[LEAPSECS] Synchronization requirement

[Peter Bunclark]

On Wed, 12 Nov 2008, Gerard Ashton wrote:


> There have been requests on this list to gather requirements

> for civil time keeping. I would like to suggest one. Anyone

> who has ever participated in an EBay auction will have noticed

> that all the savvy bidders wait to the very end to submit bids.


Sometime it does feel like we're going round and round:

On Fri, 5 Aug 2005, Tom Van Baak wrote:


> Things are more precise now; trains in Japan

> or Europe, synchronized traffic lights, TV show

> times, TiVo, 911 calls, ATM withdrawls, top of

> the hour radio broadcasts, stock and currency

> transactions, and such. My favorite example is

> eBay. It seems we are now in a world pushing

> an accuracy level of 1 second. (though, there

> are plenty of farmers who just need to know

> what day Spring begins)

>



> But I think a real requirement exists

> that a person operating a keyboard or mouse be able to depend

> on the civil time-of-day to within human reaction time,

> which is often taken to be 0.1 s.

>

>    The legal definition of time shall be sufficiently

>    unambiguous that those with adequate equipment will

>    be able to determine the correct time to an accuracy

>    of 0.1 s or better.

>


Sort of what I was getting at with human perception, but not so specific:

On Sun, 9 Nov 2008, Peter Bunclark wrote:

>

> So a User requirement might be:

> The rythms of life, including the orbits of the earth and the moon,

> the rotation of the earth, and convenient sub-divisions of the rotation

> down to nearly  the limit of human perception, shall be expressed in

> a single monotonic calendar.

>


Pete.