How the Government Shutdown Warps Time Itself • Hacker News Board

Re: How the Government Shutdown Warps Time Itself

#51

Post by intopieces » Sat, Jan 19, 2019, 6:55 PM UTC

DKnoll wrote: post #44

Why don't they use the Canadian National Research Council bulletin? http://time5.nrc.ca/timefreq/bulletin_tf-b.html In Canada if a budget isn't passed it triggers an election. We don't have government shutdowns.

I like this idea a lot. I think the US, we like elections to come in certain cycles to give the incumbents enough time to actually accomplish something, but I have always admired the parliamentary system where you can call an election at various points.

I think the US Constitution either explicitly precludes this kind of system or could be construed to preclude it.

Re: How the Government Shutdown Warps Time Itself

#52

Post by Freak_NL » Sat, Jan 19, 2019, 6:56 PM UTC

detaro wrote: post #27

The license stuff seems weird without further context: even if they can't copy that file, what's the hold up to just "encode" the information from the bulletin on their own and putting it into their file?

Wouldn't that make it a derivative work, legally speaking?

Re: How the Government Shutdown Warps Time Itself

#53

Post by sintaxi » Sat, Jan 19, 2019, 7:04 PM UTC

DKnoll wrote: post #44

Why don't they use the Canadian National Research Council bulletin? http://time5.nrc.ca/timefreq/bulletin_tf-b.html In Canada if a budget isn't passed it triggers an election. We don't have government shutdowns.

No need. House seats are up for election every two years for this reason.

Re: How the Government Shutdown Warps Time Itself

#54

Post by vhold » Sat, Jan 19, 2019, 7:10 PM UTC

DKnoll wrote: post #44

Why don't they use the Canadian National Research Council bulletin? http://time5.nrc.ca/timefreq/bulletin_tf-b.html In Canada if a budget isn't passed it triggers an election. We don't have government shutdowns.

If you do, you probably should use https.

https://time5.nrc.ca/timefreq/bulletin_tf-b.html

There's probably some really weird MITM attack possibilities here if people have automated systems fetching and using these files. Also, following the link from the article, it would seem the US government's official source is unencrypted FTP?

Re: How the Government Shutdown Warps Time Itself

#55

Post by DKnoll » Sat, Jan 19, 2019, 7:11 PM UTC

sintaxi wrote: post #53

DKnoll wrote: post #44

Why don't they use the Canadian National Research Council bulletin? http://time5.nrc.ca/timefreq/bulletin_tf-b.html In Canada if a budget isn't passed it triggers an election. We don't have government shutdowns.

No need. House seats are up for election every two years for this reason.

I guess the US government will reopen in 2020 then.

Re: How the Government Shutdown Warps Time Itself

#56

Post by hakfoo » Sat, Jan 19, 2019, 7:24 PM UTC

toast0 wrote: post #45

pjc50 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 emp…

>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". The military still gets paid because congress was able to agree to pay for that. It's certainly possible, for congress to be unable to agree to a DoD budget. Separating the budget process into a series of sub-budgets allows for continuity in areas where there…

>Presumably, the government is shutdown until the votes are certified?

This can be solved by setting the budget deadline some time before the expiration of the past budget. You have until July 1 to pass a budget for 2020; if there isn't one, we hold elections in August for your replacement, giving them several months to pull together something workable.

Re: How the Government Shutdown Warps Time Itself

#57

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Jan 19, 2019, 7:27 PM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #40

CamTin wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 emp…

[deleted]

Re: How the Government Shutdown Warps Time Itself

#58

Post by goodcanadian » Sat, Jan 19, 2019, 7:27 PM UTC

toast0 wrote: post #45

pjc50 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 emp…

>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". The military still gets paid because congress was able to agree to pay for that. It's certainly possible, for congress to be unable to agree to a DoD budget. Separating the budget process into a series of sub-budgets allows for continuity in areas where there…

Presumably, the government is shutdown until the votes are certified?

No. I'm not an expert in the details, but there are rules about how government services continue to operate during the period that Parliament is dissolved. The key principle, however, is that it continues to operate.

Re: How the Government Shutdown Warps Time Itself

#59

Post by foxylad » Sat, Jan 19, 2019, 7:29 PM UTC

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,…

Thanks for explaining this to us non-USians.

So is the current problem is because the president can veto congresses appropriations? In a functioning government this seems sensible so the executive has a symmetric check on congress, but currently it gives the president unwarranted leverage.

Re: How the Government Shutdown Warps Time Itself

#60

Post by hakfoo » Sat, Jan 19, 2019, 7:33 PM UTC

SiempreViernes wrote: post #42

gizmo686 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We could easily define a time system that is simply "number of seconds since 00:00:00 January 1, 1970" (other than epoch being different, we have this with GPS and TAI time, but the network effects for UTC are strong) and used that as our base time system. Leap seconds could then be added at higher layers simmilar to how leap hours are. Instead evryone has to deal with leap seconds weather they care about the orienta…

Yes, you can easily create a constant rate counter, but no: it wouln't keep time . To keep time you do care about the position of the sun because that defines the time of day, humanity's base for the experience of time. If you will never care about what the time is in your application, by all means, count clock cycles, otherwise: UTC is the standard for keeping time.

That brings up an interesting question: Is that the current, best, or only basis for time?

I'd argue that many relevant time concepts are more framed by social conventions than the sun.

Most of us are more interested in concepts like "when does work start", "lunch time", and "when the store closes", than "when does sunrise occur" these days. In a pre-industrial society, those might be closely synched, but less so today.