[LEAPSECS] UTC is dispredictable

Steve Allen sla at ucolick.org
Tue Mar 8 01:10:05 EST 2011


On 2011 Mar 7, at 21:13, Tom Van Baak wrote:

> I vote for: dispredictable.


Right, and it really looks like a lot of the users of POSIX want
it to be right and wish they had an API which would be right, but
it's just not available, partly for this reason.

GPS time is pretty much available, and it is pretty much guaranteed
to remain available so long as there is a technological civilization
around who wants and needs that sort of thing, but it is US DoD only,
not international, not recommended.

TAI is not available, not recommended, and its own agency is openly
on the record saying that they might discontinue it.

UTC is available, international, recommended, but dispredictable
because it was designed to serve a dispredictable purpose.

No one thing can serve all these purposes, so is there anything aside
from having two things which are internationally available and
recommended that would be satisfactory?

--
Steve Allen <sla at ucolick.org> WGS-84 (GPS)
UCO/Lick Observatory Natural Sciences II, Room 165 Lat +36.99855
University of California Voice: +1 831 459 3046 Lng -122.06015
Santa Cruz, CA 95064 http://www.ucolick.org/~sla/ Hgt +250 m



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