In message <E1E3CBv-0006V0-00_at_mta1.cl.cam.ac.uk>, Markus Kuhn writes:
>Poul-Henning Kamp wrote on 2005-08-10 18:26 UTC:
>> If you want a really disturbing experience, visit a modern robotical
>> slaughterhouse, and while you are there, observe and think about
>> what a one second difference could do the the tightly coordinated
>> choreography of the robots.
>>
>> The problem with leap seconds is when the systems are in touch with
>> each other, have synchronized clocks and know it, and then suddenly
>> some of the systems insert an extra second, and some of them don't...
>
>You seem to imply that all aspects of the timing and synchronization of
>these systems are best synchronized to one single global coordinate
>system. Why would you want to do that?
Because the food industry is required to provide trackability for
food and the requirement is UTC time.
I you look at your oat meal, you'll probably find that somewhere
on the package there is a timestamp. (It may have only hours and
minutes for dry stuff like that however).
The same is true for the medical industry, only there the requirement
is always one second precision.
--
Poul-Henning Kamp | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20
phk_at_FreeBSD.ORG | TCP/IP since RFC 956
FreeBSD committer | BSD since 4.3-tahoe
Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence.
Received on Thu Aug 11 2005 - 05:40:24 PDT