[LEAPSECS] LEAPSECS Digest, Vol 46, Issue 1

[Finkleman, Dave]

Space News did publish my editorial, but late to need -- if would ever have had any impact no matter what the publication date.

Ken Seidelmann, John Seago, and I are organizing an assessment and normative outcomes through ITU-R, ISO, and the JCGM.   I pulled many threads, and most led to the Joint Committee on Guides for Metrology (JCGM), led by BIPM.  I am presenting a concept paper and work item to ISO next week in London.  The core is that guidance is required either to assure effective implementation of the leap second by those who are clueless or, if leap seconds disappear, guidance for overcoming the difficulties that the diligent would experience.  We also find that there are at least three different definitions of the "second" among ISO standards.  For example, one states that a second is 1/60th of a minute, while a minute is not a standard time interval.  Therefore, we seek a normative ISO document clearly discriminating among the different kinds of seconds with proper qualification for each.  

I am undoubtedly naïve of the issue and past difficulties.  Perhaps I would not be pushing this hard if I were.  If the work is organized among the three entities cited, I would appreciate your considering participating.

The US Department of State has stated in writing that it would reconsider its support of the proposed ITU-R recommendation if it were presented with new information that might not have been available when a decision was required.  I am also influencing the new US Cyber Command to endorse keeping the leap second.   

Now, shout back.  

Dave Finkleman
Senior Scientist
Center for Space Standards and Innovation
Analytical Graphics, Inc.
7150 Campus Drive
Colorado Springs, CO 80920
 
Phone:  719-510-8282 or 719-321-4780
Fax:  719-573-9079
 
Discover CSSI data downloads, technical webinars, publications, and outreach events at www.CenterForSpace.com.
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Today's Topics:

   1. UTC Redefinition Advanced (Matsakis, Demetrios)
   2. Re: UTC Redefinition Advanced (Rob Seaman)
   3. Re: UTC Redefinition Advanced (Poul-Henning Kamp)
   4. Re: UTC Redefinition Advanced (Rob Seaman)
   5. Re: UTC Redefinition Advanced (Poul-Henning Kamp)
   6. Re: UTC Redefinition Advanced (Rob Seaman)
   7. Re: UTC Redefinition Advanced (Poul-Henning Kamp)
   8. Re: UTC Redefinition Advanced (Rob Seaman)


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Message: 1
Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2010 12:43:30 -0400
From: "Matsakis, Demetrios" <matsakis.demetrios at usno.navy.mil>
Subject: [LEAPSECS] UTC Redefinition Advanced
To: Leap Second Discussion List <leapsecs at leapsecond.com>
Message-ID:
	<91772DEC8A29C048A9BFBE32C49CEB72F46538 at echo.usno.navy.mil>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

I have now heard from two sources that the revised ITU-R draft
recommendation TF.460-6 passed a major hurdle in Geneva last week.  It
will be sent by SG7 to the January 2012 Radiocommunication Assembly
meeting.  At the Radiocommunication Assembly only countries that belong
to the ITU-R can vote and a 75% majority is required for passage of a
recommendation.  I don't have the wording, but I presume it calls for
the elimination of all future leap seconds after several (5?) years
notice.



------------------------------

Message: 2
Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2010 10:16:56 -0700
From: Rob Seaman <seaman at noao.edu>
Subject: Re: [LEAPSECS] UTC Redefinition Advanced
To: Leap Second Discussion List <leapsecs at leapsecond.com>
Message-ID: <29673354-328C-48F0-98E1-99E9062E153B at noao.edu>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

On Oct 22, 2010, at 9:43 AM, Matsakis, Demetrios wrote:


> I have now heard from two sources that the revised ITU-R draft

> recommendation TF.460-6 passed a major hurdle in Geneva last week.  It

> will be sent by SG7 to the January 2012 Radiocommunication Assembly

> meeting.  At the Radiocommunication Assembly only countries that belong

> to the ITU-R can vote and a 75% majority is required for passage of a

> recommendation.  I don't have the wording, but I presume it calls for

> the elimination of all future leap seconds after several (5?) years

> notice.


"Passed a major hurdle"?  The phrasing from the Executive Report of Working party 7A indicates a state they describe as "deadlocked":

	"It became quite clear the issues involved were not technical issues and the Working Party was deadlocked on non-technical issues.  The path forward to resolve the issue and come to consensus was not apparent.  The only course of action that appeared to be open was to submit the documents to the Study Group for resolution."

