Steve Allen scripsit:
> Yes, but the reasonable solution is to develop protocols that permit
> the distribution of as many different forms of time as are deemed
> useful, and then to educate time users to choose the time scale that
> suits them best.
I agree. However, civilians can only handle one timescale, and that is
civil time.
> It would be just as easy for a legislature to assert that TAI become
> the civil time standard.
It would deeply suck, however, for some to switch to TAI while others
remained on (the current definition of) UTC. Sometimes it's better to
change what a name refers to than to change the referring name.
After all, what is summer time but a gimmick to get people to go to work
earlier? Can you imagine the backlash from legislation that said "From
date X to date Y, all businesses, schools, etc. will open an hour earlier?"
No, it's easier to change the labels in such a case.
> Here be the crux. Some one or some agency is inevitably going to have
> to take the public risk of proclaiming this decision.
Right you are.
> Who are the parties making this decision? I suspect that they may
> indeed fear the ridicule of posterity, for they appear to be setting
> this process up as a multi-year initiative by multiple committees
> whose membership is obscure, meetings to attend, and minutes published
> in proceedings with low circulation and exorbitant price. It will be
> hard to blame anybody for whatever result happens.
One horselaugh is worth a thousand syllogisms.
--H.L. Mencken
--
Her he asked if O'Hare Doctor tidings sent from far John Cowan
coast and she with grameful sigh him answered that www.ccil.org/~cowan
O'Hare Doctor in heaven was. Sad was the man that word www.reutershealth.com
to hear that him so heavied in bowels ruthful. All jcowan_at_reutershealth.com
she there told him, ruing death for friend so young,
algate sore unwilling God's rightwiseness to withsay. _Ulysses_, "Oxen"
Received on Mon Jan 27 2003 - 14:45:50 PST