Nuclear Crisis Stopped Time In Japan

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Nuclear Crisis Stopped Time In Japan

Posted by ryuzaki0 on Tuesday March 29, 2011 @09:09PM from the now-ramen-twists-the-other-way dept.

angry tapir writes "The problems at Japan's Fukushima-1 nuclear plant have had an unexpected impact on the country's ability to keep time: a transmitter that sends the national time signal to many thousands of clocks and watches has been forced offline making the timepieces a little less reliable than usual."

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Worst headline ever. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-29 21:12 · Score: 5, Informative

Not only did time not stop, but the clocks didn't even stop. They just aren't being synchronized anymore. Oh no!
1. Re:Worst headline ever. by captainpanic · 2011-03-29 22:51 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Not only did time not stop, but the clocks didn't even stop. They just aren't being synchronized anymore. Oh no!
  In Japan, a country that considers a train late if it arrives more than 20 seconds later than scheduled, that's pretty bad.
2. Re:Worst headline ever. by frozentier · 2011-03-29 22:56 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  I have a hunch that their perspective has changed somewhat in the past month or so.
3. Re:Worst headline ever. by Ender_Wiggin · 2011-03-29 23:08 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  You mean if I don't synchronize my clock with the atomic clock more than every few days, it will be more than 20 seconds off?
  Most wristwatches I've owned have a disclaimer in the manual that they keep time with a margin of error ±15 seconds per month. Those are the cheap Casios. I'm sure TV stations etc. have a better clock than me.
4. Re:Worst headline ever. by AmiMoJo · 2011-03-29 23:26 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Indeed, due to reception issues it would be highly unwise to rely on a radio time broadcast for accuracy in important situations. You can have a mix of time sources (GPS, NTP, RDS etc.) but basically you need a reasonably accurate clock for when they are unavailable. Fortunately modules with better than 10 seconds/month are extremely cheap.
  I got back from Japan on Sunday, there did not seem to be any time related problems. I didn't even know about it until this story.
  
  --
  const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
  SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
5. Re:Worst headline ever. by captainpanic · 2011-03-29 23:28 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  I have a hunch that their perspective has changed somewhat in the past month or so.
  Perspective on what? Time?
  I really doubt it. If anything, the near-perfect organisation of Japan has saved countless lives.
6. Re:Worst headline ever. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-30 01:09 · Score: 0
  
  There used to be hobby standards that relied on the NTSC color subcarrier.
7. Re:Worst headline ever. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-30 01:12 · Score: 0
  
  You mean if I don't synchronize my clock with the atomic clock more than every few days, it will be more than 20 seconds off?
  Most wristwatches I've owned have a disclaimer in the manual that they keep time with a margin of error ±15 seconds per month. Those are the cheap Casios. I'm sure TV stations etc. have a better clock than me.
  Quartz watches are good to that much, but the fancy mechanical watches that have a COSC (e.g., all Rolexes) are only good to about -4/+6 seconds per day:
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COSC
  The better quartz movements (Citizen A660, Seiko 8Fxx) are good to about ±20 seconds per year (~1.4s/month).
8. Re:Worst headline ever. by Svartalf · 2011-03-30 01:15 · Score: 1
  
  I think that they meant that they're just a bit less concerned with trains being 20 seconds behind as "late".
  
  --
  I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
9. Re:Worst headline ever. by rubycodez · 2011-03-30 01:50 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  I really doubt it. If anything, the near-perfect organisation of Japan has saved countless lives.
  
  With tens of thousands of suicides a year, I think not. Another example of a modern society self-driven to neurosis.
  The WHO even disputes Japan's definition of suicide that makes the reported numbers an estimated three times lower.
10. Re:Worst headline ever. by drinkypoo · 2011-03-30 02:32 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  THANK YOU. Last time I pointed out Japan's high suicide rate I was modded down. It's real, and it's a real consequence of a high-pressure lifestyle. Japan is to life what Survivor is to television. The weakest links get voted off the island... forcibly. Emotional and mental abuse are real kinds of abuse.
  
  --
  "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
11. Re:Worst headline ever. by IgnoramusMaximus · 2011-03-30 02:40 · Score: 1
  
  If anything, the near-perfect organisation of Japan has saved countless lives.
  
