[governance] Welcome to IPv2006 and Virtualization

[Jim Fleming]

Welcome to IPv2006 and Virtualization

Every so often technologists (you know, those strange people that actually
understand
computers), are provided a 1 second Maintenance Window to upgrade the
version of the
software that shapes your packets and brings you more address bits, higher
speed and
more reliable transport. That one second does not really exist. During that
time, your
software can be rolled forward, tested, rolled back, tested and rolled
forward again.
With object technology and virtualization, you always have two versions
available, the
one you are running on and the previous version you can fall back to in case
of a failure.
If you have a modern packet transport system and architecture, you also have
two
modules in series between you and the global commons. Some call those
firewalls.
The outer firewall is rarely upgraded and only small changes are made. The
inner
firewall can be more easily upgraded. Both units can consult during the leap
second
to decide on what version to prefer. If you are under the control of THE Big
Lie Society
you of course get no new versions and you get no new TLDs and you see no new
content. You get to repeat 2005 again in 2006. Happy Last Year.

"The Earth is constantly undergoing a deceleration caused by the braking
action of the tides. Through the use of ancient observations of eclipses, it
is possible to determine the average deceleration of the Earth to be roughly
1.4 milliseconds per day per century. This deceleration  causes the Earth's
rotational time to slow with respect to the atomic clock time. Thus, the
definition of the ephemeris second embodied in Newcomb's motion of the Sun
was implicitly equal to the average mean solar second over the eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries.  Modern studies have indicated that the epoch at
which the mean solar day was exactly 86,400 SI seconds was approximately
1820.  This is also the approximate mean epoch of the observations analyzed
by Newcomb, ranging in date from 1750 to 1892, that resulted in the
definition of the mean solar day on the scale of Ephemeris Time.  Before
then, the mean solar day was shorter than 86,400 seconds and since then it
has been longer than 86,400 seconds.

The length of the mean solar day has increased by roughly 2 milliseconds
since it was exactly 86,400 seconds of atomic time about 1.79 centuries ago
(i.e. the 179 year difference between 1999 and 1820).   That is, the length
of the mean solar day is at present about 86,400.002 seconds instead of
exactly 86,400 seconds.  Over the course of one year, the difference
accumulates to almost one second, which is compensated by the insertion of a
leap second into the scale of UTC with a current regularity of a little less
than once per year.  Other factors also affect the Earth, some in
unpredictable ways, so that it is necessary to monitor the Earth's rotation
continuously.

In order to keep the cumulative difference in UT1-UTC less than 0.9 seconds,
a leap second is added to the atomic time to decrease the difference between
the two. This leap second can be either positive or negative depending on
the Earth's rotation. Since the first leap second in 1972, all leap seconds
have been positive and there were 22 leap seconds in the 27 years to
January, 1999.   This pattern reflects the general slowing trend of the
Earth due to tidal braking."

Source - http://tycho.usno.navy.mil/leapsec.html

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