[Tfug] A sense of time

Rich r-lists at studiosprocket.com
Wed Aug 15 13:10:02 MST 2007


On Aug 14, 2007, at 10:03 pm, Louis Taber wrote:

> If you really want to know what time it is get a GPS receiver, not  
> an "Atomic Clock".  An "Atomic Clock" looks at a single 60kHz  
> signal from Fort Collins CO. This signal is usually not adjusted  
> for the signals time of flight.

Ahem. That doesn't make sense. It's the job of the receiver to adjust  
for displacement in *every* case. Besides, all GPS transmitters and  
(reliable) NTP servers use atomic clocks (of which there are several)  
using TAI, from which UTC is derived.

Anyway, my comment about getting an atomic clock was a joke. If I'd  
used the <humor></humor> tags, I wouldn't be explaining it now. I  
meant that, in the event you can't connect your machine to a network,  
you should buy some caesium-133 and count to 9,192,631,770. Getting a  
signal from an atomic clock would be way too sensible.

R.





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