  You gotta be kidding. Or are you talking about some Anime Japan and not the real thing?
  If anything, the authorities were caught completely flat-footed and are still scrambling. People in many areas were left for days to their own devices with no official response anywhere in sight.
  Confusion, incompetence, constant cover-ups, unresponsiveness, nepotism ... those are the defining characteristics of Japan's bureaucracy, be it governmental or corporate.
  The trains running obsessively on time are the artifact of workers getting abused, sometimes physically, by their bosses when they are 1 minute late.
  Japan is not a healthy society.
12. Re:Worst headline ever. by xaxa · 2011-03-30 02:43 · Score: 1
  
  I think that they meant that they're just a bit less concerned with trains being 20 seconds behind as "late".
  I doubt this will be an issue for months (as clocks won't have lost 20 seconds already), but on a very busy railway line a single train being a minute or two late can cause trains on other routes to be late, and that causes other trains to be late, etc.
  (e.g. a train in a platform is delayed, so the following train can't use the platform and must wait on the main line. In the mean time, the express train that's supposed to pass it on the passing line can't, as the way is blocked. The express train is delayed by five minutes, but still needs to cross over to a different line, which means an oncoming train has to be stopped. etc, etc.)
  However, if you expect delays (e.g. bad weather) you might be able to change to a different timetable and have everything slightly late (or less trains with more-than-normal people on them), rather than some stuff very late.
13. Re:Worst headline ever. by amaupin · 2011-03-30 03:14 · Score: 1
  
  In Japan, a country that considers a train late if it arrives more than 20 seconds later than scheduled ...
  As someone who lived in Japan for 7 years, HA HA HA. Right. Trains are mostly timely but arrival times vary widely from published schedules, frequently by multiple minutes.
14. Re:Worst headline ever. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-30 03:52 · Score: 0
  
  I really doubt it. If anything, the near-perfect organisation of Japan has saved countless lives.
  With tens of thousands of suicides a year, I think not. Another example of a modern society self-driven to neurosis.
  The WHO even disputes Japan's definition of suicide that makes the reported numbers an estimated three times lower.
  
  Three times lower? So you're saying that their suicide rate is in the negative numbers, then?
15. Re:Worst headline ever. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-30 03:59 · Score: 0
  
  I'll bite. What is Japan's definition of suicide?
16. Re:Worst headline ever. by EdIII · 2011-03-30 04:26 · Score: 1
  
  Actually I liked the headline. It made me think immediately of some sort of plot for a Japanese Anime series that obviously featured cyborgs disguised as hot school girls.
17. Re:Worst headline ever. by rubycodez · 2011-03-30 04:31 · Score: 2
  
  The difference is what is put on police reports and certification of cause of death, often labeled as "accidental". Suicide is not a crime in Japan, as opposed to other places where suicide made illegal to allow possibility person attempting it might be stopped and helped). Suicide is seen as honorable a way to get forgiveness for any transgression or failing, no matter how severe, the successful act seen as heroic.
18. Re:Worst headline ever. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-30 04:52 · Score: 0
  
  If anything, the authorities were caught completely flat-footed and are still scrambling. People in many areas were left for days to their own devices with no official response anywhere in sight.
  
  Emergency response could be perfect and someone would be saying the same thing. Name a disaster where the same hasn't been said. Sadly it's mostly being said by arm-chairs that are in no way involved and informed. No, "read some article somewhere" does not make you informed. It makes you vulnerable to sensationalized half-truths.
19. Re:Worst headline ever. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-30 05:07 · Score: 0
  
  Three times lower != Lower by three times.
20. Re:Worst headline ever. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-30 05:57 · Score: 0
  
  Clearly you never rode the Kintetsu line.
21. Re:Worst headline ever. by Frank+T.+Lofaro+Jr. · 2011-03-30 06:27 · Score: 1
  
  If anything, the authorities were caught completely flat-footed and are still scrambling. People in many areas were left for days to their own devices with no official response anywhere in sight.
  Like the US after Katrina.
  Did we export the head of FEMA to Japan?
  
  --
  Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
22. Re:Worst headline ever. by Pharmboy · 2011-03-30 06:50 · Score: 1
  
  I'll bite. What is Japan's definition of suicide?
  Ever see John Belushi do his Samurai bit on SNL in the 1970s?
  
  --
  Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
23. Re:Worst headline ever. by Teancum · 2011-03-30 08:27 · Score: 1
  
  One of the things that I hate about educational memes in America right now is the idolization of the Japanese school system as having produced better engineers and scientists than the American educational system. While there are certainly problems with schools in America, I don't think it is necessarily a good thing to push kids to suicide, wear uniforms, and have such a structured and rigid environment that original thoughts are driven from their consciousness.
  I'm not trying to stereotype Japanese educators, but sometimes the worst practices are adopted instead of the best when you see something that "works" and then try to emulate it. It is the intense pressure placed upon kids, particularly kids at a young age, that is making me pissed off as a parent. My kids in kindergarten often had more homework than my kids in high school have. Something is seriously messed up when I see that.
24. Re:Worst headline ever. by Teancum · 2011-03-30 08:37 · Score: 2
  
