subject:"Re\: \[LEAPSECS\] Standards of time zones \-Brooks Harris"

In message <2a2480dc-a5d6-4027-8364-e17af4049...@noao.edu>, Rob Seaman writes:

>Not pertinent, however, to my point about religious metaphors
>emanating from antipope.org.  One might, for instance, be skeptical
>of comments about ev= >olution arising from a creationist web site,
>however skillful the writer :-)

I belive you can find why the site is called "antipope.org" in his FAQ.

>Is leaded gas widely used anymore?  (Not a rhetorical question.
>Long gone in the US, but don't know about elsewhere.)

Yes, it's still very much used, but not in "civilized" countries
any more.

There's an interesting moral question embedded in the fact that
certain western countries are trying very hard to prevent the
remaining countries from dropping lead in gasoline, but I suspect
it's really just a matter of money.

-- 
Poul-Henning Kamp   | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20
p...@freebsd.org | TCP/IP since RFC 956
FreeBSD committer   | BSD since 4.3-tahoe
Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence.
___
LEAPSECS mailing list
LEAPSECS@leapsecond.com
http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/leapsecs

Re: [LEAPSECS] Standards of time zones -Brooks Harris

2014-01-10 Thread Rob Seaman

On Jan 10, 2014, at 9:03 AM, Poul-Henning Kamp  wrote:

> Charles Stross is one of the most gifted and insightfull Science
> Fiction writers of all time, ...
> 
> A good introduction to his is this short story about coffee:
> 
>   http://www.antipope.org/charlie/fiction/coffee.html
> 
> After that, read "The Atrocity Archives" and "Rule 34”

Thanks.  Will take a look.

Not pertinent, however, to my point about religious metaphors emanating from 
antipope.org.  One might, for instance, be skeptical of comments about 
evolution arising from a creationist web site, however skillful the writer :-)

>> Comparing [POSIX] to the
>> clarity and poetry of the Nicene Creed is absurd (and rather offensive).
> 
> No, from a organizational/comparative point of view, he is spot on.

I understood the metaphor.  I suppose one could draw parallels between modern 
timekeeping discussions and the computation of Easter.

> as I understand it, USGov is working dilligently to make time conform
> to POSIX, not the other way around.

A small group is working the system.  POSIX as a talking point is a target of 
opportunity.  The US government is overwhelmingly unaware that this is under 
debate, and might well find the suggestion reasonable that UTC be retained for 
backwards compatibility.  Did you happen to ask your military officer with lots 
of stripes about that?  Was he aware of the notion of ITU recommending an 
alternate timescale under a different name?

>> Rather, there have been ecumenical discussions throughout the
>> history of Unix - for example my own modest experience of porting
>> a large astronomy package to a "dual-universe" SysV/BSD hybrid in
>> the mid-1980s.
> 
> A Pyramid by any chance ? :-)

No, Masscomp - never a major player.

>> Future community infrastructure - future computing communion, if you will -
>> cannot be built on faulty physical models of the universe.
> 
> I'd agree to "should not", but evidence from all other technological
> areas indicate that there is no mistake big enough that it cannot be
> overlooked and rationalized.

You’re making my argument.  Thanks!

> (CH3CH2)4Pb in gasoline was just about the most efficient way to distribute
> leads neuro-toxilogical effects to all children in the world for several
> generations.

I wasn't saying that decision-making can’t adopt bad and non-physically 
coherent positions, but rather that (eventually) "the truth will out”.

Is leaded gas widely used anymore?  (Not a rhetorical question.  Long gone in 
the US, but don’t know about elsewhere.)

> Industrialized junkfood is almost perfectly optimized to eliminate
> all but sugar, salt and fat and starch from our diet.

You have me there, but there is a backlash, e.g., 
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0390521/ (And then a backlash to the backlash to 
the backlash in recent days.)

> And don't even get me started about television and a thought-paralysing
> means of mass-subduction.

Which is rapidly evolving to channels of content divorced from traditional 
corporate roles.  These examples are more about emergent properties than 
fundamental standards.

> In an ideal world, run by people who all have the surname "phd",
> this crap would not have happened.
> 
> But then again, in all likelyhood neither would a lot of other stuff
> have, and certainly not Verdi Operas.

Recommend http://www.nealstephenson.com/anathem/ pertinent to this.

Rob

___
LEAPSECS mailing list
LEAPSECS@leapsecond.com
http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/leapsecs

Re: [LEAPSECS] Standards of time zones -Brooks Harris

2014-01-10 Thread Brooks Harris

Hi Warner,

Thanks very much, all good points.

On 2014-01-09 05:21 PM, Warner Losh wrote:

On Jan 9, 2014, at 5:50 PM, Brooks Harris wrote:

Hi Rob,

On 2014-01-09 04:18 PM, Rob Seaman wrote:

On Jan 9, 2014, at 4:58 PM, Brooks Harris wrote:

Well, its clear the "end game" would take a long time to realize. It will take
serious patience on the part of folks who care.

We’re halfway there, then ;-) This conversation has been going on for a very
long time.

Yes, I know.

Click through to the archives for the current list and for the original
leapsecs list from:

http://www.cacr.caltech.edu/futureofutc/links.html

The place to start before making a foray into the mailing list, however, is
with Steve Allen’s excellent pages:

http://ucolick.org/~sla/leapsecs/

Yes, I'm aware of and read much of it. Its a great collection of the issues.

My point is that the standards, where they exist, are dispersed and fractured.

Indeed. They are also contingent on physical context from the real world. It
is simple fact that a single time scale is insufficient to model the complexity
of the systems required.

Agreed. But a consistent "civil time" seems to be where the break-downs occur and what has lead to the call
to "eliminate Leap Seconds". This is in no small part due to the know inadequacies of POSIX and NTP. So I
think some effort to better unify the behavior of "civil time", partly by better documenting UTC's role in
"civil time" would go a long way towards relieving this pressure.

Until leap seconds can be represented in POSIX, and that's an incompatible
change, the pressure won't go away. Time in computers simply doesn't understand
leap seconds, and many ad-hoc hacks have been necessary to make them mostly
cope.
This supports my belief that the "kill Leap Seconds" problem originates
when "computers", or the computer industry, gets involved. The fact
computers in general do such an inconsistent job with "civil time"
derives from the history, including, centrally, POSIX time, since so
many computer-based time-keeping (OSs, languages, etc) are, or were,
based on it.

I surmise from the available literature that the reason POSIX doesn't do
all we'd like is that the systems were rudimentary at the as POSIX was
first developed and the main objective was only to have a consistent
counting mechanism. Making that mechanism "close" to, or similar to,
"civil time" was convenient, even clever. But "accurate" civil time
keeping was not really the objective.

I'd make a some points about how POSIX relates to the topic as I
understand it.

The POSIX counting methods do not account for Leap Seconds directly but
the assumption is the kernel would supply a "correct" time_t. The POSIX
spec throws the problem of maintaining "accurate civil time" over the
wall to the kernel implementation. But I know of no specification or
guideline of how that should be done.

POSIX is intended primarily to give a forward counting timescale for
purposes like stamping file-times and such, which it does perfectly well
for its own purposes if the kernel does the right thing. It does have
the well known deficiency of "double counts on Leap Seconds" in its
counting method. This can be overcome only if the kernel somehow informs
an application that a Leap Second is occurring or has occurred, but
there's no standard way of doing that.

POSIX emerged from the Unix world. Windows does not implement POSIX
natively, instead relying on proprietary mechanisms. And here, with
mention of Windows, the conversation takes on a tone of "OS theology".

I'm more a Windows guy nowadays. This is not by choice, but just that
customer demands led me deeper and deeper into the Windows world (mostly
through c/c++).

I'm not religious about it. Once upon a PowerPC time I did a lot of
Macintosh work. Many friends are Unix/Linux people. I could write a
three-volume tome titled "Why I Hate Windows". I see all the major OSs
as fantastic tools. But the unfortunate fact is they are not same, each
has a different legacy, each has a different culture and ecosystem, and
its probably impossible for a single person to be expert in all of them.

This has a direct impact on the time-keeping topic because each OS goes
about it differently. POSIX time was originally designed to be an API to
the Unix OS, the functionality implemented in the kernel. But Windows,
by itself, doesn't do POSIX at all. Windows has a proprietary
time-keeping API (GetSystemTime(), GetFileTime() etc). POSIX is not
implemented in the Windows "kernel".

In MSVC c/c++ POSIX behavior is available as a sub-system - the POSIX
API (time_t, time(), gmtime() etc) can be called from time.h (and other
libs).

Not all of the POSIX time API is implemented in MSVC, for example,
strptime() and related just do not exist. Further, different versions of
MSVC (6.0, 2005, 2008, etc) have different implementations, some of
which are not really POSIX, b

Re: [LEAPSECS] Standards of time zones -Brooks Harris

In message <80159b27-dfc6-431c-819f-99107a143...@noao.edu>, Rob Seaman writes:

>The "metaphor for the day" tag had my hopes up that this would be a metaphor
>for the concept of "day"...no such luck.  Not sure one should put much faith
>in a religious metaphor from a site called "antipope.org" :-)

Charles Stross is one of the most gifted and insightfull Science
Fiction writers of all time, and if you ever have a chance to hear
him give a presentation on the near (10-20 years) future, you should
not miss it for anything.  Afterwards, you will find yourself
grasping for any flaw you can insert into a crack in his argument,
eventually failing and resigning yourself to hope, feverishly, that
he is way too pessimistic.

