[LEAPSECS] Apparent FCC endorsement of dropping leap seconds; FCC seeks comments

[Rob Seaman]

On Jan 31, 2014, at 10:37 AM, Warner Losh <imp at bsdimp.com> wrote:


> On Jan 31, 2014, at 10:30 AM, Peter Vince wrote:

> 

>> On 30 January 2014 23:07, Steve Allen <sla at ucolick.org> wrote:

>>> The revised text for Radio Regulation 2.5 makes no sense.  If the time

>>> scale is defined by SI seconds of cesium without regard to earth

>>> rotation then it is unrelated to a date defined on any meridian.

>> 

>> By trying to be precise, it is just confusing.  Surely the date changes at midnight of whatever timescale it relates to?

> 

> Anything else leads to ambiguity, confusion and mayhem... Or at least a lot of WTF just happened moments. POLA is violated.

> 

> Warner


The Pola is a river in Russia not Egypt (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pola).

Presumably, rather, you are seeking to minimize astonishment.  But it is more astonishing to assert that midnight is unrelated to the middle of the night than to simply recognize that some timescales are unrelated to such concepts and shouldn’t be used to represent them.  That the precision-time community is seeking to deemphasize precise concepts of timekeeping is bizarre.

It is such proposals that welcome mayhem.  WTF indeed.

Rob