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How the Government Shutdown Warps Time Itself

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Re: How the Government Shutdown Warps Time Itself

#31

Post by dooglius »

striking wrote: post #29
dooglius wrote: post #26

I have to wonder, if something like VLC can exist, which blatantly flies in the face of copywright law unchallenged, why do so many open-source projects get ridiculously anal about license issues? The problem here appears to be that the license (CC-BY 4.0) is only specified in the README file, not in the timezone data file itself. Like, do they really think that it only applies to the README, and if they use the data…

>which blatantly flies in the face of copywright law unchallenged How do you figure? Patent law isn't copyright law, and doesn't apply equally around the world. >why do so many open-source projects get ridiculously anal about license issues Because it's their code and people are using it without compensation and in ways not amenable to them? I think you'd be pretty "anal", too, if someone took your software that you…

Stealing code isn't at issue here, the scenario is that developers are not incorporating new timezone data because the open-source license for that data is only printed the README, not in the timezone data file itself. This is the sort of thing I'm calling anal.

Re: How the Government Shutdown Warps Time Itself

#32

Post by majewsky »

groestl wrote: post #11
ianai wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that’s not entirely the story of time zones. They’re political divisions. Some of them match up with the sun better than others. For instance, the sunset time gets pretty weird in LV over the winter.

> They’re political divisions Which I think is perfectly fine (if not necessary) for that layer. The human body doesn't care for extra seconds, and science doesn't either. So who do we do the "coordination" in UTC for? If - over hundreds of years - the time zone drifts off into weirdness, it can be changed politically. What more do you need?

Time zones need to be defined relative to some reference time, and UTC is (sort of) the least impractical reference.

Re: How the Government Shutdown Warps Time Itself

#33

Post by CamTin »

widforss wrote: post #13
dvh wrote: post #3

Leap seconds are the most stupidest thing ever. It's time to abandon UTC and start using what professional astronomers use: UT1

I think you've wrapped your head the wrong way around this. The stupidest thing ever is the idea that a country's government can be shut down as an extortion method. It's a concept so alien to me that I cannot fathom the logic of the person who came up with the idea.

Nobody "came up with" the idea. It's the consequence of a principle of the American Constitution, wherein only Congress can appropriate money. This is a bedrock principle, because it provides a check on the Executive: The President can yell all he wants, but unless Congress appropriates money to pay for whatever it is he is yelling about (in this case, a border wall), he doesn't get it.

For observers outside the US, the idea of "the national government shutting down" probably seems way way more alarming that it does to most Americans. Almost all basic services in the US are handled by states and municipalities. This includes garbage collection, policing, firefighters, schools, local tax collection, road maintenance, the majority of prisons, most courts, most water and power infrastructure, building inspections and permitting, and many more.

Even airports, the site of a lot of hand-wringing during the shutdown due to the TSA (security screeners) and air-traffic controllers being federal employees, are usually (always?) municipally or state-owned. I have no idea of the legality of these municipalities or the airlines themselves stepping in to pay the ATCs or screeners, but it doesn't seem totally bonkers.

Re: How the Government Shutdown Warps Time Itself

#34

Post by mxuribe »

Such an informative post; thanks for sharing this!

Also, and somewhat sad and just plain crazy: some functions of NIST are not considered essential!?! It seems to me someone in the gov. is not clearly reporting who and what functions are truly essential to the higher ups in the gov. Then again, maybe they have, but the higher ups ignore them. sigh

Nevertheless, cool post.

Re: How the Government Shutdown Warps Time Itself

#35

Post by tertius »

bayesian_horse wrote: post #22
tertius wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The strategic situation is that Democrats care about the country, and Trump does not. However, not enough Americans are convinced of the latter fact. I'm not an American, just an immigrant. Historically this isn't about caring, it's just about politics.

Normally it really isn't about caring for the overall good of country. Politicians competing for voters all care about their country, or at the very least have to act as if. In this case, it is different, because Trump cares more about his "win" in this issue than about the country. Or even about winning reelection, because everything is pointing to public opinion being strongly against what he is doing right now. Ho…

> at some point the democrats will have to concede that the only way to stop the damage is to give in.

Which would be the point where your 'they care more' hypothesis would become true.

So are they just wanting to hurt him politically right now?

Re: How the Government Shutdown Warps Time Itself

#37

Post by bayesian_horse »

tertius wrote: post #35
bayesian_horse wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Normally it really isn't about caring for the overall good of country. Politicians competing for voters all care about their country, or at the very least have to act as if. In this case, it is different, because Trump cares more about his "win" in this issue than about the country. Or even about winning reelection, because everything is pointing to public opinion being strongly against what he is doing right now. Ho…

> at some point the democrats will have to concede that the only way to stop the damage is to give in. Which would be the point where your 'they care more' hypothesis would become true. So are they just wanting to hurt him politically right now?

Right now they think they are playing the game "who loses more, politically", in which the president is losing bigly.

Or at least they act as if they believe the president cares about his reelection chances. But as more and more time passes, and he loses more and more support, it will become obvious to even some of his supporters, that he will burn down the country to get his way. And at that point he may get his wall, but he loses everything else.

Re: How the Government Shutdown Warps Time Itself

#38

Post by groestl »

majewsky wrote: post #32
groestl wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They’re political divisions Which I think is perfectly fine (if not necessary) for that layer. The human body doesn't care for extra seconds, and science doesn't either. So who do we do the "coordination" in UTC for? If - over hundreds of years - the time zone drifts off into weirdness, it can be changed politically. What more do you need?

Time zones need to be defined relative to some reference time, and UTC is (sort of) the least impractical reference.

UTC adds little of value on top of TAI, except some headache for clock synchronization. So I argue for basing timezones directly on TAI, as I see TAI as the least impractical reference.

Re: How the Government Shutdown Warps Time Itself

#40

Post by pjc50 »

CamTin wrote: post #33
widforss wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you've wrapped your head the wrong way around this. The stupidest thing ever is the idea that a country's government can be shut down as an extortion method. It's a concept so alien to me that I cannot fathom the logic of the person who came up with the idea.

Nobody "came up with" the idea. It's the consequence of a principle of the American Constitution, wherein only Congress can appropriate money. This is a bedrock principle, because it provides a check on the Executive: The President can yell all he wants, but unless Congress appropriates money to pay for whatever it is he is yelling about (in this case, a border wall), he doesn't get it. For observers outside the US,…

The problem is threefold:

1) it's not a true shutdown because the military still get paid. There is a builtin rightwing fudge of what gets deemed "essential".

2) Most governments have a similar possibility of not being able to pass a budget; but, in the Westminster system, this forces fresh elections. The people get to decide on what compromise is necessary to resume business.

3) Businesses should not make their employees into creditors. Failing to make payroll is usually a sign that a business is either unethical or nearly bankrupt. This screws over people badly, e.g. https://twitter.com/shawndgoldman/status/1085733207469891585

"The NASA Postdoctoral Program contract runs out of money tomorrow. This means its fellows - some of the best and brightest space scientists in the world - will go without pay starting Friday. These folks are contractors, which means they aren't covered by the backpay bill."

(There was also some suggestion that not being paid would automatically terminate their J-1 visas, but I can't find that now)

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