[LEAPSECS] The relation between calendars and leap seconds.

[Rob Seaman]

Poul-Henning Kamp wrote:


> No, actually the word I am looking for is intelligence, and I think

> central to both the problem and the solution.

>

> There are only so much nitty-gritty detail a brain can retain and

> recall at relevant moments, and the scientific consensus is that

> it correlates very strongly with the general "g", as long as you

> control for cases of Asbergers, Autism etc.


I'd recommend Gould's "Mismeasure of Man" over the crap science in the  
"Bell Curve".  Also Howard Gardner.  Binet never made extreme claims  
about IQ; these are a later abuse of what was originally a simple  
instrument to help children in need of special attention.


> But that does not give us a mandate to make the world the rest of

> the population lives in, so complex that they cannot cope with it.


...but it is the world that is complex.  As with a lot of other  
technology issues, the question is how best to match impedances.  You  
can't sweep the intrinsic complexity under the rug.


> Quite the contrary: the burden is on us to make life simple for

> the simple, and save the complexity for those who can deal with it.


"The simple"?!?  Please.  If you want to follow this line of argument,  
maybe start with "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance".

Maybe I'll write an essay explaining the need for both solar time and  
interval time in terms of Julian Jaynes' "Origin of Consciousness in  
the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind".  Right brain?  Solar time.  Left  
brain?  Interval.  Human consciousness and institutions sit at the  
intersection of the two.

Suggesting that people are too stupid to deserve a clock that keeps  
proper time is no less absurd.

...or maybe time would be better spent actually accumulating use cases  
and requirements for civil timekeeping in the 21st century?  This is  
the responsibility of those who would change the status quo.  The rest  
of us have been kept busy just trying to fend off precipitous and  
hasty decision-making.


> The "leap-hour" solution, as ugly as it is, has repeatedly been

> proven a perfectly adequate way to address the issue of earth

> orientation relative to civil time, mostly by politicians who muck

> about with timezones for no good reason, but entirely fail to make

> their jurisdictions descend into (further) uncivilized chaos as a

> result.


Leap hours have never been tried and there numerous reasons to be  
skeptical they could work.  I won't belabor why these are different  
than daylight saving time adjustments or standard time zones.  Read  
the archives.


> If there is a lack of realism anywhere, it is on the part of the

> astronomers,


A reminder that the astronomers are also among the true power users of  
atomic timescales.

Civil time just happens to be (obviously) a flavor of mean solar  
time.  For instance, all the timekeeping policy options suggested in  
the original "GPS World" article were variations on ways to cheat a  
bit (just a few milliseconds per day) on mean solar time.


> I don't care how many new timescales you want to invent for people

> with Phd after their names, the only timescale that matters to

> 99.9999...% of this planets population is UTC, and that is the one

> we have to find a workable solution for leapseconds in.


We have a workable solution.  The best way to make the case that it is  
time for a change is to follow well known system engineering  
principles and compile new requirements.

Surely by now we all recognize that these informal mailing list  
discussions aren't going to convince the other side.


>   3. Much longer warning about leap seconds.

> 	Might be workable for both parties.


Ok - so that makes three proposed solutions for the trade-off matrix.   
The status quo is one such (and should always be included in such  
trade-offs).  The other is Allen's zoneinfo suggestion.  I'm sure  
there are more.

Continue compiling a coherent, complete and self-consistent set of  
requirements and we can get around to testing the various options.  In  
the mean time we'll be arguing about system requirements, not about  
entrenched positions or differing sociological or philosophical  
stances.  The work invested in uncovering requirements will be well  
invested whatever solution is ultimately developed.


> Pick your poison.


That's the goal of system engineering.  The ITU could call any random  
member of INCOSE and would receive advice to follow system engineering  
best practices in contemplating any change to UTC.

>



Why is this controversial?

Rob