  Japan doesn't have the federalized system of government like exists in America with dual sovereignty and a federal government that literally can't act until after the state government gets its act together. Katrina was a royal screw up of the Louisiana government (not to mention New Orleans itself was in total chaos effectively without a government after Katrina), but that fact was lost on most international news media.
  FEMA, after Katrina, acted about as fast as it was legally permitted to act. That Louisiana had effectively no emergency response system in place is the blame of the citizens of Louisiana. It was the waiting on Uncle Sam that was the problem there, not the inaction on the part of FEMA.
  BTW, Biloxi was hit almost as bad as New Orleans by Katrina, yet it recovered much faster. I don't think that was just a coincidence.
25. Re:Worst headline ever. by IgnoramusMaximus · 2011-03-30 08:40 · Score: 1
  
  While its most prominent in the US, it is now apparent that there is an emerging pattern as of late in all the traditional "industrialized" societies: lack of any sort of adequate planning and preparation for a major disaster. Everyone in a position of authority seems to be always "caught by surprise" and "improvising".
  Contrast this with the Chinese response after their major earthquake where they essentially mobilized the entire country to provide relief with massive columns of supplies rolling within hours into the zone. Yet even this example was somewhat diminished by the prior decades of shoddy construction and corrupted officials helping greedy builders to skimp on building safety .....
26. Re:Worst headline ever. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-30 09:02 · Score: 0
  
  Japan doesn't have the federalized system of government like exists in America with dual sovereignty and a federal government that literally can't act until after the state government gets its act together.
  =The "it's not my fault, I'm just stupid/slow"-defence
27. Re:Worst headline ever. by psm321 · 2011-03-30 09:26 · Score: 1
  
  Homework in kindergarten? Wow, that's ridiculous
28. Re:Worst headline ever. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-30 09:50 · Score: 0
  
  what about a first graders diorama? and then the teacher criticizes the student for "not enough animals" wtf
29. Re:Worst headline ever. by atomicbutterfly · 2011-03-30 11:53 · Score: 1
  
  wear uniforms
  I saw what you did there, sneaking in that bit about wearing uniforms as if it means squat in terms of long-term development for a child.
30. Re:Worst headline ever. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-30 13:01 · Score: 0
  
  The reason for the drifting in wristwatches is due to the resonant frequency of the quartz crystal depending upon temperature. A watch spending half of the day in weather 20K below room temperature would lose ~1s/day
31. Re:Worst headline ever. by gullevek · 2011-03-30 16:26 · Score: 1
  
  I don't think so. Just because there was a massive quake, Tsunami and problems with a Nuclear Power plant, none of those are a reason to have a train run late.
  
  --
  "Freiheit ist immer auch die Freiheit des Andersdenkenden" - Rosa Luxemburg, 1871 - 1919
32. Re:Worst headline ever. by cffrost · 2011-03-30 23:34 · Score: 1
  
  There used to be hobby standards that relied on the NTSC color subcarrier.
  Some TVs and VCRs can (or at least, could) have their clocks synchronized by being tuned to PBS for up to a few minutes. Is this the same technology?
  
  --
  Thank you, Edward Snowden.
  
  "Arguments from authority are worthless." —Carl Sagan
33. Re:Worst headline ever. by drinkypoo · 2011-04-01 03:03 · Score: 1
  
  While there are certainly problems with schools in America, I don't think it is necessarily a good thing to push kids to suicide, wear uniforms, and have such a structured and rigid environment that original thoughts are driven from their consciousness.
  I don't think that you can blame all of that on school. Japan is small, they have limited space, it is reasonable for them to assume a sort of pressure cooker society that places high pressure on individuals to excel or leave. They simply don't have room to have children. Ironically, the wisest Japanese are probably those who leave, because Japan is unsustainable.
  
  --
  "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Caesium clock versus wild Caesium by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-29 21:15 · Score: 4, Funny

Very sorry for being 28 picoseconds late! The radioactive Caesium in the air put out my atomic clock
1. Re:Caesium clock versus wild Caesium by vlueboy · 2011-03-29 21:26 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  Very sorry for being 28 picoseconds late!
  Only 28 psecs? Curses! That's still not enough to let us fool your millisecond trading systems.
  Igor, it is necessary to calibrate our earthquake generators a second time.
  Yes, let us triple the taco fuel!
2. Re:Caesium clock versus wild Caesium by shentino · 2011-03-29 21:28 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Actually this is good if it disrupts the microsecond arbitrage in Wall Street.
3. Re:Caesium clock versus wild Caesium by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-30 01:29 · Score: 0
  
  Plus traffic on the Kessel run is murder these days.
4. Re:Caesium clock versus wild Caesium by Yamata+no+Orochi · 2011-03-30 01:37 · Score: 1
  
  Plus traffic on the Kessel run is murder these days.
  You're thinking parsecs, man.
5. Re:Caesium clock versus wild Caesium by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-30 01:46 · Score: 0
  
  You obviously have no idea how HFT works. Funny considering you seem to be against it while at the same time being clueless about what it is. Typical lemming sheep.
6. Re:Caesium clock versus wild Caesium by Anne_Nonymous · 2011-03-30 02:02 · Score: 1
  
