[LEAPSECS] counting seconds

[Rob Seaman]

Even ignoring my usual rabidly drooling support for all aspects of  
mean solar time, I don't find the distinction pedantic at all.

Previously the U.S. had legal timescale A, realized by timescale B.   
Now (assuming any of us really understand the legal issues) we have  
legal timescale B, which (for the time being) implements an  
approximation to timescale A.  (I'll resist speculating on motivations.)

The point being, that the nature of those delegated responsibilities  
referred to by Warner changes depending on whether B implements an  
interface versus an abstract class.  (Object analogy very loosely  
ascribed, feel free to improve upon it :-)  There are likely to be  
functional side effects, not just issues of interpretation.

Such side effects might even be desirable, but one could wish that  
system engineering had been the driving force behind the change, not  
politics.

Rob
--

On Nov 5, 2008, at 7:57 PM, Steve Allen wrote:


> On Wed 2008-11-05T10:46:04 -0700, M. Warner Losh hath writ:

>> It is the first leap second that's been encountered since the US

>> officially adopted UTC.  Until recently, the official time of the US

>> was mean solar time.  However, it isn't quite that simple, since it

>> was mean solar time, as interpreted by the Secretary of Commerce,

>> which delegated it to NIST/NRO/etc who realized it with UTC since the

>> 1980s at least...

>

> I admit that I am pedantic.

>

> The point is that no epoch-based time scale can retrospectively agree

> with the times in actual use.  They're all a fiction.

>

> also, Tom Van Baak pointed out that Internet Explorer did not like

> the initial javascript.  The counts should now update with

> any browser that's still reasonably safe to use on the web

>

> http://www.ucolick.org/~sla/leapsecs/epochtime.html

>

> --

> Steve Allen                 <sla at ucolick.org>                WGS-84  

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