A good introduction to his is this short story about coffee:

http://www.antipope.org/charlie/fiction/coffee.html

After that, read "The Atrocity Archives" and "Rule 34"

>That said, POSIX is more like the Illuminati...or perhaps the
>Spanish Inquisition as in one of the comments.  Comparing it to the
>clarity and poetry of the Nicene Creed is absurd (and rather offensive).

No, from a organizational/comparative point of view, he is spot on.

>It commits the sin of despair to suggest that computing is too splintered to
>ever again have a prayer of putting things right.

When was the last time the car industry could agree to any substantial
change, unless some bigger power twisted their hand on their back ?

If the US Government imposes a standard it might happen, but as I
understand it, USGov is working dilligently to make time conform
to POSIX, not the other way around.

BTW: Who do you think was behind POSIX to begin with ?

> Rather, there have been ecumenical discussions throughout the
>history of Unix - for example my own modest experience of porting
>a large astronomy package to a "dual-universe" SysV/BSD hybrid in
>the mid-1980s.

A Pyramid by any chance ? :-)

I think their place would roughly similar to "Jews for Jesus" :-)

>Future community infrastructure - future computing communion, if you will -
> cannot be built on faulty physical models of the universe.

I'd agree to "should not", but evidence from all other technological
areas indicate that there is no mistake big enough that it cannot be
overlooked and rationalized.

(CH3CH2)4Pb in gasoline was just about the most efficient way to distribute
leads neuro-toxilogical effects to all children in the world for several
generations.

Industrialized junkfood is almost perfectly optimized to eliminate
all but sugar, salt and fat and starch from our diet.

And don't even get me started about television and a thought-paralysing
means of mass-subduction.

In an ideal world, run by people who all have the surname "phd",
this crap would not have happened.

But then again, in all likelyhood neither would a lot of other stuff
have, and certainly not Verdi Operas.

-- 
Poul-Henning Kamp   | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20
p...@freebsd.org | TCP/IP since RFC 956
FreeBSD committer   | BSD since 4.3-tahoe
Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence.
___
LEAPSECS mailing list
LEAPSECS@leapsecond.com
http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/leapsecs

Re: [LEAPSECS] Standards of time zones -Brooks Harris

2014-01-10 Thread Rob Seaman

On Jan 10, 2014, at 2:39 AM, Poul-Henning Kamp  wrote:

> You mean these people ?
>   
> http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2013/12/metaphor-for-the-day.html

The "metaphor for the day" tag had my hopes up that this would be a metaphor 
for the concept of "day"...no such luck.  Not sure one should put much faith in 
a religious metaphor from a site called "antipope.org" :-)  That said, POSIX is 
more like the Illuminati...or perhaps the Spanish Inquisition as in one of the 
comments.  Comparing it to the clarity and poetry of the Nicene Creed is absurd 
(and rather offensive).

It commits the sin of despair to suggest that computing is too splintered to 
ever again have a prayer of putting things right.  Rather, there have been 
ecumenical discussions throughout the history of Unix - for example my own 
modest experience of porting a large astronomy package to a "dual-universe" 
SysV/BSD hybrid in the mid-1980s.

Future community infrastructure - future computing communion, if you will - 
cannot be built on faulty physical models of the universe.

On Jan 10, 2014, at 2:49 AM, Poul-Henning Kamp  wrote:

> In message <20140110064412.gb20...@ucolick.org>, Steve Allen writes:
> 
>> I have asserted that POSIX does not want to know astronomy, does not
>> want to track geophysics, [...]
> 
> You are right about that.
> 
>> that POSIX really wants to count atomic days
>> rather than mean solar days,
> 
> And wrong about that.
> 
> POSIX want to track the timescale underlying civilian and legal
> timekeeping, the timescale known as UTC, aka GMT, aka Worldtime,
> aka Weltzeit etc, because computers are used to implement the
> civil and legal society.

Like I said, "ecumenical".  Civil timekeeping depends on both.  "Day" is 
defined for us since we live on planet Earth 
(http://futureofutc.org/preprints/files/28_AAS_13-515_Seaman.pdf).  The SI unit 
of duration - really a unit of frequency - happens to have been given a 
confusing name and 1820 calibration, but is a separate concept.  Humans rely on 
both the day and the second on a daily basis.  "Second" happens to have an 
overloaded meaning; many concepts do.

That POSIX does a poor job of separating the two notions is not a coherent 
argument for seven billion people (and untold generations to come) to attempt 
to pretend that day means 11.57407 microhertz.

> Given sufficient resources, nothing prevents us from fixing this
> "the right way", pressuming we can ever agree what that is.
> 
> Unfortunately "sufficient resources" are not available, not even close.

The implicit assertion here is that it will be cheaper - and inerrantly safe - 
to attempt to sweep the issue under the rug.  Rather, any coherent 
decision-making process would quantify the costs and risks of all options.  
There is no rug big enough.

There are also more options than the ITU's naive proposal to terminate leap 
seconds and be damned to the consequences 
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_the_instrument).

> Therefore people, primarily the US DoD who has a lot of shitty
> software of that vintage, including appearantly the entire control
> system for at least one part of the nuclear triad, are pushing the
> cheapest and simplest solution they can find:  "Drop leap seconds".

Rather, the DoD "position" is the result of lobbying of an obscure office (that 
no longer exists) by a small group of self-interested parties.  Ceasing leap 
seconds carries risks that require evaluation.  Coherent systems engineering 
(rising perhaps to the level of operations research) is needed to even 
comprehend the problem space, let alone entertain a proposed substitute 
"solution".

> The only people identified which really care abut DUT1 are people
> who point telescopes and dishes at extraterrstial objects.

Those who navigate spacecraft, submarines, aircraft, ships and ground transport 
and who deployed GPS in support of these also care.  For instance, regarding 
the relaxation of the DUT1 0.9s limit:

"While eliminating this ‘sanity check’ may seem trivial, changes to the 
code, documentation and execution of thorough testing will require resources 
and in some cases, contract modifications. The costs and time needed for the 
initial investigation and subsequently to make the required changes to the 
operational software are unknown at this time, but they are expected to be 
significant. Furthermore, considering that this possible redefinition of UTC 
and the elimination of the leap second offer no benefits to NGA GPS operations 
and GPS users, pursuit of such a fundamental change appears to be an 
inefficient use of limited resources."

(http://www.cacr.caltech.edu/futureofutc/2011/preprints/32_AAS_11-675_Malys.pdf)

More broadly:

"The proposed discontinuation of leap seconds and redefinition of UTC 
will impact the operational software and automated transfer of Earth 
Orientation Prediction Parameters between NGA, the GPS OCS, and other DoD 
organizations. A significant a

Re: [LEAPSECS] Standards of time zones -Brooks Harris

2014-01-10 Thread Warner Losh

On Jan 9, 2014, at 10:57 PM, Hal Murray wrote:

> 
> (from a day or two ago...)
> 
> Brooks Harris  said:
>> So I ask your opinion(s) - Do you think there's a need for a document  like
>> I've described? What standards body do you think would be receptive  to the
>> idea? Or is it a fool's errand? 
> 
> If I was going to try to fix that, I think I would start by talking to the OS 
> and POSIX people.  I don't know if they would be receptive.  Even if they 
> were, it might still be a dead end, but then I would (might?) learn something.

In the past, the POSIX committee has been down right hostile to fixing this 
issue, which they view as a non-issue since it is just a second anyway... It 
took years to get the double leap second issue fixed.

> The fundamental problem with POSIX timekeeping is that it pretends that leap 
> seconds don't exist.
> 
> What would you like for an API if you were starting over and wanted to 
> support leap seconds?  What would you have to change in the OS and libraries?
> 
> There now exists lots and lots of software that uses the no-leap approach, 
> and zillions of disks full of old/POSIX time stamps.  We will never "fix" all 
> of that, so we will be stuck supporting the old API forever.
> 
> If the OS keeps time in TAI, then some combination of the OS and libraries 
> needs to know when the leap seconds have and will happen.
> 
> A common criticism of keeping time in TAI is that leap seconds are not 
> predictable so it's hard to build embedded systems that will keep working in 
> local time past the latest leap-second announcement.  We should be able to 
> tweak NTP to distribute a table of leap seconds.  (Eventually, the table will 
> overflow a UDP packet size.  :)

This works well for connected systems, but many of these embedded systems don't 
necessarily have a connection to the world. GPS is used to feed them time, but 
that won't allow them to sit on the shelf for 9 months and still have the right 
count and timing of leap seconds.

> Are there any interesting systems where time is important but they don't have 
> internet connections?  How do they set their clocks?

