Oh, that sounds like map error.  Maps generally only know the first and last 
address on a block and interpolate in between.  If all lot widths aren't equal 
or the addresses increase in non-uniform steps, that interpolation leads to 
noticeable error.

--- On Sat, 2/4/12, Carleton MacDonald <[email protected]> wrote:


From: Carleton MacDonald <[email protected]>
Subject: [USMA:51453] RE: Leap second lives to leap another year
To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[email protected]>
Date: Saturday, February 4, 2012, 9:21 PM







>From the traffic light to my house is exactly 1 km.  The error is about 200 m, 
>or, about 19 seconds of driving, given the low speed limit on my street.  It 
>may be just a coincidence, or the map data being off, so the GPS thinks that 
>“9533” is in some other place.
 
Carleton
 
From: John M. Steele [mailto:[email protected]] 
Sent: Saturday, February 04, 2012 15:51
To: U.S. Metric Association; [email protected]
Subject: Re: [USMA:51450] RE: Leap second lives to leap another year
 





That is a HUGE error, nearly 0.6 km.  I suspect a datum error between your GPS 
and your map.

 

Unless you know you have to accomodate a different datum, GPS should be set to 
WGS84, and map datum should be that or NAD83.

 

With waypoint averaging, my GPS agrees with the National Map to about 0.1" of 
arc.

 

The 19 s between GPS time and TAI was the difference between TAI and UTC at the 
epoch of GPS time.  It is a constant.

--- On Sat, 2/4/12, Carleton MacDonald <[email protected]> wrote:


From: Carleton MacDonald <[email protected]>
Subject: [USMA:51450] RE: Leap second lives to leap another year
To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[email protected]>
Date: Saturday, February 4, 2012, 3:05 PM



“GPS time does not incorporate leap seconds and lags TAI by 19 s.  It is widely 
distributed as a precision time source.”
 
Wonder if this is why GPS shows my house as about 19 seconds south of where it 
really is.
 
Carleton  
 
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of 
John M. Steele
Sent: Friday, February 03, 2012 08:05
To: U.S. Metric Association
Subject: [USMA:51443] Leap second lives to leap another year
 





Three actually, and the next leap second is the end of June 2012 
(2012-06-30T23:59:60Z).  I don't know if this really relates to metrication, 
but the current issue of "Metric Today" has about a 1.5 page story on the 
proposal to kill the leap second.  People may be interested that any further 
decision has been deferred to at least 2015:

http://www.nature.com/news/leap-second-granted-extra-time-1.9865

 

Leap seconds are currently declared with more than five months notice and can 
only happen (or not happen) at defined times.  Any time-critical software can 
and should be defined to accomodate this.  GPS time does not incorporate leap 
seconds and lags TAI by 19 s.  It is widely distributed as a precision time 
source.  Critical timing applications might do better keeping TAI or GPS time 
and computing UTC with a leap second table.  Events more than 6 months ahead 
would have a 1 s uncertainty in TAI until the potential leap second in the 
interval is declared up or down.  But really, If you know in mid-January, how 
hard is it to recompute events for the end of June?  

 

For less critical applications, the GPS navigational message includes the 
current offset to UTC, and the binary code embedded below voice in the WWV 
broadcasts carries a leap second flag if there is a leap second at the end of 
the current month.

 

I see no need to completely disconnect time from the sun.
 
 

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