I like this idea a lot. I think the US, we like elections to come in certain cycles to give the incumbents enough time to actually accomplish something, but I have always admired the parliamentary system where you can call an election at various points.
I think the US Constitution either explicitly precludes this kind of system or could be construed to preclude it.
An other method to get a budget passed is to allow any representative to submit a budget and let which ever budget has most votes pass. That is what Sweden use.
There's probably some really weird MITM attack possibilities here if people have automated systems fetching and using these files. Also, following the link from the article, it would seem the US government's official source is unencrypted FTP?
Such an informative post; thanks for sharing this!
Also, and somewhat sad and just plain crazy: some functions of NIST are not considered essential!?! It seems to me someone in the gov. is not clearly reporting who and what functions are truly essential to the higher ups in the gov. Then again, maybe they have, but the higher ups ignore them. sigh
*could possibly affect an edge case of utc leap second distribution if Another shutdown happens during a leap second year (this is not one), AND lasts over 6 months. I get that it acks the clickbaity title at the beginning, but that coy bs doesnt help.
> Because TAI is not based on the Earth’s rotation, it’s not ever-so-slowly changing. It’s the measure of time against which UTC’s watch is occasionally correct. That correction is called a leap second: a 61st second that is sometimes added to particular minutes in UTC, like the very last minute of December 31, 2016. As of January 2019 there have been 27 such leap seconds inserted.
This seems backwards. Perhaps I'm misunderstanding what the author is trying to say, and another poster could help clarify?
If UTC is based on the earth's rotation and TAI is based on cesium-atomic timekeeping, and UTC is slowing down, and TAI is "the measure of time against which UTC's watch is occasionally corrected," then how can UTC have leap seconds? Delaying for an additional second on December 31st would only make it one second even slower, exacerbating the problem.
I don't see how adding a delay to the slower clock is going to put it in sync with the faster one.
Is it instead that UTC is TAI, plus leap seconds to slow it down to keep it in sync with the rotation of the Earth?
It's the other way around - UTC is based on TAI plus an integer number of seconds offset, and this offset is adjusted (by the insertion of leap seconds) to keep UTC roughly in sync with the Earth's rotation.
The delay is added to make UTC slow. The Earth is the slow clock, UTC ticks at the same pace as TAI, so sometimes we add a leap second to UTC to sync it with the Earth.
The license stuff seems weird without further context: even if they can't copy that file, what's the hold up to just "encode" the information from the bulletin on their own and putting it into their file?
UT1 is a disaster for many purposes. It is, quite simply, a measure of the Earth's current angle in space. This is ideal for pointing an Earth-based telescope. Trouble is, we can't reliably predict how fast this will tick. You may think leap seconds are bad, but how about if you simply can't know the current time without having a current measurement of the position of quasars in the sky? The length of a second isn't even constant.
TAI matches up with the atomic second, and UTC is that plus enough leap seconds to approximate UT1.
It all sucks, but this is reality. You can't fix reality. You'd have to tell the Earth to obey an atomic clock.
I think you've wrapped your head the wrong way around this. The stupidest thing ever is the idea that a country's government can be shut down as an extortion method. It's a concept so alien to me that I cannot fathom the logic of the person who came up with the idea.
Just like the amount of mass in a gram doesn't change based on location, time, or any other variable it's very important to have some measurement of time that is as constant and precise as possible. This helps us conduct science, where many types of experiments take place in less than a second. The measurements taken today should be readable decades or centuries from now without having to adjust for the slowing of Earth's rotation.
Now, maybe this unit of time needed for scientific purposes doesn't need to be the same one used for daily life.
I beg to differ, Dst is the stupidest time related thing ever. From a software development perspective it is a tremendous pain in the ass and is stupid. From the non software aspect it is just stupid and annoying.
In my opinion it's possible the Democrats will cave. The strategic situation is that Democrats care about the country, and Trump does not. However, not enough Americans are convinced of the latter fact. Once they are, the only rational decision is to cave - and then remove him from office as quickly as possible.
The logical play is that any wall is a long-running project. They can promise Trump anything to get him to sign the budget, and then immediately unwind their efforts once the smoke clears.
I honestly want to see them push a budget with something like "Canadian style health care plus a wall" to see if he bites.
> The strategic situation is that Democrats care about the country, and Trump does not. However, not enough Americans are convinced of the latter fact.
I'm not an American, just an immigrant. Historically this isn't about caring, it's just about politics.
