is better.

: 

: This is a tautology by the definition of "less flawed".  However, if a  

: system is permitted to evolve blindly it may well end up stranded at a  

: local flaw minimum, with a much better design elsewhere in parameter  

: space.


This isn't a tautology.  This is an argument based on the merits of
the flaws of the different proposals.  "less flawed" and "better" are
both pejorative phrases, and I was hoping to show that all proposals
are flawed in some way.


: > But in any such change there will be winners and losers.

: 

: 

: This is yet another assertion that we're engaged in a zero-sum game:

: 

: 	http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/middle-ground.html


Not it isn't.  It is a simple acknowledgment that some folks will win
and some lose.  The winners might win a lot more than the losers, or
vice versa.


: Rather, the nine years spent ankle-biting at the ponderous  

: machinations of the ITU could have been better spent actually  

: discovering a full set of requirements for civil timekeeping.   

: Blinkered thinking could have been replaced with a structured design  

: process.  We would all have benefited.


I'm not sure that the ITU would have produced anything that's
significantly more functional and robust than the proposal on the
table today.

Warner