[LEAPSECS] presentations from AAS Future of Time sessions

[Steve Allen]

On Sat 2014-01-18T22:03:03 -0800, Brooks Harris hath writ:

> "Broken-down POSIX time" is a YY-MM-DD hh:mm:ss representation - a

> *calendar* date-time.

>

> POSIX behaves as an *uncompensated-for-Leap-Seconds* Gregorian

> calendar counting scheme.


A calendar, made up of days, which because of the leap seconds are
kept in the traditional agreement with earth rotation.  Thus the other
POSIX quote about not all second being the same duration.  Which is to
say that POSIX has effectively rejected the reasoning of the winners
of the 1960s version of this argument who were adamant that
maintaining uniform frequency was paramount.

Rather than invent a new terminology for what that is, the authors of
the PostgreSql manual simply say that the database time scale is UT1.
They could just as well have said UT2, or UT, or GMT.
And that opens up a whole other avenue for animated discussions about
details that are not relevant for the ITU-R decision.

--
Steve Allen                 <sla at ucolick.org>                WGS-84 (GPS)
UCO/Lick Observatory--ISB   Natural Sciences II, Room 165    Lat  +36.99855
1156 High Street            Voice: +1 831 459 3046           Lng -122.06015
Santa Cruz, CA 95064        http://www.ucolick.org/~sla/     Hgt +250 m