LORAN-C. The timing systems for these systems didn't have an internet 
connection (thought they were networked). They got their time from GPS and 
recovered UTC from that. In these systems, you could have a 1 second error or 
more for historic time stamps. They also imposed weird startup requirements 
that meant these systems couldn't start until the new almanac is downloaded.

Though I guess that LORAN-C has been shut down, but it is where I developed my 
futilitarian attitudes about systems ever implementing leap seconds correctly.

> In 2038, the 32 bit time-stamp wraps around into negative numbers.  Maybe all 
> 64 bit time stamps should be in TAI rather than UTC.

time_t isn't proscribed to be 32-bits, and many systems today have moved to 
64-bit time_t.

Warner

___
LEAPSECS mailing list
LEAPSECS@leapsecond.com
http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/leapsecs

Re: [LEAPSECS] Standards of time zones -Brooks Harris

In message <20140110064412.gb20...@ucolick.org>, Steve Allen writes:

>I have asserted that POSIX does not want to know astronomy, does not
>want to track geophysics, [...]

You are right about that.

> that POSIX really wants to count atomic days
>rather than mean solar days,

And wrong about that.

POSIX want to track the timescale underlying civilian and legal
timekeeping, the timescale known as UTC, aka GMT, aka Worldtime,
aka Weltzeit etc, because computers are used to implement the
civil and legal society.

The idiots who standardized POSIX ignored leapseconds, (one of far
too many ways they qualify for the "idiot" IMO), and combined with
the 1000+ fold explosion in amount of shittly written software from
the confluence of the dot-com bubble and the leap-second hiatus is
why we have the trouble now.

Given sufficient resources, nothing prevents us from fixing this
"the right way", pressuming we can ever agree what that is.

Unfortunately "sufficient resources" are not available, not even close.

Therefore people, primarily the US DoD who has a lot of shitty
software of that vintage, including appearantly the entire control
system for at least one part of the nuclear triad, are pushing the
cheapest and simplest solution they can find:  "Drop leap seconds".

The only people identified which really care abut DUT1 are people
who point telescopes and dishes at extraterrstial objects.

-- 
Poul-Henning Kamp   | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20
p...@freebsd.org | TCP/IP since RFC 956
FreeBSD committer   | BSD since 4.3-tahoe
Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence.
___
LEAPSECS mailing list
LEAPSECS@leapsecond.com
http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/leapsecs

Re: [LEAPSECS] Standards of time zones -Brooks Harris

In message <20140110055749.b07c1406...@ip-64-139-1-69.sjc.megapath.net>, Hal Mu
rray writes:
>
>(from a day or two ago...)
>
>Brooks Harris  said:
>> So I ask your opinion(s) - Do you think there's a need for a document  like
>> I've described? What standards body do you think would be receptive  to the
>> idea? Or is it a fool's errand? 
>
>If I was going to try to fix that, I think I would start by talking to the OS 
>and POSIX people.  I don't know if they would be receptive.  Even if they 
>were, it might still be a dead end, but then I would (might?) learn something.

You mean these people ?

http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2013/12/metaphor-for-the-day.html

And yes, those are "my crowd" and Charlie Stross is spot on about them.

So, yeah, good luck with that...


-- 
Poul-Henning Kamp   | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20
p...@freebsd.org | TCP/IP since RFC 956
FreeBSD committer   | BSD since 4.3-tahoe
Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence.
___
LEAPSECS mailing list
LEAPSECS@leapsecond.com
http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/leapsecs

Re: [LEAPSECS] Standards of time zones -Brooks Harris

2014-01-09 Thread Steve Allen

On Thu 2014-01-09T21:57:49 -0800, Hal Murray hath writ:
> The fundamental problem with POSIX timekeeping is that it pretends that leap 
> seconds don't exist.

While insisting that time_t match UTC, and I think not because of the
name UTC per se, and not because POSIX loves mean solar days, but
rather because that happens to be the name currently associated with
radio brodcast time signals.

My impression is that there are too many POSIX systems which have
based their time_t on the radio broadcast time signals, therefore the
only option for POSIX is to recommend that time_t match that time
scale, whatever it happens to mean or be called.

> What would you like for an API if you were starting over and wanted
> to support leap seconds?

I have asserted that POSIX does not want to know astronomy, does not
want to track geophysics, that POSIX really wants to count atomic days
rather than mean solar days, and that they have already specified
enough other pieces of the OS that they could hide the difference in
the zoneinfo/tzdata/tzcode.

> What would you have to change in the OS and libraries?

Pretty much nothing, it's all implemented and distributed already.
It has been tested and anyone who wants can perform more tests
without need for special equipment.

http://www.ucolick.org/~sla/leapsecs/right+gps.html

That's my compromise.  Every second is of equal SI duration to make
the realtime systems happy, and every civil day remains just the way
things are now -- based on actually observing the earth rotating.

--
Steve Allen WGS-84 (GPS)
UCO/Lick Observatory--ISB   Natural Sciences II, Room 165Lat  +36.99855
1156 High StreetVoice: +1 831 459 3046   Lng -122.06015
Santa Cruz, CA 95064http://www.ucolick.org/~sla/ Hgt +250 m
___
LEAPSECS mailing list
LEAPSECS@leapsecond.com
http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/leapsecs

Re: [LEAPSECS] Standards of time zones -Brooks Harris

2014-01-09 Thread Steve Allen

On Thu 2014-01-09T01:56:03 -0800, Brooks Harris hath writ:
> In 2011 you posted to the list a link to the 2011 ITU-R CACE issued
> Circular 539
>
> http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/leapsecs/2011-June/003058.html
>
> Whats the current status of that? Still on hold?

That was one of the rare ITU-R documents which is released in advance
of a decision.  The usual ITU-R process is so closed that I can't say
I understand it, so anything I know is incomplete.

In this case the issue of the open CACE seems to have been cued by the
unusual fact that the ITU-R bureacrats could see that the delegates
from the nations at the 2012 Radiocommunication Assembly were going to
be asked to vote on a draft proposed revision that had not achieved
consensus at the Working Party or Study Group levels.  The subsequent
press reports about the RA finding itself split 3 ways (much like
several other committees of experts had been previously) and then
declining to vote seem to indicate that any hope for resolution
embodied in issuing that CACE did not come to fruition.

Follwing the RA was the WRC, and they produced Resolution 653
[COM6/20] (WRC-12) which has become WRC-15 Agenda Item 1.14.  The
wording of Resolution 653 seems extremely strong, basically lighting a
fire under SG7 and WP7A and telling them to engage with other
organizations and do whatever is necessary to give better options to
the delegates who come to the 2015 RA.  The next layer after the WRC
who turned 653 into Agenda Item 1.14 toned down the intensity a little.

Google hasn't shown me anything released since then, so whatever
negotiations are going on are staying out of sight.

--
Steve Allen WGS-84 (GPS)
UCO/Lick Observatory--ISB   Natural Sciences II, Room 165Lat  +36.99855
1156 High StreetVoice: +1 831 459 3046   Lng -122.06015
Santa Cruz, CA 95064http://www.ucolick.org/~sla/ Hgt +250 m
___
LEAPSECS mailing list
LEAPSECS@leapsecond.com
http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/leapsecs

Re: [LEAPSECS] Standards of time zones -Brooks Harris

2014-01-09 Thread Hal Murray


(from a day or two ago...)

Brooks Harris  said:
> So I ask your opinion(s) - Do you think there's a need for a document  like
> I've described? What standards body do you think would be receptive  to the
> idea? Or is it a fool's errand? 

If I was going to try to fix that, I think I would start by talking to the OS 
and POSIX people.  I don't know if they would be receptive.  Even if they 
were, it might still be a dead end, but then I would (might?) learn something.

The fundamental problem with POSIX timekeeping is that it pretends that leap 
seconds don't exist.

What would you like for an API if you were starting over and wanted to support 
leap seconds?  What would you have to change in the OS and libraries?

There now exists lots and lots of software that uses the no-leap approach, and 
zillions of disks full of old/POSIX time stamps.  We will never "fix" all of 
that, so we will be stuck supporting the old API forever.

If the OS keeps time in TAI, then some combination of the OS and libraries 
needs to know when the leap seconds have and will happen.

A common criticism of keeping time in TAI is that leap seconds are not 
predictable so it's hard to build embedded systems that will keep working in 
local time past the latest leap-second announcement.  We should be able to 
tweak NTP to distribute a table of leap seconds.  (Eventually, the table will 
overflow a UDP packet size.  :)

Are there any interesting systems where time is important but they don't have 
internet connections?  How do they set their clocks?

-

In 2038, the 32 bit time-stamp wraps around into negative numbers.  Maybe all 
64 bit time stamps should be in TAI rather than UTC.



-- 
These are my opinions.  I hate spam.