  I forgive you, but Seppuku is the only honorable action in this circumstance.
7. Re:Caesium clock versus wild Caesium by asto21 · 2011-03-30 02:06 · Score: 2
  
  How was this even modded insightful? It's like saying sports cars in Japan will have slower 0-60 times
a French poem about stopping the time, by georgesdev · 2011-03-29 21:18 · Score: 3, Interesting

Ô temps ! suspends ton vol...
-- French poem by Lamartine http://astronad.voila.net/Lamartine.htm
And? by mirix · 2011-03-29 21:19 · Score: 3, Insightful

Good thing there is still GPS, NTP, etc.
Worst case a few clocks have to fall back to quartz and lose a couple seconds a day, no?

--
Sent from my PDP-11
1. Re:And? by rhook · 2011-03-29 22:08 · Score: 0
  
  That has been easy to do since Windows 2000 was released.
2. Re:And? by mcvos · 2011-03-29 23:23 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  Good thing there is still GPS, NTP, etc.
  That's what I've been wondering. With constant GPS signal all over the place, what do we need land-based atomic clock synchronisation for?
3. Re:And? by Onuma · 2011-03-29 23:42 · Score: 2
  
  Redundancy.
  
  You put all of your eggs in one basket, and sooner or later that basket is going to be wiped out by a tsunami/quake.
  
  --
  What else can happen when an unstoppable force collides with an immovable object?
4. Re:And? by LighterShadeOfBlack · 2011-03-29 23:54 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  That's what I've been wondering. With constant GPS signal all over the place, what do we need land-based atomic clock synchronisation for?
  You put all of your eggs in one basket, and sooner or later that basket is going to be wiped out by a tsunami/quake.
  If a tsunami or quake takes out GPS satellites in orbit 20km above the surface of the Earth I think accurate time-keeping will be the least of anyone's worries.
  
  --
  Spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, and stupid comments are intentional.
5. Re:And? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-29 23:54 · Score: 0
  
  You should try blocking the GPS signal in your region for a while and just have a look at how many things stop functioning like in this post to know that GPS might not be the wise solution here
6. Re:And? by mcvos · 2011-03-29 23:55 · Score: 1
  
  Just launch some extra GPS satelites then. If one of them is taken out by a 20 million meter high tsunami, at least we'll have some backups.
7. Re:And? by iinlane · 2011-03-30 00:04 · Score: 1
  
  An earthquake may take out the clocks the GPS satellites are synced against.
8. Re:And? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-30 00:06 · Score: 0
  
  We actually already do. There's two spare GPS satellites in orbit in case any of the others fail.
9. Re:And? by rakaur · 2011-03-30 00:09 · Score: 2
  
  GPS satellites have atomic clocks on them. Every one.
10. Re:And? by necro81 · 2011-03-30 00:19 · Score: 1
  
  One person mentioned redundancy, and that's the primary reason. Imagine this scenario: the GPS and NTP systems go offline (solar flare, alien invasion, whatever). This would obviously cause many problems, but clock synchronization is unlikely to be one of them. And so, in this hypothetical situation, we could see someone mention on Slashdot:
  
  Good thing there is still atomic-clock synchronization over radio
  The other reason why this radio-based synchronization signal is good to keep around is because it is ubiquitous and very cheap to utilize. To get synchronization from GPS you need a GPS transponder in whatever it is you are building. To use NTP you need a network connection to the wide world. To use this radio-based synchronization signal you only need a crude radio receiver tuned to the right frequency and a phase-locked loop circuit, all of which can be packaged in a $0.25 chip.
11. Re:And? by roman_mir · 2011-03-30 00:55 · Score: 1
  
  If a tsunami or quake takes out GPS satellites in orbit 20km above the surface of the Earth I think accurate time-keeping will be the least of anyone's worries.
  - well actually, if that happen I would know what to be mostly suprised about - a 20km tsunami wave or a falling GPS satellite.
  
  --
  You can't handle the truth.
12. Re:And? by dunkelfalke · 2011-03-30 00:56 · Score: 1
  
  I don't have GPS signal in my bedroom. DCF77 on the other hand, is reliable.
  
  --
  "It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
13. Re:And? by AndrewNeo · 2011-03-30 01:13 · Score: 1
  
  And they're still set by the ground. They drift.
14. Re:And? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-30 01:18 · Score: 0
  
  I think you meant 20000km (and I was actually surprised they weren't geosynchronous at 36000km).
15. Re:And? by slapout · 2011-03-30 01:26 · Score: 1
  
  I think you just wrote the script for the next SyFy movie of the week!
  
