[LEAPSECS] Synchronization requirement

[Brian Garrett]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Poul-Henning Kamp" <phk at phk.freebsd.dk>
To: "Leap Second Discussion List" <leapsecs at leapsecond.com>
Sent: Wednesday, November 12, 2008 10:58 AM
Subject: Re: [LEAPSECS] Synchronization requirement



> In message <20081112185605.GD13292 at mercury.ccil.org>, John Cowan writes:

>>Poul-Henning Kamp scripsit:

>>

>>> >They'd never be able to close any auctions :-)

>>>

>>> They would, it works fine in most real-life auction houses.

>>

>>Real-life auction rooms don't routinely have tens of active bidders

>>for a particular item.  Waiting does not scale.

>

> It sure does, bidding stops automatically when the maximum attainable

> price is reached.

>

> Sniper bids is an attempt at buying the object at a price lower than

> that, by preventing other bidders from revising their bids, thus

> circumventing the purpose of the auction: to establish the highest

> mutually agreeable price.

>

> Poul-Henning

>

I was wondering when somebody was going to mention sniper bids.  These are 
automated and require reliable synchronization so as to get bids in at 
literally the very last second.  It would be easy to imagine a lawsuit filed 
regarding such a bid received at 23:59:59.xxx on New Year's Eve with a leap 
second underway.  Then, lawyers could easily split hairs over DUT1 and all 
that good stuff.  (And, such lawsuits had _better_ happen, if this subject 
is ever to be seen as anything but an academic wank-a-thon by Mr. and Ms. 
Average Citizen--in which case, we might actually get laws that reference 
civil time to actual timescales, instead of "mean solar time of 15 degrees 
east longitude" and the like.)


Brian Garrett