___
LEAPSECS mailing list
LEAPSECS@leapsecond.com
http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/leapsecs

Re: [LEAPSECS] Standards of time zones -Brooks Harris

2014-01-09 Thread Warner Losh

On Jan 9, 2014, at 5:50 PM, Brooks Harris wrote:

> Hi Rob,
> 
> 
> On 2014-01-09 04:18 PM, Rob Seaman wrote:
>> On Jan 9, 2014, at 4:58 PM, Brooks Harris  wrote:
>> 
>>> Well, its clear the "end game" would take a long time to realize. It will 
>>> take serious patience on the part of folks who care.
>> We’re halfway there, then ;-)  This conversation has been going on for a 
>> very long time.
> Yes, I know.
> 
>> Click through to the archives for the current list and for the original 
>> leapsecs list from:
>> 
>>  http://www.cacr.caltech.edu/futureofutc/links.html
>> 
>> The place to start before making a foray into the mailing list, however, is 
>> with Steve Allen’s excellent pages:
>> 
>>  http://ucolick.org/~sla/leapsecs/
> 
> Yes, I'm aware of and read much of it. Its a great collection of the issues.
> 
>> 
>>> My point is that the standards, where they exist, are dispersed and 
>>> fractured.
>> Indeed.  They are also contingent on physical context from the real world.  
>> It is simple fact that a single time scale is insufficient to model the 
>> complexity of the systems required.
> 
> Agreed. But a consistent "civil time" seems to be where the break-downs occur 
> and what has lead to the call to "eliminate Leap Seconds". This is in no 
> small part due to the know inadequacies of POSIX and NTP. So I think some 
> effort to better unify the behavior of "civil time", partly by better 
> documenting UTC's role in "civil time" would go a long way towards relieving 
> this pressure.

Until leap seconds can be represented in POSIX, and that's an incompatible 
change, the pressure won't go away. Time in computers simply doesn't understand 
leap seconds, and many ad-hoc hacks have been necessary to make them mostly 
cope. However, something has to give when this happens: Either accuracy in 
realization of the second, or the monotonic properties of time. Even worse, 
intervals across such events get fuzzy as well as calculation of future times 
is limited to 6 months.

It isn't a lack of understanding that's causing the problems. It is a 
standardized disconnect.

Oh, then there's the whole 'who cares about a second' so many things break in 
small ways around leap seconds, which makes it hard to get them right.

And then there's the frustration of proposing less insane leap second 
promulgation that still keeps time in sync, over the long term, but allows for 
the possibility of DUT1 > 1s (but not unbounded). DUT1 < 1s is only convention 
and was selected somewhat arbitrarily. .1s was proposed, because that's the 
threshold of human perception, but that was rejected. After much back and 
forth, 1s seems to have been accepted because, well, navigation gives only a 
small error at 1s. The error would be larger at 2s, but still likely acceptable 
for most things... Announcing leap seconds 10 years out would solve many of the 
'nobody knows that it is coming' issues since that would move the timeline of 
leap seconds from being less than the lifetime of deployed software to being 
greater than it (in most cases, outliers will still occur). It would also take 
the time horizon from < 1 year to > 1 year so that managers will know when 
leaps will happen and won't have to schedule extra, unplanned work.

>>> So, an effort to simply consolidate the terms, definitions, and standards 
>>> into a single reference document would go a long way toward lending clarity 
>>> to system implementers, other industries, and, importantly, to governments 
>>> seeking to refine their laws to coordinate time and commerce with other 
>>> jurisdictions.
>> Maybe a reference library is a reasonable place to start rather than a 
>> single document.  I’m biased, but not therefore wrong, in recommending the 
>> proceedings of the 2011 and 2013 UTC meetings:
> 
> Well, when I say "document" it might not take the form of a single document - 
> it could be several coordinated publications. My point partly is it needs to 
> created by due-process.
> 
> nMaybe, just maybe, if enough experts rallied around a common due-process 
> document, then maybe, just maybe, the ITU might take a fresh look at it, and 
> maybe, just maybe, they'd consider refinements to the UTC specs like you've 
> suggested. And maybe, just maybe, the call to kill UTC would fade away.

Until the operational issues with 'surprise leap second' goes away, and until 
there's a widely adapted, standardized way to represent time in computers that 
displaces time_t, I don't think you'll see calls for leap seconds to be 
improved or go away ending... Basically, the standards have forced great 
expense to support leap seconds, when in fact an alternative would be for wider 
DUT1 distribution and integration into systems. Many proprietary systems, alas, 
won't tolerate this so the astronomers complain that a change like this would 
idle their telescopes. No comprehensive study has been undertaken to show a 
balanced approach. To date, I've seen individual impacts o

Re: [LEAPSECS] Standards of time zones -Brooks Harris

2014-01-09 Thread Brooks Harris


Hi Rob,


On 2014-01-09 04:18 PM, Rob Seaman wrote:

On Jan 9, 2014, at 4:58 PM, Brooks Harris  wrote:


Well, its clear the "end game" would take a long time to realize. It will take 
serious patience on the part of folks who care.

We’re halfway there, then ;-)  This conversation has been going on for a very 
long time.

Yes, I know.


Click through to the archives for the current list and for the original 
leapsecs list from:

http://www.cacr.caltech.edu/futureofutc/links.html

The place to start before making a foray into the mailing list, however, is 
with Steve Allen’s excellent pages:

http://ucolick.org/~sla/leapsecs/


Yes, I'm aware of and read much of it. Its a great collection of the issues.




My point is that the standards, where they exist, are dispersed and fractured.

Indeed.  They are also contingent on physical context from the real world.  It 
is simple fact that a single time scale is insufficient to model the complexity 
of the systems required.


Agreed. But a consistent "civil time" seems to be where the break-downs 
occur and what has lead to the call to "eliminate Leap Seconds". This is 
in no small part due to the know inadequacies of POSIX and NTP. So I 
think some effort to better unify the behavior of "civil time", partly 
by better documenting UTC's role in "civil time" would go a long way 
towards relieving this pressure.





So, an effort to simply consolidate the terms, definitions, and standards into 
a single reference document would go a long way toward lending clarity to 
system implementers, other industries, and, importantly, to governments seeking 
to refine their laws to coordinate time and commerce with other jurisdictions.

Maybe a reference library is a reasonable place to start rather than a single 
document.  I’m biased, but not therefore wrong, in recommending the proceedings 
of the 2011 and 2013 UTC meetings:


Well, when I say "document" it might not take the form of a single 
document - it could be several coordinated publications. My point partly 
is it needs to created by due-process.


Maybe, just maybe, if enough experts rallied around a common due-process 
document, then maybe, just maybe, the ITU might take a fresh look at it, 
and maybe, just maybe, they'd consider refinements to the UTC specs like 
you've suggested. And maybe, just maybe, the call to kill UTC would fade 
away.





Decoupling Civil Timekeeping from Earth Rotation:

http://futureofutc.org/2011/preprints/

Requirements for UTC and Civil Timekeeping on Earth:

http://futureofutc.org/preprints/

The published proceedings are available from the American Astronautical Society:

http://www.univelt.com/Science.html

As well as this week’s well attended American Astronomical Society splinter 
meeting:

http://futureofutc.org/aas223/


Thanks very much. I've read some of these and I'll review them all.

-Brooks



Rob Seaman
National Optical Astronomy Observatory

___
LEAPSECS mailing list
LEAPSECS@leapsecond.com
http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/leapsecs




___
LEAPSECS mailing list
LEAPSECS@leapsecond.com
http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/leapsecs

Re: [LEAPSECS] Standards of time zones -Brooks Harris

2014-01-09 Thread Rob Seaman

On Jan 9, 2014, at 4:58 PM, Brooks Harris  wrote:

> Well, its clear the "end game" would take a long time to realize. It will 
> take serious patience on the part of folks who care.

We’re halfway there, then ;-)  This conversation has been going on for a very 
long time.  Click through to the archives for the current list and for the 
original leapsecs list from:

http://www.cacr.caltech.edu/futureofutc/links.html

The place to start before making a foray into the mailing list, however, is 
with Steve Allen’s excellent pages:

http://ucolick.org/~sla/leapsecs/

> My point is that the standards, where they exist, are dispersed and fractured.

Indeed.  They are also contingent on physical context from the real world.  It 
is simple fact that a single time scale is insufficient to model the complexity 
of the systems required.

> So, an effort to simply consolidate the terms, definitions, and standards 
> into a single reference document would go a long way toward lending clarity 
> to system implementers, other industries, and, importantly, to governments 
> seeking to refine their laws to coordinate time and commerce with other 
> jurisdictions.

Maybe a reference library is a reasonable place to start rather than a single 
document.  I’m biased, but not therefore wrong, in recommending the proceedings 
of the 2011 and 2013 UTC meetings:

Decoupling Civil Timekeeping from Earth Rotation:

http://futureofutc.org/2011/preprints/

Requirements for UTC and Civil Timekeeping on Earth:

http://futureofutc.org/preprints/

The published proceedings are available from the American Astronautical Society:

http://www.univelt.com/Science.html

As well as this week’s well attended American Astronomical Society splinter 
meeting:

http://futureofutc.org/aas223/

Rob Seaman
National Optical Astronomy Observatory

___
LEAPSECS mailing list
LEAPSECS@leapsecond.com
http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/leapsecs

Re: [LEAPSECS] Standards of time zones -Brooks Harris

2014-01-09 Thread Brooks Harris


Hi Magnus,

On 2014-01-09 02:11 PM, Magnus Danielson wrote:

Hi Brooks,

Welcome to the list!