  --
  Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
16. Re:And? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-30 01:29 · Score: 0
  
  Good thing there is still GPS, NTP, etc.
  That's what I've been wondering. With constant GPS signal all over the place, what do we need land-based atomic clock synchronisation for?
  Radio receivers are cheaper and lower power than the equivalent GPS receivers. The latter matters in a wristwatch or a (kitchen) wall clock that runs on a pair of AA batteries; the former (cost) matters if you only want to spend about $30 for a clock, and not over $100. Trade offs.
  It should also be noted that a radio clock is generally under domestic control, while GPS is under foreign control. GPS also is a relatively weak signal, which can be jammed more easily. These reasons may matter to the more paranoid though.
17. Re:And? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-30 01:29 · Score: 0
  
  What the hell is with the Microsoft astroturfing on slashdot as of late? Why now?
18. Re:And? by spectrokid · 2011-03-30 01:33 · Score: 1
  
  GPS doesn't reach indoor very well. Hard to sync the kitchen clock that way
  
  --
  10 ?"Hello World" life was simple then
19. Re:And? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-30 01:55 · Score: 0
  
  That's what I've been wondering. With constant GPS signal all over the place, what do we need land-based atomic clock synchronisation for?
  You put all of your eggs in one basket, and sooner or later that basket is going to be wiped out by a tsunami/quake.
  If a tsunami or quake takes out GPS satellites in orbit 20km above the surface of the Earth I think accurate time-keeping will be the least of anyone's worries.
  Well, we haven't had a major solar flare cycle in a while, so having an independent infrastructure couldn't hurt.
20. Re:And? by rakaur · 2011-03-30 02:03 · Score: 1
  
  What's your source for that? As far as I can find, nothing says they're ever set by anything on the ground. They don't drift; they're expensive ($50,000-$100,000) atomic clocks. Not as in they're set by a signal (like your "atomic clock" on the wall), but as in they're the ones that SEND the signal that sets your "atomic clock" on the wall. The only "off" thing about them is that they don't take the earth's rotation into account and thus use "GPS time" instead of "UTC time" and they send the difference between them (currently 15 seconds due to leap seconds) in their signal.
21. Re:And? by mcvos · 2011-03-30 02:40 · Score: 2
  
  It is actually on Wikipedia: they are synchronized from the ground. Not like your "atomic clock" on the wall of course, but they do receive regular updates on their exact orbits, and because of gravity's effect on time, their exact orbit has an impact on their time, so that is corrected with those updates.
  So they rely on their own internal atomic clocks, but they're also synchronized to some extent from the ground. I'm not sure whether a land-based atomic clock is involved, but it'd surprise me if there wasn't.
22. Re:And? by mcvos · 2011-03-30 02:41 · Score: 1
  
  Good point.
23. Re:And? by bill_mcgonigle · 2011-03-30 02:54 · Score: 1
  
  Good thing there is still GPS, NTP, etc.
  Good thing GPS is still useful for something there. All the recent land surveys done there via GPS are all off by 8 feet or so now.
  
  --
  My God, it's Full of Source!
  OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
24. Re:And? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-30 02:55 · Score: 0
  
  Good thing there is still GPS, NTP, etc.
  That's what I've been wondering. With constant GPS signal all over the place, what do we need land-based atomic clock synchronisation for?
  Network timing, particularly for optical transport and cable modem plants. But those are run off a timing clock that the ISP keeps locally, so it wouldn't even be affected by this at all.
25. Re:And? by marcosdumay · 2011-03-30 03:06 · Score: 1
  
  Of course, the disaster that takes out satelites would be a different one, like a solar flail, or some man made jamming.
  
  --
  Rethinking email
26. Re:And? by Andy+Dodd · 2011-03-30 04:37 · Score: 1
  
  The GPS satellites have accurate atomic clocks, but I believe they aren't of the most accurate type available.
  The master clock on the ground is of a different type that is even more accurate, I think. I'm assuming it is probably derived from NIST-F1, which is of a design that is likely impractical for use on a sat.
  
  --
  retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
27. Re:And? by CrimsonAvenger · 2011-03-30 05:01 · Score: 1
  
  If a tsunami or quake takes out GPS satellites in orbit 20km above the surface of the Earth I think accurate time-keeping will be the least of anyone's worries.
  20km? I've got news for you - we have airplanes that fly that high.
  GPS is a wee bit higher than 20km above the Earth's surface. Try 20000 km above the Earth's surface instead.
  
  --
  
  "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
28. Re:And? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-30 06:05 · Score: 0
  
  GPS has a different kind of Tsunami to worry about.
  We normally call it a 'Solar Flare'.
  Land based GPS jamming is also pretty easy to do and a real threat in larger cities.
29. Re:And? by mpe · 2011-03-30 07:01 · Score: 1
  
  Radio receivers are cheaper and lower power than the equivalent GPS receivers.
  
