[LEAPSECS] How good could civil timekeeping be?

[John Cowan]

Rob Seaman scripsit:


> Thanks for the pointer.  Sounds like an interesting read, I'll look

> it up.


It's pretty short -- it won't take longer than reading (not to mention
writing) one of these emails.


> After all, Princeton is in New Jersey


True, but those of us who are actually from New Jersey (as in, born
and raised in) don't like to admit it.  My wife (a lady from North
Carolina, though not the one in the limerick) never tires of twitting
me for saying "Toozdee" rather than "Tyues-day" (though I draw the line at
"hoor" and "beauty-full").


> and Watson and Crick reverse engineered DNA (three billion years

> of design by the ultimate committee) over bitters at the Eagle in

> Cambridge.


The relevant Cambridge here is the one containing MIT.


> Other examples are Zen and the Art of Motorcyle Maintenance, Muir's  

> classic Volkswagen manual - or Burning Man, for that matter.


I don't think ZAMM quite fits here.  This isn't classic vs. romantic
beauty, but two schools of thought on what classic beauty actually is.
I'm not familiar enough with the other two to comment usefully, except
that Burning Man sounds like far too dangerous a place for me -- too
many unfamiliar deaths lurking just around the corner.

-- 
John Cowan   cowan at ccil.org    http://ccil.org/~cowan
[R]eversing the apostolic precept to be all things to all men, I usually [before
Darwin] defended the tenability of the received doctrines, when I had to do
with the [evolution]ists; and stood up for the possibility of [evolution] among
the orthodox -- thereby, no doubt, increasing an already current, but quite
undeserved, reputation for needless combativeness.  --T. H. Huxley