[LEAPSECS] a modest proposal

[Rob Seaman]

On Mar 28, 2008, at 5:22 AM, M. Warner Losh wrote:


> As someone who has been ill-treated by

> leapseconds, I fail to see why they are necessary in a society that

> accepts > 1hr deviation from solar mean time...


1) Again, this is confusing apparent solar time with mean solar time,  
periodic effects with secular effects.  Surely we would all choose to  
solve some other less political technical issue by first correctly  
modeling the physical behavior.

2) Have you been ill-treated by leapseconds or by badly designed and  
implemented systems?

3) System engineering best practices exist precisely to make issues  
evident to all stakeholders who may indeed fail to see the nature of  
those issues at the beginning of the project.

We have yet to even begin a coherent process of characterizing what  
the project "Civil Timekeeping v2.0" would consist of.  Since the  
current interim solution is viable for several centuries yet, what is  
our hurry?

Rob Seaman
NOAO