It is unremarkable that the people pushing the initiative would regard the objections as "non-technical", although why that should make them negligible is unclear.  It will, for instance, cost astronomers many millions of dollars simply to restore current functionality to thousands of interoperating systems.  I guess that is not technical enough.  However, in what sane world view does acknowledging the existence of a deadlock correspond to clearing a hurdle?

The obvious "course of action" is to drop the corrosive proposal.

Rob Seaman
National Optical Astronomy Observatory


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Message: 3
Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2010 18:08:16 +0000
From: "Poul-Henning Kamp" <phk at phk.freebsd.dk>
Subject: Re: [LEAPSECS] UTC Redefinition Advanced
To: Leap Second Discussion List <leapsecs at leapsecond.com>
Message-ID: <76500.1287770896 at critter.freebsd.dk>

In message <29673354-328C-48F0-98E1-99E9062E153B at noao.edu>, Rob Seaman writes:


>It will, for instance, cost astronomers many

>millions of dollars simply to restore current functionality to thousands

>of interoperating systems.  I guess that is not technical enough. 


A) Doesn't sound technical to me (Economy possibly ?)

B) "Many millions of dollars" ?  (Handwaving ?)

-- 
Poul-Henning Kamp       | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20
phk at FreeBSD.ORG         | TCP/IP since RFC 956
FreeBSD committer       | BSD since 4.3-tahoe    
Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence.


------------------------------

Message: 4
Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2010 11:36:33 -0700
From: Rob Seaman <seaman at noao.edu>
Subject: Re: [LEAPSECS] UTC Redefinition Advanced
To: Leap Second Discussion List <leapsecs at leapsecond.com>
Message-ID: <56B60F42-F2DC-4EA5-88FD-2A0C2AA0AE8B at noao.edu>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

On Oct 22, 2010, at 11:08 AM, Poul-Henning Kamp wrote:


> Rob Seaman writes:

> 

>> It will, for instance, cost astronomers many millions of dollars simply to restore current functionality to thousands of interoperating systems.  I guess that is not technical enough. 

> 

> A) Doesn't sound technical to me (Economy possibly ?)

> 

> B) "Many millions of dollars" ?  (Handwaving ?)


Of course it is an off-the-cuff estimate.  It is hard to get management attention on such issues years in advance.  We did get one estimate on the record from a system engineer at a midsize telescope of $3M to update software systems for such a change.  Sounds about right to me, but imagine this estimate is high by a factor of 10.  That still amounts to $300,000 for one telescope out of dozens of similar aperture and out of hundreds of large professional astronomical facilities of all types and thousands of smaller systems...and then there are all the amateur telescopes, planetaria, data centers, space missions...

"Many millions of dollars" is certainly not hyperbole.  Several of us worked on the Y2K remediation for astronomical software systems - a significant effort in our community.  This will dwarf Y2K for astronomy.

The hierarchy of working parties and committees of the ITU-R have failed miserably at due diligence.  That it is difficult to get people's attention on an obscure issue is no excuse for forsaking the responsibility.

Rob



------------------------------

Message: 5
Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2010 20:33:24 +0000
From: "Poul-Henning Kamp" <phk at phk.freebsd.dk>
Subject: Re: [LEAPSECS] UTC Redefinition Advanced
To: Leap Second Discussion List <leapsecs at leapsecond.com>
Message-ID: <94355.1287779604 at critter.freebsd.dk>

In message <56B60F42-F2DC-4EA5-88FD-2A0C2AA0AE8B at noao.edu>, Rob Seaman writes:

>On Oct 22, 2010, at 11:08 AM, Poul-Henning Kamp wrote:



>"Many millions of dollars" is certainly not hyperbole.  [...]


I called it handwaving, not hyperbole.


-- 
Poul-Henning Kamp       | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20
phk at FreeBSD.ORG         | TCP/IP since RFC 956
FreeBSD committer       | BSD since 4.3-tahoe    
Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence.


