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OpenBSD adds support for Coordinated Mars Time

marc.info

41–50 of 66 posts

Re: OpenBSD adds support for Coordinated Mars Time

#41
post #26
post #3

Naming something that only works on one planet " Universal Coordinated Time" was a mistake.

It doesn't matter till we'll be actually able to settle down on Mars permanently, I guess and differentiating from Mars local time and its time zones will be an issue (and all parties involved in colonization will agree that Airy-0 crater will remain the 0° longitude equivalent as proposed by IAU). Beside, the perspective matters - for people on Earth it can be still UTC, for those on Mars it can be whatever term the…

> It doesn't matter till we'll be actually able to settle down on Mars permanently

Why? There's plenty of computers in Mars right now and they use martian time already [0]. It's not as if OpenBSD have invented anything new, they just adapted the OS to existing practices.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timekeeping_on_Mars

Re: OpenBSD adds support for Coordinated Mars Time

#42
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has caused so many mistakes and accidents, you’d get the impression the people who came up with that name have never left their solar system.

"This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move."

Don't panic!

Re: OpenBSD adds support for Coordinated Mars Time

#43
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the best thing we have in our neighborhood beside the Moon; Venus is easier to reach but not very welcoming when it comes to atmospheric pressure and temperatures.

You don't need to land on Venus' surface; airships in the atmosphere are the closest thing to Earth in the Solar System. The problem is that there is nothing useful on Mars and its location sucks. Any other planetary body makes more economic sense.

I think one of the most compelling aspects about Mars is the thin atmosphere which enables a high degree of visual clarity, which is very appealing to humans. The atmosphere of Venus is very murky.

Re: OpenBSD adds support for Coordinated Mars Time

#44

(where/how) can I see the actual patch set, not only summary of modified files? I have not worked with cvs, so it's non trivial to figure out.

This is an April Fools joke, so there’s nothing to see.

But if you want a browsable interface to OpenBSD’s repos (no CVS knowledge required), you can use either the project’s CVSweb [1] or the GitHub mirrors [2].

[1]: http://cvsweb.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb/

[2]: https://github.com/openbsd

Re: OpenBSD adds support for Coordinated Mars Time

#45
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't matter till we'll be actually able to settle down on Mars permanently, I guess and differentiating from Mars local time and its time zones will be an issue (and all parties involved in colonization will agree that Airy-0 crater will remain the 0° longitude equivalent as proposed by IAU). Beside, the perspective matters - for people on Earth it can be still UTC, for those on Mars it can be whatever term the…

> It doesn't matter till we'll be actually able to settle down on Mars permanently Mars is the least useful planetary body in the Solar System for human colonization, so that time may well be "never".

> Mars is the least useful planetary body in the Solar System for human colonization

I suppose you could construct criteria and assumptions that would support that conclusion, but I can’t see a reasonable set where that works out.

Re: OpenBSD adds support for Coordinated Mars Time

#46
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It doesn't matter till we'll be actually able to settle down on Mars permanently Mars is the least useful planetary body in the Solar System for human colonization, so that time may well be "never".

It's the best thing we have in our neighborhood beside the Moon; Venus is easier to reach but not very welcoming when it comes to atmospheric pressure and temperatures.

> Venus is easier to reach but not very welcoming when it comes to atmospheric pressure and temperatures.

Or composition; its also not easier to reach (or return from) if you are going to the surface.

Re: OpenBSD adds support for Coordinated Mars Time

#47
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the best thing we have in our neighborhood beside the Moon; Venus is easier to reach but not very welcoming when it comes to atmospheric pressure and temperatures.

You don't need to land on Venus' surface; airships in the atmosphere are the closest thing to Earth in the Solar System. The problem is that there is nothing useful on Mars and its location sucks. Any other planetary body makes more economic sense.

> The problem is that there is nothing useful on Mars and its location sucks. Any other planetary body makes more economic sense.

There’s nothing worth the shipping cost anywhere off the surface od the Earth, and all the rest of the planets are much worse locations than Mars. (Venus maybe slightly better if you are only getting to/from high atmosphere, but that has the “there’s nothing worthwhile there” problem more than Mars does.)

Re: OpenBSD adds support for Coordinated Mars Time

#48
post #26
post #3

Naming something that only works on one planet " Universal Coordinated Time" was a mistake.

It doesn't matter till we'll be actually able to settle down on Mars permanently, I guess and differentiating from Mars local time and its time zones will be an issue (and all parties involved in colonization will agree that Airy-0 crater will remain the 0° longitude equivalent as proposed by IAU). Beside, the perspective matters - for people on Earth it can be still UTC, for those on Mars it can be whatever term the…

One issue with these attempts to make a calendar for mars is that they assume you can equally divide the year and still get months that match up with the seasons. Mars has an eccentric orbit, so that's not a good matchup. You either accept that th calendar won't be good for tracking the seasons, or make a calendar with uneven months.

Considering that the weather outside will kill you year-round on Mars, debate is of course rather academic...

Re: OpenBSD adds support for Coordinated Mars Time

#50
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the best thing we have in our neighborhood beside the Moon; Venus is easier to reach but not very welcoming when it comes to atmospheric pressure and temperatures.

You don't need to land on Venus' surface; airships in the atmosphere are the closest thing to Earth in the Solar System. The problem is that there is nothing useful on Mars and its location sucks. Any other planetary body makes more economic sense.

The problem with Venus is that it's exceedingly difficult to get local resources. Mining on Venus is practically impossible. Anything you can't suck out of the atmosphere basically needs to be shipped in from off-world.
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