On 08/01/14 01:45, Brooks Harris wrote:


On 2014-01-07 03:40 PM, Poul-Henning Kamp wrote:

In message <52cc8c26.5090...@edlmax.com>, Brooks Harris writes:

I fully understand time zone specifications are fractured. My 
objective

is to determine what standards are most relevant currently, that is,
what standards may be considered "in force". And where none exist, to
state some sort of rules of "common use" or "common practice" without
referring to the impossibly large collection of local jurisdictions 
and

laws.

There is no way to do that, because timezones are purely a matter
under the jurisdiction of national or in some cases even provincial
governments, and they are free to do any damn thing they want to them.

Yes. What I'm trying to get at is - "Offset from UTC" seems pretty clear
- a given "+-xx:xx" gives you a hard-value to work with in the time
domain. But this doesn't seem to be clearly defined anywhere. I'm
looking for more than "because everybody does it that way".

Meantime, local jurisdictions choose to honor some locally defined "time
zone" including politically defined geographic areas. Time and position
are related but they are not the same. Typically, most elect to follow
"common use" precedent and choose a reasonable even-hour "offset from
UTC". (Yes, I know its sometimes referenced to GMT and other details
like that, and yes, Newfoundland and others are not on the hour.)


Various governments have repeatedly made sure this fact is not
overlooked.


I'm not sure I blame the governments quite so directly. As far as I can
tell both experts and officials are guessing what the "standards" of
"timezone" might be, so how can they be expected to conform to a
non-existent ideal? If someone is in charge of deciding the rules and
parameters of some time zone somewhere, what guidence do they have? And
the more you research it, the more confusing it becomes.


I think they mostly adapt to what is handy for trade. Keeping the same 
clock as important neighbors to which they have lots of trade and 
communication, that is in practice more important that aligning to the 
15 degrees separations, even if that is a starting-point. The same 
goes for the daylight-saving time. In Europe, the European Union 
coordinated the daylight-saving time transitions to be at the same 
time amongs members, as this avoids switching at different dates. This 
however is not coordinated with the US, so I can have 8, 9 and 10 
hours between me and California for example. It's also interesting to 
note that this common document from 2001 have different types of 
formulations depending on language, so GMT, meridian and UTC is used 
alternatively depening on language, and if you want to be picky, you 
don't know relative time between countries better than +/- 0.9 s.


So, it's a mess. It's not a technical problem, it just becomes one.


A) "International Date Line", which is probably not standardized

[...]

It is not.

In only exists as a the result of local governments deciding what
timezones to use.

Some Pacific Island nation "jumped" timezones for Y2K in order
to be the first country to "arrive in the new millenia.

The "intenational date line" is simply where you, in broad daylight,
have a country with one date on one side and another country with
a different date on the other side.


Yes. But its "roughly" 180 degrees from the "Greenwich meridian", as per
"International Meridian Conference of 1884" "Final Act III. "That from
this meridian longitude shall be counted in two directions up to 180
degrees, east longitude being plus and west longitude minus."

Its common practice that the jump to the designation of the next day
occurs at this "international date line", wherever the local authorities
may have chosen to place themselves, for examples UTC-offset +14:00,
+13:00, and +12:00. This topic, of jumping to the next day, is discussed
in many letters and common explanations, but I find no official
statement to that effect, even as a guideline.

B) The "International Meridian Conference of 1884" contains 
significant
discussion of the idea "That these standard meridians should 
continue to
be designated as even multiples of fifteen degrees from Greenwich", 
but

there appears to be no explicit resolution of vote on the topic.

And there were none subsequently.  Strict 15 degree meridians would
be very impractical, unless national borders were aligned with them.


Well, thats what even-hour UTC-offsets are, aren't they? And in
jurisdictions with even-hour UTC offsets, that's where they've placed
themselves in the timescale, right?



Despite significant attempts at map-redrawing in the first half of
the 19-hundredes, timezones were never a reason for it.

UTC was standardized so that telephone, telegraph and radio operators
would not have to keep track of local politics all over the world in
order to operate.


Right. And it alm

Re: [LEAPSECS] Standards of time zones -Brooks Harris

2014-01-09 Thread Magnus Danielson


Hi Brooks,

Welcome to the list!

On 08/01/14 01:45, Brooks Harris wrote:


On 2014-01-07 03:40 PM, Poul-Henning Kamp wrote:

In message <52cc8c26.5090...@edlmax.com>, Brooks Harris writes:


I fully understand time zone specifications are fractured. My objective
is to determine what standards are most relevant currently, that is,
what standards may be considered "in force". And where none exist, to
state some sort of rules of "common use" or "common practice" without
referring to the impossibly large collection of local jurisdictions and
laws.

There is no way to do that, because timezones are purely a matter
under the jurisdiction of national or in some cases even provincial
governments, and they are free to do any damn thing they want to them.

Yes. What I'm trying to get at is - "Offset from UTC" seems pretty clear
- a given "+-xx:xx" gives you a hard-value to work with in the time
domain. But this doesn't seem to be clearly defined anywhere. I'm
looking for more than "because everybody does it that way".

Meantime, local jurisdictions choose to honor some locally defined "time
zone" including politically defined geographic areas. Time and position
are related but they are not the same. Typically, most elect to follow
"common use" precedent and choose a reasonable even-hour "offset from
UTC". (Yes, I know its sometimes referenced to GMT and other details
like that, and yes, Newfoundland and others are not on the hour.)


Various governments have repeatedly made sure this fact is not
overlooked.


I'm not sure I blame the governments quite so directly. As far as I can
tell both experts and officials are guessing what the "standards" of
"timezone" might be, so how can they be expected to conform to a
non-existent ideal? If someone is in charge of deciding the rules and
parameters of some time zone somewhere, what guidence do they have? And
the more you research it, the more confusing it becomes.


I think they mostly adapt to what is handy for trade. Keeping the same 
clock as important neighbors to which they have lots of trade and 
communication, that is in practice more important that aligning to the 
15 degrees separations, even if that is a starting-point. The same goes 
for the daylight-saving time. In Europe, the European Union coordinated 
the daylight-saving time transitions to be at the same time amongs 
members, as this avoids switching at different dates. This however is 
not coordinated with the US, so I can have 8, 9 and 10 hours between me 
and California for example. It's also interesting to note that this 
common document from 2001 have different types of formulations depending 
on language, so GMT, meridian and UTC is used alternatively depening on 
language, and if you want to be picky, you don't know relative time 
between countries better than +/- 0.9 s.


So, it's a mess. It's not a technical problem, it just becomes one.


A) "International Date Line", which is probably not standardized

[...]

It is not.

In only exists as a the result of local governments deciding what
timezones to use.

Some Pacific Island nation "jumped" timezones for Y2K in order
to be the first country to "arrive in the new millenia.

The "intenational date line" is simply where you, in broad daylight,
have a country with one date on one side and another country with
a different date on the other side.


Yes. But its "roughly" 180 degrees from the "Greenwich meridian", as per
"International Meridian Conference of 1884" "Final Act III. "That from
this meridian longitude shall be counted in two directions up to 180
degrees, east longitude being plus and west longitude minus."

Its common practice that the jump to the designation of the next day
occurs at this "international date line", wherever the local authorities
may have chosen to place themselves, for examples UTC-offset +14:00,
+13:00, and +12:00. This topic, of jumping to the next day, is discussed
in many letters and common explanations, but I find no official
statement to that effect, even as a guideline.


B) The "International Meridian Conference of 1884" contains significant
discussion of the idea "That these standard meridians should continue to
be designated as even multiples of fifteen degrees from Greenwich", but
there appears to be no explicit resolution of vote on the topic.

And there were none subsequently.  Strict 15 degree meridians would
be very impractical, unless national borders were aligned with them.


Well, thats what even-hour UTC-offsets are, aren't they? And in
jurisdictions with even-hour UTC offsets, that's where they've placed
themselves in the timescale, right?



Despite significant attempts at map-redrawing in the first half of
the 19-hundredes, timezones were never a reason for it.

UTC was standardized so that telephone, telegraph and radio operators
would not have to keep track of local politics all over the world in
order to operate.


Right. And it almost works. It seems to me it could work better if the
loose ends of

Re: [LEAPSECS] Standards of time zones -Brooks Harris

2014-01-09 Thread Brooks Harris


On 2014-01-08 09:34 PM, Steve Allen wrote:

On Wed 2014-01-08T12:11:39 -0800, Brooks Harris hath writ:

Who, or what standards body, would have the (international)
authority to be taken seriously? I'm not sure about that, but since
the whole time-keeping mess was started out by astronomers I figure
this list is a good place to ask :-)

The existence of the "double leap second" in POSIX, ANSI C, and ANSI
SQL indicates that those committees had not even read the content
of ITU-R TF.460.  In a situation like that authority is irrelevant.
As I understand it there have been several well informed submissions to 
support UTC and Leap Seconds to those bodies, but the refinements were 
ultimately rejected. Those committees serve their own membership, and 
like all standards bodies, often opt for the most conservative options 
to support the current installed base. Of course there are also 
entrenched interests who choose the path of least resistance. C and 
POSIX are so fundamental to computer behavior everyone is reluctant to 
touch it. Unfortunate, but understandable. The time might yet come where 
the obvious improvements are adopted.