------------------------------

Message: 6
Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2010 13:43:05 -0700
From: Rob Seaman <seaman at noao.edu>
Subject: Re: [LEAPSECS] UTC Redefinition Advanced
To: Leap Second Discussion List <leapsecs at leapsecond.com>
Message-ID: <0254D452-98BF-4A46-A63D-94AEB158E4F6 at noao.edu>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

Ok - so you weren't criticizing my estimate of the scale of the economic impact on my community, but rather were suggesting that my estimate isn't formal enough?  How does this differ from my criticisms (repeated year after year) of the informality of the ITU-R process?

The onus is on the ITU-R to carry out a thorough, diligent, professional process.  They aren't even close to meeting typical standards of due diligence.

Rob
--

On Oct 22, 2010, at 1:33 PM, Poul-Henning Kamp wrote:


> In message <56B60F42-F2DC-4EA5-88FD-2A0C2AA0AE8B at noao.edu>, Rob Seaman writes:

>> On Oct 22, 2010, at 11:08 AM, Poul-Henning Kamp wrote:

> 

>> "Many millions of dollars" is certainly not hyperbole.  [...]

> 

> I called it handwaving, not hyperbole.




------------------------------

Message: 7
Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2010 22:41:08 +0000
From: "Poul-Henning Kamp" <phk at phk.freebsd.dk>
Subject: Re: [LEAPSECS] UTC Redefinition Advanced
To: Leap Second Discussion List <leapsecs at leapsecond.com>
Message-ID: <95035.1287787268 at critter.freebsd.dk>

In message <0254D452-98BF-4A46-A63D-94AEB158E4F6 at noao.edu>, Rob Seaman writes:


>Ok - so you weren't criticizing my estimate of the scale of the

>economic impact on my community, but rather were suggesting that

>my estimate isn't formal enough?


No, that is also not what I said.

I called it "handwaving" and I mean "handwaving".

First, I firmly belive that just the salary expenses of implementing,
ignoring or otherwise dealing with leapseconds, in what we can call
"the non-astronomer world"  exceed your puny estimate every single
damn time we have a leap-second.

Second, therefore I have long time ago said that if the astronomers
thought this was a real problem, they should send a proposal saying
"Give us $CALL and we'll shut up and support you" for some Finagle
adjustment of $CALL big enough to make it worth your while.

But thirdly, I have a hard time finding more than a single astronomer
who belives this is a Big Freaking Technological Catastrophe.

Most of the ones I have talked to, admittedly mostly europeans,
claim that this is no big deal, since they already cannot use UTC
as Earth orientation estimator, without the fetching DUT1 and other
earth orientation data from IERS over the internet also.

For years now, we have heard your continuous thunder about how "all
of astronomy would be badly affected", but appearantly you cannot
even get these likely doomed astronomers to give a reasonable precise
estimate of the impact ?

Anecdotal evidence could seem to indicate, that might be because
most of them found it easier to just preemptively fix the issue,
if it even existed in the first place, than to join your sentimental
crusade for Astronomys Proper Role In Timekeeping.

So yes, by now I do consider your dire forecasts of economic
ruin unsubstantiated handwaving...

Or to put it more bluntly:  You and what army ?

Poul-Henning

-- 
Poul-Henning Kamp       | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20
phk at FreeBSD.ORG         | TCP/IP since RFC 956
FreeBSD committer       | BSD since 4.3-tahoe    
Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence.


------------------------------

Message: 8
Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2010 17:03:34 -0700
From: Rob Seaman <seaman at noao.edu>
Subject: Re: [LEAPSECS] UTC Redefinition Advanced
To: Leap Second Discussion List <leapsecs at leapsecond.com>
Message-ID: <4F5BD784-66EA-42B4-9930-DC3EEABF253A at noao.edu>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

On Oct 22, 2010, at 3:41 PM, Poul-Henning Kamp wrote:


> Second, therefore I have long time ago said that if the astronomers

> thought this was a real problem, they should send a proposal saying

> "Give us $CALL and we'll shut up and support you" for some Finagle

> adjustment of $CALL big enough to make it worth your while.


By all means, send us your contribution :-)  Shouldn't such an issue be part of the proposal being debated?

Why precisely is it that the one sure-fire way to provoke spirited discussion is simply to suggest that the proposal itself sucks as an example of the art of constructing a proposal?  Project planning and system engineering are not mystical enterprises.  Write a coherent proposal and engage in a coherent (ideally open) process.


> But thirdly, I have a hard time finding more than a single astronomer

> who belives this is a Big Freaking Technological Catastrophe.


Ah yes, another anecdotal argument.

