[LEAPSECS] Computer Network Time Synchronization, 2nd Ed.

[Poul-Henning Kamp]

In message <26F22184-F7BA-4773-90C4-E480356F523A at noao.edu>, Rob Seaman writes:


>> I wonder where he got the idea that death and birth certificates are UT1 too.


Or for that matter, what difference it could possibly make ?

Birthdays do not even get adjusted with/for timezones:  You are
born and die on civil time, wherever you happen to be at the instant,
and the instant is determined by whoever remembers to look at their
watch, and surprisingly often by guessing.

A midwife I once knew said that midwives (in Denmark) often used a
watches with a hour-beep, so they were sure to get the day right,
because the "twins with different birthdays" scenario were a
surprisningly common occurence, because human child-birth naturally
starts after darkness falls.

Some cultures have specific customs for declaring the moment of
birth and death, such as "First breath", "After an hour of unassisted
breathing", "1 hour after last breath", "whenever the doctor says
so" etc, but at least for time of death, a lot of guessing is often
involved.


>[...]be registered immediately after birth..."  Just the fact that

>the Convention says "a child means every human being below the age

>of eighteen years" creates engineering requirements on dates and

>thus on time.


Check the pass-port convention, can't remember the name of it,
possibly the Warshaw-Convetion (UN has a open database with all the
international conventions)  I belive it only strongly urges birthday
to be recorded in passports by the day, but only requires them to be
exact to a whole month.  Not sure if the E-passport is a convention
or just treaties.


>"UT1", is - of course - just an indication that *actual* time-of-day


Why don't you ask Dave Mills, rather than fit your agenda to his
opinions ?   Send him an email, but use few words, short lines,
he read emails in 48pt font last I communicated with him.

-- 
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.