  GPS receivers are radio receivers. Those to pick up time signals can be considerably simpler and cheaper than those to handle signals from GPS satellites. In the case of those in Japan some are so simple that they can only pick up a single frequency...
30. Re:And? by spaceyhackerlady · 2011-03-30 07:05 · Score: 1
  
  That's what I've been wondering. With constant GPS signal all over the place, what do we need land-based atomic clock synchronisation for?
  Cost. Clocks that sync to LF signals (WWVB, DCF77, JJY, etc.) are based on cheap off-the-shelf chipsets. GPS sync costs an order of magnitude more.
  Availability. GPS needs to see the sky. It doesn't work very well (if at all) inside buildings. LF time signals do.
  ...laura
31. Re:And? by iinlane · 2011-03-30 07:42 · Score: 1
  
  Even with absolutely precise clocks we would have to count in relativistic effects. The satellites move relative to ground based clock at significant speed and that will cause them to travel in time by microscopic amounts.
32. Re:And? by Onuma · 2011-03-30 07:43 · Score: 1
  
  Standard atomic clocks are a Cesium or Rubidium based standard. Usually good to anywhere between 9 and 14 significant digits in accuracy. The GPS system can actually take a specially calculated average from numerous ground-based sources in order to correct itself on the go.
  
  Overall, the GPS system is more accurate than any single atomic time keeping device, because it derives its timing from multiple sources, rather than a single oscillation system.
  
  The timing where I used to work was normally sub-7 nanoseconds from GPS. Not bad at all.
  
  --
  What else can happen when an unstoppable force collides with an immovable object?
33. Re:And? by Onuma · 2011-03-30 07:45 · Score: 1
  
  Raspberry?
  
  --
  What else can happen when an unstoppable force collides with an immovable object?
34. Re:And? by Onuma · 2011-03-30 07:46 · Score: 0
  
  Many geosync satellites (defense, etc) are in excess of 40000 km. Some more, some less, but being that far away allows them a broader footprint while still maintaining a relatively focused receiver/transmitter.
  
  --
  What else can happen when an unstoppable force collides with an immovable object?
35. Re:And? by iinlane · 2011-03-30 07:51 · Score: 1
  
  They drift because they move and fast relative to ground based clock. At those speeds the drift or time traveling predicted by special relativity becomes noticeable. Even our peaceful corner of the universe is a crazy place to be :)
36. Re:And? by rakaur · 2011-03-30 07:59 · Score: 1
  
  I would imagine they can self-correct for this, especially considering they listen to all the other GPS satellites for hints. They self-correct for lots of things. Even if all ground-based hints disappeared, I imagine the GPS timekeeping system wouldn't drift by any appreciable amount within the "earthquake damage to repair" timespan.
37. Re:And? by DerekLyons · 2011-03-30 08:55 · Score: 1
  
  That's what I've been wondering. With constant GPS signal all over the place, what do we need land-based atomic clock synchronisation for?
  GPS has only been widely available for less than eight years or so... so there's going to be a lot of legacy equipment out there. Also, GPS needs more and more expensive hardware to decode the time signal.
38. Re:And? by Carnildo · 2011-03-30 09:07 · Score: 2
  
  Geosynchronous orbit actually wouldn't be very good: you'd need a more powerful transmitter, you'd be fighting with other users for the available orbital slots, and you'd need to put some of the satellites out of the equatorial plane (with all the complications that entails).
  Low orbit would reduce the power of the transmitters needed, but would greatly increase the number of satellites needed, and atmospheric drag limits satellite life (or requires providing the satellite with much more station-keeping fuel).
  Half-synchronous orbit is a good tradeoff: the transmitters don't need to be as powerful as geosynchronous transmitters would need to be, fewer satellites are needed than would be needed in low orbit, there's no atmospheric drag and little competition for orbital slots, and each satellite follows the same ground track each day.
  
  --
  "They redundantly repeated themselves over and over again incessantly without end ad infinitum" -- ibid.
39. Re:And? by Candyban · 2011-03-30 09:07 · Score: 1
  
  well actually, if that happen I would know what to be mostly suprised about - a 20km tsunami wave or a falling GPS satellite.
  The whole island was shifted 7 meters to the west. How will that impact the GPS time keeping? Will everything keep on working as advertised or will software (coordinates) need to be updated?
  As for the speed of light: 300.000 km/s = 300 m/s or 23.3 ns difference
40. Re:And? by thegarbz · 2011-03-30 09:33 · Score: 1
  
  Worst case a few clocks have to fall back to quartz and lose a couple seconds a day, no?
  Isn't quartz timing quite reliable? Didn't it nearly end the chronograph and swiss watch industry when the Japs introduced it? Just anecdotal, but my cheap Casio typically loses no more than a few seconds a year.
41. Re:And? by leighklotz · 2011-03-30 09:39 · Score: 1
  
  Standard atomic clocks are a Cesium or Rubidium based standard.
  