Let's examine the only score card we do have, the "Summary of responses to the Questionnaire on a draft revision of Recommendation ITU-R TF.460.6 (Administrative Circular CACE/516)" (R07-SG07-C-0116!!MSW-E.docx, 
http://www.itu.int/md/meetingdoc.asp?lang=en&parent=R07-SG07-C-0116).  This one page document tabulates the eight (8) "valid responses" (I don't think they included mine :-) to the questionnaire:

1) "Do you support maintaining the current arrangement of linking UT1 and UTC (to provide a celestial time reference)?"

	Yes	3
	No	5

2) "Do you have any technical difficulty in introducing leap seconds today?"

	Yes	3
	No	5

3) "Would you support the revision of Recommendation ITU-R TF.460-6?"

	Yes	5
	No	3

4) "If it is agreed to eliminate leap seconds within 5 years after approval of the revision of Recommendation ITU-R TF.460-6, would that create technical difficulties for your administration?"

	Yes	3
	No	5

The entire coherent basis of this discussion is these eight (8) "valid responses".  Five for - Three against.  (62%)  Or is that right?  Two of the yeses (plus all of the noses) apparently have no "technical difficulty in introducing leap seconds".  That is - according to this poll commissioned by the proponents of the proposal - 40% of the supporters of the proposal are unruffled by the existence of leap seconds.  Why then do they care?

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.


> Most of the ones I have talked to, admittedly mostly europeans,

> claim that this is no big deal, since they already cannot use UTC

> as Earth orientation estimator, without the fetching DUT1 and other

> earth orientation data from IERS over the internet also.


Astronomers are power users of both atomic time and solar time.  The actual timescales that appear in various ways in diverse empirical investigations are derived from these in involved ways.  The proposal will change how the details of the algorithms and distribution systems work.  There is a significant cost to that, far beyond (in one man's educated opinion) the cost of Y2K to my community.  I understand this aspect of the issue doesn't affect you personally.  Why then are you arguing about it?

And, oh yeah - apparently they have similarly covert plans to deprecate TAI as well as UTC.


> For years now, we have heard your continuous thunder about how "all

> of astronomy would be badly affected", but appearantly you cannot

> even get these likely doomed astronomers to give a reasonable precise

> estimate of the impact ?


So let me understand.  A mailing list is instituted to discuss precisely the issue of ceasing the issuance of leap seconds.  Since this will affect systems I am responsible for (directly and indirectly), I participate in this list.  You may liken email to thunder, but nothing would stop you from skipping over my messages in blissful disregard...or maybe you did, because you are misrepresenting my (indeed tediously many) arguments over the issue(s).

A number of us have pursued the task of bringing this problem to the broader attention of our community.  It happens to be an obscure problem, but with broad implications.  It is also the type of issue that falls in the gap between the computer science side of the community and the astronomy side of the community - a niche carved out of a niche.  I am confident that the message will spread more widely as the implications become clear to more members of the community.  I can't control how long that will take.


> Anecdotal evidence could seem to indicate, that might be because

> most of them found it easier to just preemptively fix the issue,

> if it even existed in the first place, than to join your sentimental

> crusade for Astronomys Proper Role In Timekeeping.


Wrongo.  The world's astronomical software community, a few hundred individuals, will gather for our annual meeting in Boston in a few weeks.  There are precious few of us who labor in this particular area.  However, as with Y2K the broader implications of the issue will be widely felt.

I would be delighted to hear from any of those experts who carve niches out of niches out of niches regarding space-time coordinate issues who may have implemented leap-second neutral software solutions.  All I know is that it ain't in any of the systems I know about.


> So yes, by now I do consider your dire forecasts of economic

> ruin unsubstantiated handwaving...


NOW WHO IS ENGAGING IN HYPERBOLE?  Sorry, my thunder switch slipped...Now who is engaging in hyperbole?


> Or to put it more bluntly:  You and what army ?


This nicely sums up the process over the past decade.  Whereas a typical technical discussion will focus on engineering issues, it was patently obvious from the very beginning that of the five options put forth by McCarthy and Klepczynski in the November 1999 "GPS World", only the (pseudo) option of discontinuing leap seconds was being entertained.

Indeed I have no army to influence the ITU-R process.  Is that really the way it should work?

Rob Seaman
National Optical Astronomy Observatory
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