I have to wonder, if something like VLC can exist, which blatantly flies in the face of copywright law unchallenged, why do so many open-source projects get ridiculously anal about license issues? The problem here appears to be that the license (CC-BY 4.0) is only specified in the README file, not in the timezone data file itself. Like, do they really think that it only applies to the README, and if they use the data they're going to get sued? I get that it's important to cover one's ass, but if it gets to the point where software breaks as a result, it's gone much too far.
I wonder if the right solution here is to have some kind of body provide insurance against frivolous litigation over licensing issues for open-source projects, so that this kind of stupidity doesn't arise.
Edit: It appears I was mistaken about the legal status of VLC: it is about software patent licenses, not software copywright licenses.
>which blatantly flies in the face of copywright law unchallenged
How do you figure? Patent law isn't copyright law, and doesn't apply equally around the world.
>why do so many open-source projects get ridiculously anal about license issues
Because it's their code and people are using it without compensation and in ways not amenable to them? I think you'd be pretty "anal", too, if someone took your software that you worked hard on, without wanting to contribute their improvements and without any other form of compensation.
x264 basically funds VLC. Don't steal other people's code.
DKnoll|7 years ago
http://time5.nrc.ca/timefreq/bulletin_tf-b.html
In Canada if a budget isn't passed it triggers an election. We don't have government shutdowns.
intopieces|7 years ago
I think the US Constitution either explicitly precludes this kind of system or could be construed to preclude it.
belorn|7 years ago
vhold|7 years ago
https://time5.nrc.ca/timefreq/bulletin_tf-b.html
There's probably some really weird MITM attack possibilities here if people have automated systems fetching and using these files. Also, following the link from the article, it would seem the US government's official source is unencrypted FTP?
sintaxi|7 years ago
mxuribe|7 years ago
Also, and somewhat sad and just plain crazy: some functions of NIST are not considered essential!?! It seems to me someone in the gov. is not clearly reporting who and what functions are truly essential to the higher ups in the gov. Then again, maybe they have, but the higher ups ignore them. sigh
Nevertheless, cool post.
justtopost|7 years ago
torstenvl|7 years ago
This seems backwards. Perhaps I'm misunderstanding what the author is trying to say, and another poster could help clarify?
If UTC is based on the earth's rotation and TAI is based on cesium-atomic timekeeping, and UTC is slowing down, and TAI is "the measure of time against which UTC's watch is occasionally corrected," then how can UTC have leap seconds? Delaying for an additional second on December 31st would only make it one second even slower, exacerbating the problem.
I don't see how adding a delay to the slower clock is going to put it in sync with the faster one.
Is it instead that UTC is TAI, plus leap seconds to slow it down to keep it in sync with the rotation of the Earth?
rndntr|7 years ago
Asooka|7 years ago
detaro|7 years ago
Freak_NL|7 years ago
qrbLPHiKpiux|7 years ago
smittywerben|7 years ago
But I digress it's 80 past 45 and still haven't had breakfast :-)
unknown|7 years ago
[deleted]
bibyte|7 years ago
dvh|7 years ago
burfog|7 years ago
TAI matches up with the atomic second, and UTC is that plus enough leap seconds to approximate UT1.
It all sucks, but this is reality. You can't fix reality. You'd have to tell the Earth to obey an atomic clock.
widforss|7 years ago
SiempreViernes|7 years ago
Certainly seems more practical to correct for this once in a while rather than having a variable length second.
max76|7 years ago
Now, maybe this unit of time needed for scientific purposes doesn't need to be the same one used for daily life.
paulie_a|7 years ago
batbomb|7 years ago
bayesian_horse|7 years ago
hakfoo|7 years ago
I honestly want to see them push a budget with something like "Canadian style health care plus a wall" to see if he bites.
tertius|7 years ago
I'm not an American, just an immigrant. Historically this isn't about caring, it's just about politics.
dooglius|7 years ago
I wonder if the right solution here is to have some kind of body provide insurance against frivolous litigation over licensing issues for open-source projects, so that this kind of stupidity doesn't arise.
Edit: It appears I was mistaken about the legal status of VLC: it is about software patent licenses, not software copywright licenses.
Klover|7 years ago
striking|7 years ago
How do you figure? Patent law isn't copyright law, and doesn't apply equally around the world.
>why do so many open-source projects get ridiculously anal about license issues
Because it's their code and people are using it without compensation and in ways not amenable to them? I think you'd be pretty "anal", too, if someone took your software that you worked hard on, without wanting to contribute their improvements and without any other form of compensation.
x264 basically funds VLC. Don't steal other people's code.