  Rb oscillators aren't used for primary standards, only Cs. Rb oscillators can be set from a primary standard and retain that calibration exceedingly well, but they aren't primary standards themselves. (I have three of them, and they didn't agree until I adjusted them.)
42. Re:And? by mirix · 2011-03-30 09:39 · Score: 1
  
  Yeah, quartz can be quite good.
  I was just reasoning that things that expect to be able to sync every once in a while probably have a less accurately tuned crystal, because, well, it doesn't really matter, if you've got an occasional sync, that is.
  
  --
  Sent from my PDP-11
43. Re:And? by leighklotz · 2011-03-30 09:41 · Score: 1
  
  You should try blocking the GPS signal in your region for a while and just have a look at how many things stop functioning like in this post to know that GPS might not be the wise solution here
  It's also a way to get your precise location found by the FCC, at a cost of only $10,000!
44. Re:And? by reiisi · 2011-03-30 12:03 · Score: 1
  
  Or (as in this case), prevented from properly maintaining the clock because of an evacuation order.
  
  --
  Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
45. Re:And? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-30 13:08 · Score: 0
  
  It's the way things have always been, with Microsoft copying Apple.
46. Re:And? by Onuma · 2011-03-30 23:28 · Score: 1
  
  That make sense. All of the Rubidium oscillator's I've worked with derived timing from satellite constellations. As you said, they do tend to hold timing for quite a long time -- in 4 years I only needed to calibrate a pair of them once. Solid!
  [tangent]Could just be the particular versions, but the Rb's have always been smaller than their Cs counterparts.
  
  --
  What else can happen when an unstoppable force collides with an immovable object?
47. Re:And? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-31 08:38 · Score: 0
  
  Because a GPS receiver is more expensive/complex/power hungry than the simple radio receiver. Also, I'm pretty sure that GPS relies on some fixed ground stations so that the satellites have an accurate reading of their own position relative to the ground, so it could still be conceivably taken out by a large natural disaster.
This site has really jumped the shark by slyborg · 2011-03-29 21:19 · Score: 4, Insightful

I know it's late, and I think this may have been intended as humorous, but really, guys? Has it come to this?
1. Re:This site has really jumped the shark by Coisiche · 2011-03-29 21:23 · Score: 1
  
  Ah, the nature of time... I'd have said it was early since I've been a work for a bit more than an hour.
2. Re:This site has really jumped the shark by Bomazi · 2011-03-29 21:31 · Score: 0
  
  Even the shark has jumped the shark.
3. Re:This site has really jumped the shark by discord5 · 2011-03-29 21:41 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  I know it's late
  The Japanese currently sure don't... HAR HAR HARHAR
  
  Has it come to this?
  Sadly yes. The site does tend to more fluff, slashvertising, idle shit and biased politics articles than anything really interesting. I'm betting that by 2012 we'll have videos of cats on here.
  Perhaps the new dysfunctional slashdot design should've clued most of us in that we should be leaving for something new.
4. Re:This site has really jumped the shark by nicholas22 · 2011-03-29 21:44 · Score: 1
  
  +1 Stopped the time keeping operations is more appropriate that saying stopped time...
5. Re:This site has really jumped the shark by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-29 21:56 · Score: 0, Funny
  
  Sadly yes. The site does tend to more fluff, slashvertising, idle shit and biased politics articles than anything really interesting. I'm betting that by 2012 we'll have videos of cats on here.
  Perhaps the new dysfunctional slashdot design should've clued most of us in that we should be leaving for something new.
  O hai thar! Welcome to Catdot.org!
6. Re:This site has really jumped the shark by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-29 21:58 · Score: 0
  
  We really need to just make an alternative site which is basically identical, parsing Slashdot's Firehose but replaces one thing.... the idiot editors who write this shit up.
7. Re:This site has really jumped the shark by Gadget_Guy · 2011-03-29 22:14 · Score: 2
  
  I'm betting that by 2012 we'll have videos of cats on here.
  So that WILL be the end of the world. I guess the Myans were right.
8. Re:This site has really jumped the shark by Hognoxious · 2011-03-29 22:15 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  Even the shark has jumped the shark.
  It's sharks all the way up.
  
  --
  Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
9. Re:This site has really jumped the shark by bhtooefr · 2011-03-29 22:43 · Score: 1
  
  http://idle.slashdot.org/story/10/09/10/1723209/What-Happens-When-You-Let-100-Cats-Loose-Inside-An-IKEA
  I guess WWV has been down for a while now, because 2012 happened 1.5 years ago.
10. Re:This site has really jumped the shark by digitig · 2011-03-29 23:02 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  I'm betting that by 2012 we'll have videos of cats on here.
  Or photos of CAT 5s, at least.
  
