Rob Seaman said:
>> The problem here is Microsoft, whose software appears to believe
>> that the current LCT here is "GMT Daylight Time".
>
> The case has been repeatedly made that since the world tolerates
> large excursions in civil time such as caused by the varying local
> Daylight Saving Time policies,
and by these policies changing, sometimes on short notice, yes.
> that the world's institutions and
> populace will be able to simply ignore leap hours on those rare
> occasions when they are needed. What is offered up is evidence for
> the exact opposite.
False.
> We're shown that Daylight Saving has been
> mishandled in a trivially simple instance and that the GMT standard,
> synonymous with UTC, is capable of misinterpretation (by minions of
> the richest man on Earth) completely distinct from leap second
> related issues.
No, it appears that a few people think that "the GMT standard" is
synonymous with UK local time. This is just as much a fallacy as the belief
that Indiana currently observes US "Central Time".
And, by the way, the "GMT standard" is *NOT* synonymous with UTC; it is
(IIRC) UT1.
> Nothing about the ITU proposal would mitigate the
> situation being discussed.
True. Nor would it mitigate the Indiana problem.
Nor, incidentally, would it harm either.
> It would be the constant daily persistence of a large DUT1
> that would make leap hours unpalatable
Why?
Apart from astronomers, of course, who actually cares what the value of
DUT1 is? Consider the value DLCT (LCT-UTC). This varies between -1 and
3601 over the year, yet the only effect it has is that it varies whether or
not I have to turn on the car headlights on the way to work.
> And if
> civilians are surprised by the requirements of civil time now, how
> much more so they will be in a world in which the last leap hour
> troubled their great-great-...-great-grandparents?
Yet they cope with the complex proposals to move counties of Indiana
between zones, or to move DST end-dates every decade or so. We coped with
the introduction of British Standard Time and its abolition.
I suggest that fiddling with the hourly shifts will continue every few
years ad nauseam, so one more reason for doing so won't bother anyone.
> Contrast
> this with a well-formed consensus - several disagreeing factions are
> locked in a room until they all agree on a common vision of how to
> proceed. Call this the "Twelve Angry Men" effect. That one faction
> or another may have to completely change their original position is a
> strength, not a weakness. Ideally none of the factions even arrives
> in the room with a specific position to bargain over, but rather
> arrives only with general requirements and objectives.
That works when it works. Not when there are irreconcilable differences in
the "general requirements and objectives".
> What is needed is civil time to continue to reflect solar time as it
> has since literally the dawn of time.
Within a couple of hours plus or minus.
--
Clive D.W. Feather | Work: <clive_at_demon.net> | Tel: +44 20 8495 6138
Internet Expert | Home: <clive_at_davros.org> | Fax: +44 870 051 9937
Demon Internet | WWW: http://www.davros.org | Mobile: +44 7973 377646
Thus plc | |
Received on Mon Aug 29 2005 - 14:13:30 PDT