[LEAPSECS] Schedule for success

Greg Hennessy greg.hennessy at cox.net
Wed Dec 31 00:15:22 EST 2008



> Well, NASA isn't running on GMT, but rather UTC. That's the relevant
> point for my point.

You are asserting that one is different from the other.
I'm asking you the basis of that assertion.
Repeating your assertion is not an answer to my question.

> They are calling one thing by the old-archaic
> term that has mutated into something else.

To the general public, I submit that GMT has mutated into UTC.
In about 24 hours from now, I'll be watching my TV watching
the time ball in Times Square drop. They will do a countdown
10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-1-LEAP-0. I'll kiss my wife, and she will
get annoyed at me when I point out that they did the leap
second wrong.

If I was in London about 19 hours from now, I assume
that the legal time would be GMT. I would assume
that de facto, a leap second added after 11h59m59s PM.
Thus in practice GMT is UTC, for large numbers of people.

> I'd tend to believe the NIST web site, since they are in charge of the
> official time in the United States.

Why would you belive the NIST web site on how GMT is defined
rather than quoting British law or some other English site?

> It also agrees with the
> USNO web pages, as well as the BIPM web pages. Would you like the
> URLs?

Since I don't consider them relavent, no thank you.


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