[LEAPSECS] All of this has happened before

[Rob Seaman]

On Jan 28, 2015, at 1:34 PM, Poul-Henning Kamp <phk at phk.freebsd.dk> wrote:

> "Derives from" is not a "physical reality", it's merely a social custom.

So many replies to choose from - and so many that have been posted in the past - let's go with some (unvetted) quotes on custom:

- Truth always originates in a minority of one,
  and every custom begins as a broken precedent.
  - Will Durant

- Custom adapts itself to expediency.
  - Tacitus

- The despotism of custom is everywhere the
  standing hindrance to human advancement.
  - John Stuart Mill

- Nothing is more powerful than custom or habit
  - Ovid

- Take the course opposite to custom and
  you will almost always do well.
  - Jean-Jacques Rousseau

- Custom is our nature. What are our natural principles
  but principles of custom?
  - Blaise Pascal

- The way of the world is to make laws, but follow custom.
  - Michel de Montaigne

- It is not reason which is the guide of life, but custom.
  - David Hume

- People usually think according to their inclinations,
  speak according to their learning and ingrained opinions,
  but generally act according to custom.
  - Francis Bacon

- Custom reconciles us to everything.
  - Edmund Burke

Try adjusting the knob for LOD even one-hundredth of one percent away from mean solar time in either direction.  Day will turn to night in a dozen years.  You don't like "physical reality"?  How about "engineering requirement so obvious it remains unstated"?

Requirements are inputs to the systems engineering process.  They clarify the nature of the problem space.  Multiple solutions can, however, be entertained to a single problem.  The ITU has rather only ever been presented with one option - an option that cannot satisfy the engineering requirements.

Rob