Portable general timestamp format, not 2038-limited

[Richard Heathfield]

Peter J. Holzer said:

> On 2007-07-03 08:57, Richard Heathfield <rjh at see.sig.invalid> wrote:
>> Paul Rubin said:
>>> sla29970 at gmail.com writes:
>>>> As for the primacy of UTC vs. TAI, this is the classical chicken
>>>> and
>>>> egg problem.  The bureaucratic reality is opposed to the physical
>>>> reality.
>>> 
>>> Well, if you're trying to pick just one timestamp standard, I'd say
>>> you're better off using a worldwide one rather than a national one,
>>> no matter how the bureaucracies work.
>>
>> In that case, the obvious choice is Greenwich Mean Time.  :-)
> 
> Hardly. That hasn't been in use for over 35 years (according to
> Wikipedia).

Nonsense. I use it every day, and have been doing so for - well, rather 
more than 35 years.

>> Seriously, GMT is recognised all over the world (far more so, in
>> fact, than UTC, which tends to be recognised only by some
>> well-educated people, and there are precious few of those), so why
>> not use it?
> 
> While the layman may recognize the term "GMT", he almost certainly
> means "UTC" when he's talking about GMT.

Most people of my acquaintance who use the term "GMT" mean precisely 
that - Greenwich Mean Time.

<snip>

>> I always leave my PC's clock set to GMT,
> 
> Your PC is directly linked to an observatory?

Nope. My PC *defines* GMT. If the observatory wants to know what the 
exact time is, they only have to ask.

-- 
Richard Heathfield <http://www.cpax.org.uk>
Email: -www. +rjh@
Google users: <http://www.cpax.org.uk/prg/writings/googly.php>
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