The past decade of non-consensual non-decision discussion documents
from various bodies who have considered leap seconds and the failed
draft revisions for TF.460 leave me unconvinced that that there is
anyone with enough zeal to become such an authority.


Yes, well, I'm on this list because I think losing Leap Seconds is 
stupid. I hope they can be dissuaded.


In 2011 you posted to the list a link to the 2011 ITU-R CACE issued 
Circular 539


http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/leapsecs/2011-June/003058.html

Whats the current status of that? Still on hold?

I see the American Astronomical Society published Requirements for UTC 
and Civil Timekeeping on Earth Colloquium and this may have been 
presented to ITU, is that right? Does AAS have an official position on 
the topic?


>> leave me unconvinced that that there is anyone with enough zeal to 
become such an authority


What about AAS?

-Brooks




--
Steve Allen WGS-84 (GPS)
UCO/Lick Observatory--ISB   Natural Sciences II, Room 165Lat  +36.99855
1156 High StreetVoice: +1 831 459 3046   Lng -122.06015
Santa Cruz, CA 95064http://www.ucolick.org/~sla/ Hgt +250 m
___
LEAPSECS mailing list
LEAPSECS@leapsecond.com
http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/leapsecs




___
LEAPSECS mailing list
LEAPSECS@leapsecond.com
http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/leapsecs

Re: [LEAPSECS] Standards of time zones -Brooks Harris

2014-01-08 Thread Sanjeev Gupta

On Thu, Jan 9, 2014 at 1:34 PM, Steve Allen  wrote:

> The past decade of non-consensual non-decision discussion documents
> from various bodies who have considered leap seconds and the failed
> draft revisions for TF.460 leave me unconvinced that that there is
> anyone with enough zeal to become such an authority.
>

You want zeal?  ZEAL?  I volunteer :-)

I assume you also want correctness, in which case I withdraw my nomination
:-)

-- 
Sanjeev Gupta
+65 98551208 http://www.linkedin.com/in/ghane
___
LEAPSECS mailing list
LEAPSECS@leapsecond.com
http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/leapsecs

Re: [LEAPSECS] Standards of time zones -Brooks Harris

2014-01-08 Thread Steve Allen

On Wed 2014-01-08T12:11:39 -0800, Brooks Harris hath writ:
> Who, or what standards body, would have the (international)
> authority to be taken seriously? I'm not sure about that, but since
> the whole time-keeping mess was started out by astronomers I figure
> this list is a good place to ask :-)

The existence of the "double leap second" in POSIX, ANSI C, and ANSI
SQL indicates that those committees had not even read the content
of ITU-R TF.460.  In a situation like that authority is irrelevant.

The past decade of non-consensual non-decision discussion documents
from various bodies who have considered leap seconds and the failed
draft revisions for TF.460 leave me unconvinced that that there is
anyone with enough zeal to become such an authority.

--
Steve Allen WGS-84 (GPS)
UCO/Lick Observatory--ISB   Natural Sciences II, Room 165Lat  +36.99855
1156 High StreetVoice: +1 831 459 3046   Lng -122.06015
Santa Cruz, CA 95064http://www.ucolick.org/~sla/ Hgt +250 m
___
LEAPSECS mailing list
LEAPSECS@leapsecond.com
http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/leapsecs

Re: [LEAPSECS] Standards of time zones -Brooks Harris

2014-01-08 Thread Brooks Harris


On 2014-01-07 08:23 PM, Warner Losh wrote:

On Jan 7, 2014, at 9:16 PM, Brooks Harris wrote:


On 2014-01-07 06:34 PM, Rob Seaman wrote:

On Jan 7, 2014, at 7:31 PM, Warner Losh  wrote:


On Jan 7, 2014, at 5:50 PM, Brooks Harris wrote:


Yeah, I'm sure most on this list have similar experience. Hey, we could start a 
reality tv show!

Leap second war story death match!

...and it would be as realistic as other "reality" shows.

What time does it air?

23:59:60 UTC twice a year.

Tell everyone to set their Android DVR app so they don't miss it!


Warner


___
LEAPSECS mailing list
LEAPSECS@leapsecond.com
http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/leapsecs



___
LEAPSECS mailing list
LEAPSECS@leapsecond.com
http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/leapsecs

___
LEAPSECS mailing list
LEAPSECS@leapsecond.com
http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/leapsecs




___
LEAPSECS mailing list
LEAPSECS@leapsecond.com
http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/leapsecs

Re: [LEAPSECS] Standards of time zones -Brooks Harris


On Jan 7, 2014, at 9:16 PM, Brooks Harris wrote:

> On 2014-01-07 06:34 PM, Rob Seaman wrote:
>> On Jan 7, 2014, at 7:31 PM, Warner Losh  wrote:
>> 
>>> On Jan 7, 2014, at 5:50 PM, Brooks Harris wrote:
>>> 
 Yeah, I'm sure most on this list have similar experience. Hey, we could 
 start a reality tv show!
>>> Leap second war story death match!
>> ...and it would be as realistic as other "reality" shows.
> 
> What time does it air?

23:59:60 UTC twice a year.

Warner

> 
>> 
>> ___
>> LEAPSECS mailing list
>> LEAPSECS@leapsecond.com
>> http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/leapsecs
>> 
>> 
> 
> ___
> LEAPSECS mailing list
> LEAPSECS@leapsecond.com
> http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/leapsecs

___
LEAPSECS mailing list
LEAPSECS@leapsecond.com
http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/leapsecs

Re: [LEAPSECS] Standards of time zones -Brooks Harris


On 2014-01-07 06:34 PM, Rob Seaman wrote:

On Jan 7, 2014, at 7:31 PM, Warner Losh  wrote:


On Jan 7, 2014, at 5:50 PM, Brooks Harris wrote:


Yeah, I'm sure most on this list have similar experience. Hey, we could start a 
reality tv show!

Leap second war story death match!

...and it would be as realistic as other "reality" shows.


What time does it air?



___
LEAPSECS mailing list
LEAPSECS@leapsecond.com
http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/leapsecs




___
LEAPSECS mailing list
LEAPSECS@leapsecond.com
http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/leapsecs

Re: [LEAPSECS] Standards of time zones -Brooks Harris

2014-01-07 Thread Rob Seaman

On Jan 7, 2014, at 7:31 PM, Warner Losh  wrote:

> On Jan 7, 2014, at 5:50 PM, Brooks Harris wrote:
> 
>> Yeah, I'm sure most on this list have similar experience. Hey, we could 
>> start a reality tv show!
> 
> Leap second war story death match!

...and it would be as realistic as other "reality" shows.

___
LEAPSECS mailing list
LEAPSECS@leapsecond.com
http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/leapsecs

Re: [LEAPSECS] Standards of time zones -Brooks Harris


On Jan 7, 2014, at 5:50 PM, Brooks Harris wrote:

> On 2014-01-07 03:58 PM, Warner Losh wrote:
>> On Jan 7, 2014, at 4:56 PM, Brooks Harris wrote:
>> 
>>> Oh yes, I've see that. Noted from this list. To me its both hysterical and 
>>> deeply troubling. On the one hand, it bemuses me to see someone else's 
>>> programming pain so well presented, mirroring my own, and, on the other, oh 
>>> isn't there please something we could do about it?
>> Doubtful :(.
>> 
>> I could likely do a similar rant about leap seconds from a programmer's 
>> perspective of similar length too
>> 
>> Warner
> 
> Yeah, I'm sure most on this list have similar experience. Hey, we could start 
> a reality tv show!

Leap second war story death match!

Warner

> -Brooks
> 
>> 
>> 
>>> On 2014-01-07 03:40 PM, Warner Losh wrote:
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5wpm-gesOY is required viewing.
 
