[LEAPSECS] Germany at the RA plenary

[Markus Kuhn]

Rob Seaman wrote on 2012-02-05 20:59 UTC:

> > http://www.zeit.de/2012/05/Schaltsekunde

> The fading remnants of my college German are insufficient to the task

> - as is Google Translate.  Hopefully the translators at RA-12 were better.

>  The article may say more about current German opinions of the Swiss

> (the "Gray gentlemen of Geneva") than of timekeeping issues.


No, the title is a reference to the well-known 1973 children's fantasy
novel "Momo" by Michael Ende, where "Men in Grey" steal time:

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Momo_%28novel%29

The author dwells on the striking similarity of the RA session video on
youtube and scenes with the Men in Grey from Momo. (I quite like that
reference actually.)

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03wZ8ue12N4&feature=fvwrel

The view expressed by Andreas Bauch (PTB) in the article seems pretty
pragmatic: "Things would work fine either way, with or without leap
seconds. Any problem that might have occured because of a leap seconds
is fixable, if one really cares. On the other hand, if people really had
serious problems with leap seconds, things would also work without
them." The German objection against abolishing the leap second came
from the commerce ministry, but they were not available for comment.
There is mention of a rumour that the German defence ministry expressed
concerns about abolishing leap seconds, but as usual, everything there
is top secret.


> My curiosity is also piqued by the linked article:

> "Antenna octopus on space mission"


Not much of a translation error: the spiral layout of the SKA does
indeed look a bit like a twisted kraken.

  http://www.skatelescope.org/the-sites/layout/

Markus

-- 
Markus Kuhn, Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/ || CB3 0FD, Great Britain