[LEAPSECS] All of this has happened before

[Rob Seaman]

On Jan 29, 2015, at 1:05 AM, Poul-Henning Kamp <phk at phk.freebsd.dk> wrote:

> In message <BDF1DD12-9E80-4516-91BA-76127DCB9804 at noao.edu>, Rob Seaman writes:
>> On Jan 28, 2015, at 1:34 PM, Poul-Henning Kamp <phk at phk.freebsd.dk> wrote:
>> 
>>> "Derives from" is not a "physical reality", it's merely a social custom.
>> 
>> So many replies to choose from [...]
> 
> ... all of them unresponsive to my complaint.

Well, no.  You denigrated social custom by prepending the word "mere", so in lieu of my composing an essay to refute this by referencing a thousand-and-one things starting with Kevin Birth's work I went looking for a pithy quote to suggest the great importance that custom has.  I found many quotes and deemed that simple numbers would emphasize the point.  Your dismissive usage was similar to the numerous times that an attempt to diminish important issues has been made by referring to them as "non-technical".  On the contrary, social constructs are highly pertinent to technical discussions.

I then followed that by explicitly rejecting your unstated premise that somehow LOD of day is not fixed by the synodic motions of the Earth.  And then a brief restatement of the theme that proper systems engineering will provide the quickest and surest path to a resolution acceptable to all.  I'll include these here in case you didn't read that far down in the message:

>> Try adjusting the knob for LOD even one-hundredth of one percent away from mean solar time in either direction.  Day will turn to night in a dozen years.  You don't like "physical reality"?  How about "engineering requirement so obvious it remains unstated"?
>> 
>> Requirements are inputs to the systems engineering process.  They clarify the nature of the problem space. Multiple solutions can, however, be entertained to a single problem.  The ITU has rather only ever been presented with one option - an option that cannot satisfy the engineering requirements.

Rob