 Warner
 
 On Jan 7, 2014, at 4:22 PM, Brooks Harris wrote:
 
> Hi,
> 
> First, this is my first posting to your list, forgive me if the subject 
> has been covered.
> 
> Second, I am a colleague Stephen Scott, also a new subscriber who posted 
> a question earlier this week - (Subject: Local insertion of leap seconds).
> 
> My question is about the current state of standards concerning time zones.
> 
> Steve Allen's "Time Scales" 
> http://www.ucolick.org/~sla/leapsecs/timescales.html 
>  is a tremendous 
> help in many regards, and my thanks and appreciation for the work 
> collected there. But it seems to side-step explanation of time zones, and 
> its here I'm asking for guidance.
> 
> I fully understand time zone specifications are fractured. My objective 
> is to determine what standards are most relevant currently, that is, what 
> standards may be considered "in force". And where none exist, to state 
> some sort of rules of "common use" or "common practice" without referring 
> to the impossibly large collection of local jurisdictions and laws.
> 
> In particular -
> 
> A) "International Date Line", which is probably not standardized except 
> by local decree, but the "180 degrees from the Greenwich meridian" has 
> provenance back to the "International Meridian Conference of 1884" (not 
> its proper name). Is there more modern standard that codifies this in any 
> way?
> 
> B) The "International Meridian Conference of 1884" contains significant 
> discussion of the idea "That these standard meridians should continue to 
> be designated as even multiples of fifteen degrees from Greenwich", but 
> there appears to be no explicit resolution of vote on the topic. I am 
> unable to pick up the trail from there. There are many references in 
> other conferences preceding and after the 1984 conference, but I have not 
> discovered any official action on the subject. Again, is there any modern 
> standard regarding that issue?
> 
> ISO 8601 describes using "offset from UTC" to indicate "time zone", but 
> as far as I can tell it does not state either what a "time zone" may be 
> or why an offset to a "time zone" from UTC might be useful. Is there any 
> other standard that might describe this relation of UTC (zulu) to the 
> "time zone" or "local time" more rigorously?
> 
> Of course the definition of "Greenwich meridian" has undergone many 
> refinements and name changes since 1884. Claude Boucher describes the 
> state of Formal international recognition of the International 
> Terrestrial Reference System (ITRS)
> 
> https://www.google.com/#q=Formal+international+recognition+of+the+International+Terrestrial+Reference+System+(ITRS).
> 
> Are there descriptions of "time zones" amongst the standards in this 
> field?
> 
> And, of course, there is the subject of "Daylight Savings", apparently 
> begun by George Vernon Hudson. Are there any modern standards or 
> implementation guidance documents in force?
> 
> I'm aware of tz databse, of course, but here too there seems to be lack 
> of clarity about what rules are being implemented, or, at least, I've 
> found no consolidated statements of those rules there.
> 
> Comments and guidence welcomed, thanks very much,
> 
> -Brooks Harris
> 
> 
> 
> ___
> LEAPSECS mailing list
> LEAPSECS@leapsecond.com
> http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/leapsecs
 ___
 LEAPSECS mailing list
 LEAPSECS@leapsecond.com
 http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/leapsecs
 
 
>>> ___
>>> LEAPSECS mailing list
>>> LEAPSECS@leapsecond.com
>>> http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/leapsecs
>>

Re: [LEAPSECS] Standards of time zones -Brooks Harris

On 2014-01-07 03:58 PM, Warner Losh wrote:

On Jan 7, 2014, at 4:56 PM, Brooks Harris wrote:

Oh yes, I've see that. Noted from this list. To me its both hysterical and
deeply troubling. On the one hand, it bemuses me to see someone else's
programming pain so well presented, mirroring my own, and, on the other, oh
isn't there please something we could do about it?

Doubtful :(.

I could likely do a similar rant about leap seconds from a programmer's
perspective of similar length too

Warner

Yeah, I'm sure most on this list have similar experience. Hey, we could
start a reality tv show!

-Brooks

On 2014-01-07 03:40 PM, Warner Losh wrote:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5wpm-gesOY is required viewing.

Warner

On Jan 7, 2014, at 4:22 PM, Brooks Harris wrote:

Hi,

First, this is my first posting to your list, forgive me if the subject has
been covered.

Second, I am a colleague Stephen Scott, also a new subscriber who posted a
question earlier this week - (Subject: Local insertion of leap seconds).

My question is about the current state of standards concerning time zones.

Steve Allen's "Time Scales" http://www.ucolick.org/~sla/leapsecs/timescales.html
is a tremendous help in many
regards, and my thanks and appreciation for the work collected there. But it seems to side-step
explanation of time zones, and its here I'm asking for guidance.

I fully understand time zone specifications are fractured. My objective is to determine what standards are
most relevant currently, that is, what standards may be considered "in force". And where none
exist, to state some sort of rules of "common use" or "common practice" without referring
to the impossibly large collection of local jurisdictions and laws.

In particular -

A) "International Date Line", which is probably not standardized except by local decree, but the
"180 degrees from the Greenwich meridian" has provenance back to the "International Meridian
Conference of 1884" (not its proper name). Is there more modern standard that codifies this in any way?

B) The "International Meridian Conference of 1884" contains significant discussion of the
idea "That these standard meridians should continue to be designated as even multiples of
fifteen degrees from Greenwich", but there appears to be no explicit resolution of vote on the
topic. I am unable to pick up the trail from there. There are many references in other conferences
preceding and after the 1984 conference, but I have not discovered any official action on the
subject. Again, is there any modern standard regarding that issue?

ISO 8601 describes using "offset from UTC" to indicate "time zone", but as far as I can tell it does not state either
what a "time zone" may be or why an offset to a "time zone" from UTC might be useful. Is there any other standard that
might describe this relation of UTC (zulu) to the "time zone" or "local time" more rigorously?

Of course the definition of "Greenwich meridian" has undergone many refinements
and name changes since 1884. Claude Boucher describes the state of Formal international
recognition of the International Terrestrial Reference System (ITRS)

https://www.google.com/#q=Formal+international+recognition+of+the+International+Terrestrial+Reference+System+(ITRS).

Are there descriptions of "time zones" amongst the standards in this field?

And, of course, there is the subject of "Daylight Savings", apparently begun by
George Vernon Hudson. Are there any modern standards or implementation guidance documents
in force?

I'm aware of tz databse, of course, but here too there seems to be lack of
clarity about what rules are being implemented, or, at least, I've found no
consolidated statements of those rules there.

Comments and guidence welcomed, thanks very much,

-Brooks Harris

___
LEAPSECS mailing list
LEAPSECS@leapsecond.com
http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/leapsecs

Re: [LEAPSECS] Standards of time zones -Brooks Harris



On 2014-01-07 03:40 PM, Poul-Henning Kamp wrote:

In message <52cc8c26.5090...@edlmax.com>, Brooks Harris writes:


I fully understand time zone specifications are fractured. My objective
is to determine what standards are most relevant currently, that is,
what standards may be considered "in force". And where none exist, to
state some sort of rules of "common use" or "common practice" without
referring to the impossibly large collection of local jurisdictions and
laws.

There is no way to do that, because timezones are purely a matter
under the jurisdiction of national or in some cases even provincial
governments, and they are free to do any damn thing they want to them.
Yes. What I'm trying to get at is - "Offset from UTC" seems pretty clear 
- a given "+-xx:xx" gives you a hard-value to work with in the time 
domain. But this doesn't seem to be clearly defined anywhere. I'm 
looking for more than "because everybody does it that way".


Meantime, local jurisdictions choose to honor some locally defined "time 
zone" including politically defined geographic areas. Time and position 
are related but they are not the same. Typically, most elect to follow 
"common use" precedent and choose a reasonable even-hour "offset from 
UTC". (Yes, I know its sometimes referenced to GMT and other details 
like that, and yes, Newfoundland and others are not on the hour.)



Various governments have repeatedly made sure this fact is not
overlooked.


I'm not sure I blame the governments quite so directly. As far as I can 
tell both experts and officials are guessing what the "standards" of 
"timezone" might be, so how can they be expected to conform to a 
non-existent ideal? If someone is in charge of deciding the rules and 
parameters of some time zone somewhere, what guidence do they have? And 
the more you research it, the more confusing it becomes.



A) "International Date Line", which is probably not standardized

[...]

It is not.

In only exists as a the result of local governments deciding what
timezones to use.

Some Pacific Island nation "jumped" timezones for Y2K in order
to be the first country to "arrive in the new millenia.

The "intenational date line" is simply where you, in broad daylight,
have a country with one date on one side and another country with
a different date on the other side.


Yes. But its "roughly" 180 degrees from the "Greenwich meridian", as per 
"International Meridian Conference of 1884" "Final Act III. "That from 
this meridian longitude shall be counted in two directions up to 180 
degrees, east longitude being plus and west longitude minus."


Its common practice that the jump to the designation of the next day 
occurs at this "international date line", wherever the local authorities 
may have chosen to place themselves, for examples UTC-offset +14:00, 
+13:00, and +12:00. This topic, of jumping to the next day, is discussed 
in many letters and common explanations, but I find no official 
statement to that effect, even as a guideline.



B) The "International Meridian Conference of 1884" contains significant
discussion of the idea "That these standard meridians should continue to
be designated as even multiples of fifteen degrees from Greenwich", but
there appears to be no explicit resolution of vote on the topic.

And there were none subsequently.  Strict 15 degree meridians would
be very impractical, unless national borders were aligned with them.


Well, thats what even-hour UTC-offsets are, aren't they? And in 
jurisdictions with even-hour UTC offsets, that's where they've placed 
themselves in the timescale, right?




Despite significant attempts at map-redrawing in the first half of
the 19-hundredes, timezones were never a reason for it.

UTC was standardized so that telephone, telegraph and radio operators
would not have to keep track of local politics all over the world in
order to operate.


Right. And it almost works. It seems to me it could work better if the 
loose ends of the underlying standards were better taken care of, hence 
my interest in learning the current state of the definition of each of 
these components.




In practice, the "olsen" database is a post-facto recording of
political whims with respect to timezones.


Again, "political whims" is really all they've got to go on. Maybe we 
can do better?


