Re: Is 'right' wrong?

Malte Tancred <[email protected]> writes:

> On Jan 23, 2005, at 7.37, Lloyd Zusman wrote:
>> [email protected] (Paul Jarc) writes:
> [...]
>>> That's not a meaningful comparison.  You can compare simultaneous
>>> time() values from two machines, or two simultaneous "date" outputs.
>>> But a time_t value and the human-readable string are of two different
>>> kinds.
>>
>> I know they are two different kinds.  But I _want_ my human-readable
>> string to be the same as my system clock.  I _want_ it to be 22 seconds
>> (currently) later than the human-readable values that most people see.
>>
>> I even want to set my watch to that time.  I like the feeling of being
>> on "real time" instead of "fake, missing-leap-second time".  This is
>> purely whimsical.
>
> So, this was really a meaningless discussion from the start. :-)
> You don't *want* your clock to be in sync with civil time.

Well, I didn't understand until late in the discussion that it's unusual
for people to want their human-readable time to be (currently) 22
seconds off from "civil" time.  I thought it was normal to do that among
those who are trying keep their system clocks in sync with TAI.

But once I realized that I am an outlier in wanting to do this with my
human-readable time, I decided to remain so.  That's the "whimsical"
part.

But I'm sorry if I have wasted bandwidth in trying to understand all
of this.


> The only 'strings' with meaningful representations of TAI instants
> would be what Dan is using on <URL:http://cr.yp.to/proto/utctai.html>:
>
>   "For example, here's how UTC and TAI handled the end of June 1997:
>
>    1997-06-30 23:59:59 UTC = 1997-07-01 00:00:29 TAI
>    1997-06-30 23:59:60 UTC = 1997-07-01 00:00:30 TAI
>    1997-07-01 00:00:00 UTC = 1997-07-01 00:00:31 TAI"
>
> All other strings---that is, all other representations of the atomic
> time---depends on UTC and hence depends on leapseconds (or really on
> how fast earth is rotating).
>
> I should add 'as far as I know'.
>
> Regards,
> Malte
>
>

-- 
 Lloyd Zusman
 [email protected]
 God bless you.