-Brooks

___
LEAPSECS mailing list
LEAPSECS@leapsecond.com
http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/leapsecs

Re: [LEAPSECS] Standards of time zones -Brooks Harris

2014-01-07 Thread Steve Allen

On Tue 2014-01-07T15:56:46 -0800, Brooks Harris hath writ:
> own, and, on the other, oh isn't there please something we could do
> about it?

Nations, provinces, cities, and sub-populations within cities are
sovereign and subject to their politicians and bureaucrats.
This is not a technical problem.

All in all the tz database has consisted of something less than 200
timezones.  That's countable and manageable, mostly.

One price for this is that right now every Mac and iPhone/Pad/Pod in
Jordan is off by an hour because Jordan changed their daylight rules
around the same time as tz changed its layout.

Apple relies on the code from the ICU-project.
ICU relies on CLDR.
CLDR wraps itself around as a reinterpretation of the tz data.

It will be at least a couple more weeks before these layers catch up
with the changes.  Leap seconds are more predictable than time zones.

Speaking of which, based on IERS Bulletin A it looks unlikely that
there will be a June 30 leap, and somewhat likely that there could be
a December 31 leap.  A December 31 leap would be temptingly close to
the impending 2015 ITU-R Radiocommunications Assembly -- close enough
to ponder whether someone might engineer a leap catastrophe in order
to influence the votes of the RA delegates.

--
Steve Allen WGS-84 (GPS)
UCO/Lick Observatory--ISB   Natural Sciences II, Room 165Lat  +36.99855
1156 High StreetVoice: +1 831 459 3046   Lng -122.06015
Santa Cruz, CA 95064http://www.ucolick.org/~sla/ Hgt +250 m
___
LEAPSECS mailing list
LEAPSECS@leapsecond.com
http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/leapsecs

Re: [LEAPSECS] Standards of time zones -Brooks Harris


On Jan 7, 2014, at 4:56 PM, Brooks Harris wrote:

> Oh yes, I've see that. Noted from this list. To me its both hysterical and 
> deeply troubling. On the one hand, it bemuses me to see someone else's 
> programming pain so well presented, mirroring my own, and, on the other, oh 
> isn't there please something we could do about it?

Doubtful :(.

I could likely do a similar rant about leap seconds from a programmer's 
perspective of similar length too

Warner


> On 2014-01-07 03:40 PM, Warner Losh wrote:
>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5wpm-gesOY is required viewing.
>> 
>> Warner
>> 
>> On Jan 7, 2014, at 4:22 PM, Brooks Harris wrote:
>> 
>>> Hi,
>>> 
>>> First, this is my first posting to your list, forgive me if the subject has 
>>> been covered.
>>> 
>>> Second, I am a colleague Stephen Scott, also a new subscriber who posted a 
>>> question earlier this week - (Subject: Local insertion of leap seconds).
>>> 
>>> My question is about the current state of standards concerning time zones.
>>> 
>>> Steve Allen's "Time Scales" 
>>> http://www.ucolick.org/~sla/leapsecs/timescales.html 
>>>  is a tremendous 
>>> help in many regards, and my thanks and appreciation for the work collected 
>>> there. But it seems to side-step explanation of time zones, and its here 
>>> I'm asking for guidance.
>>> 
>>> I fully understand time zone specifications are fractured. My objective is 
>>> to determine what standards are most relevant currently, that is, what 
>>> standards may be considered "in force". And where none exist, to state some 
>>> sort of rules of "common use" or "common practice" without referring to the 
>>> impossibly large collection of local jurisdictions and laws.
>>> 
>>> In particular -
>>> 
>>> A) "International Date Line", which is probably not standardized except by 
>>> local decree, but the "180 degrees from the Greenwich meridian" has 
>>> provenance back to the "International Meridian Conference of 1884" (not its 
>>> proper name). Is there more modern standard that codifies this in any way?
>>> 
>>> B) The "International Meridian Conference of 1884" contains significant 
>>> discussion of the idea "That these standard meridians should continue to be 
>>> designated as even multiples of fifteen degrees from Greenwich", but there 
>>> appears to be no explicit resolution of vote on the topic. I am unable to 
>>> pick up the trail from there. There are many references in other 
>>> conferences preceding and after the 1984 conference, but I have not 
>>> discovered any official action on the subject. Again, is there any modern 
>>> standard regarding that issue?
>>> 
>>> ISO 8601 describes using "offset from UTC" to indicate "time zone", but as 
>>> far as I can tell it does not state either what a "time zone" may be or why 
>>> an offset to a "time zone" from UTC might be useful. Is there any other 
>>> standard that might describe this relation of UTC (zulu) to the "time zone" 
>>> or "local time" more rigorously?
>>> 
>>> Of course the definition of "Greenwich meridian" has undergone many 
>>> refinements and name changes since 1884. Claude Boucher describes the state 
>>> of Formal international recognition of the International Terrestrial 
>>> Reference System (ITRS)
>>> 
>>> https://www.google.com/#q=Formal+international+recognition+of+the+International+Terrestrial+Reference+System+(ITRS).
>>> 
>>> Are there descriptions of "time zones" amongst the standards in this field?
>>> 
>>> And, of course, there is the subject of "Daylight Savings", apparently 
>>> begun by George Vernon Hudson. Are there any modern standards or 
>>> implementation guidance documents in force?
>>> 
>>> I'm aware of tz databse, of course, but here too there seems to be lack of 
>>> clarity about what rules are being implemented, or, at least, I've found no 
>>> consolidated statements of those rules there.
>>> 
>>> Comments and guidence welcomed, thanks very much,
>>> 
>>> -Brooks Harris
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> ___
>>> LEAPSECS mailing list
>>> LEAPSECS@leapsecond.com
>>> http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/leapsecs
>> ___
>> LEAPSECS mailing list
>> LEAPSECS@leapsecond.com
>> http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/leapsecs
>> 
>> 
> 
> ___
> LEAPSECS mailing list
> LEAPSECS@leapsecond.com
> http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/leapsecs

___
LEAPSECS mailing list
LEAPSECS@leapsecond.com
http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/leapsecs

Re: [LEAPSECS] Standards of time zones -Brooks Harris

Oh yes, I've see that. Noted from this list. To me its both hysterical
and deeply troubling. On the one hand, it bemuses me to see someone
else's programming pain so well presented, mirroring my own, and, on the
other, oh isn't there please something we could do about it?

On 2014-01-07 03:40 PM, Warner Losh wrote:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5wpm-gesOY is required viewing.

Warner

On Jan 7, 2014, at 4:22 PM, Brooks Harris wrote:

Hi,

First, this is my first posting to your list, forgive me if the subject has
been covered.

Second, I am a colleague Stephen Scott, also a new subscriber who posted a
question earlier this week - (Subject: Local insertion of leap seconds).

My question is about the current state of standards concerning time zones.

In particular -

https://www.google.com/#q=Formal+international+recognition+of+the+International+Terrestrial+Reference+System+(ITRS).

Are there descriptions of "time zones" amongst the standards in this field?

And, of course, there is the subject of "Daylight Savings", apparently begun by
George Vernon Hudson. Are there any modern standards or implementation guidance documents
in force?

I'm aware of tz databse, of course, but here too there seems to be lack of
clarity about what rules are being implemented, or, at least, I've found no
consolidated statements of those rules there.

Comments and guidence welcomed, thanks very much,

-Brooks Harris

___
LEAPSECS mailing list
LEAPSECS@leapsecond.com
http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/leapsecs

Re: [LEAPSECS] Standards of time zones -Brooks Harris

2014-01-07 Thread Steve Allen

On Tue 2014-01-07T15:22:14 -0800, Brooks Harris hath writ:
> I fully understand time zone specifications are fractured. My
> objective is to determine what standards are most relevant
> currently, that is, what standards may be considered "in force". And
> where none exist, to state some sort of rules of "common use" or
> "common practice" without referring to the impossibly large
> collection of local jurisdictions and laws.

Those local rules are the rules.

The IANA tz community is the place where the folks who track the
history and ongoing changes to those rules do their best-effort
collaboration, and the rest of the world who rely on tz owe them deep
gratitude for taking the trouble to do so.

IMHO, the tz community has adopted a viewpoint which is pretty much
that timezones are whatever the people who live somewhere do to their
clocks, and sometimes that is contrary to the existing legal
framework, but even if so that still qualifies as a timezone.

Getting back to the topic of this list (leap seconds and UTC), in the
proceedings of the two Future of UTC conferences
http://futureofutc.org/
there are several papers taking closer looks at the legal basis by
which those timezones are based on GMT or UTC.  Again, in many places
it is not clear whether the law chooses between those two.

Aside from that, my impression is that most of this query is better
answered in the context of the tz mail list than by LEAPSECS.

--
Steve Allen WGS-84 (GPS)
UCO/Lick Observatory--ISB   Natural Sciences II, Room 165Lat  +36.99855
1156 High StreetVoice: +1 831 459 3046   Lng -122.06015
Santa Cruz, CA 95064http://www.ucolick.org/~sla/ Hgt +250 m
___
LEAPSECS mailing list
LEAPSECS@leapsecond.com
http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/leapsecs

Re: [LEAPSECS] Standards of time zones -Brooks Harris