  --
  Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
11. Re:This site has really jumped the shark by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-29 23:29 · Score: 0
  
  I'm betting that by 2012 we'll have videos of cats on here.
  I understand that you're annoyed, but don't go hatin' on the lovable furballs. =^.^=
  Idle already has a couple of cat stories. Video, culled from YouTube, is the natural evolution.
  Let's be honest: you've been here for years, you aren't going anywhere. Embrace your feline overlords.
12. Re:This site has really jumped the shark by shish · 2011-03-30 01:05 · Score: 1
  
  That would be way more nerdy than most of the news we get here :-(
  
  --
  I mod down anyone who says "I will be modded down for this", regardless of the rest of their comment
13. Re:This site has really jumped the shark by jd2112 · 2011-03-30 03:00 · Score: 1
  
  But did the shark have lasers on it's head?
  
  --
  Any insufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
14. Re:This site has really jumped the shark by TeknoHog · 2011-03-30 03:22 · Score: 1
  
  Or photos of pussies with CAT o5 tails. Actually, twisted-pair cable would make at least a Cat o' eight tails.
  
  --
  Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
15. Re:This site has really jumped the shark by discord5 · 2011-03-30 04:55 · Score: 1
  
  I guess WWV has been down for a while now, because 2012 happened 1.5 years ago.
  Well, that's a serious case of clock drift right there. Damn you Japan!
16. Re:This site has really jumped the shark by Abstrackt · 2011-03-30 05:04 · Score: 1
  
  I'm betting that by 2012 we'll have videos of cats on here.
  Or photos of CAT 5s, at least.
  Don't forget script kitties.
  
  --
  They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it's not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance. - Terry Pratchett
17. Re:This site has really jumped the shark by anethema · 2011-03-30 06:39 · Score: 2
  
  What site is there where I can instantly filter out all the crap, see the more relevant interesting/insightful posts on any nerdy news story that is posted?
  
  Most sites have impossible un-threaded crappy comment systems,with crappy moderation etc.
  
  I want to see 5-30 interesting comments on any given story,not 250 I have to sort through myself. I would also like there to be a higher percentage of people 'in the know' than the average population.
  
  Is there another site just like slashdot basically,but with better story picking ? I'm not being sarcastic I'd actually like to know so I can read it.
  
  --
  
  It's easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.
18. Re:This site has really jumped the shark by reiisi · 2011-03-30 12:16 · Score: 1
  
  Well, you could always go to the Japanese sister site (slashdot.jp), find their version of this article (still front page for them) and link out to a Make! Japan article on how to (probably needlessly) simulate the signal with, say, an arduino, or a common PC running MSWindows and that Microsoft dev environment that always makes me feel uncomfortable.
  But the discussion here of why multiple time sync sources are necessary (when they're necessary) isn't exactly un-geekly is it?
  
  --
  Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
Better theory: by n1hilist · 2011-03-29 21:20 · Score: 2

It was Hiro!
1. Re:Better theory: by delinear · 2011-03-30 01:46 · Score: 1
  
  In that case the least he could have done was go back and warn people.
Thanks for getting my hopes up... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-29 21:24 · Score: 2, Funny

"Nuclear Crisis Stopped" is not a good way to lead off a story on Japan.
My short attention span plays horrible games with me.
1. Re:Thanks for getting my hopes up... by robthebloke · 2011-03-29 21:33 · Score: 1
  
  Agreed. Especially since it was ultimately the fault of the earthquake.
2. Re:Thanks for getting my hopes up... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-29 23:52 · Score: 0
  
  Fault. Earthquake. Yuk.
A man with one watch, knows what the time is by PolygamousRanchKid+ · 2011-03-29 21:48 · Score: 2

A man with two watches, is never sure.
I guess a man in Japan with a radio signal watch has no clue right now.
have too many damn things in my apartment to change when daylight saving time hits. The coffee machine, the microwave, the clock on the wall, my stereo system main power supply . . . etc . . .

--
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Media idiocy by VendettaMF · 2011-03-29 22:06 · Score: 4, Insightful

This is about as accurate, realistic, rational and un-hyped a headline as here has yet been regarding the entire nuclear incident...

--
kartune85 : Incapable of reason, observation or learning. A kind of dim, drab, flightless parrot.
1. Re:Media idiocy by BForrester · 2011-03-30 01:07 · Score: 1
  
  Wait until the follow up when they add or subtract the necessary motes of time to re-sync the national time signal. It will be either
  Japan time travels to the past
  or
  Japan returns Back to the Future
2. Re:Media idiocy by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-30 04:42 · Score: 0
  
  There is no news anymore. It's all entertainment. Soon it will be Jerry Springer NEWS! "Just in: Greenpeace getting attacked by the KKK!! LIVE!"
Won't somebody think of the censors! by Gadget_Guy · 2011-03-29 22:12 · Score: 2

I suppose this means any Simpsons episodes that don't display the correct time on their clocks will have to be banned.
And don't get me started on those times when the Bart and Lisa are late for school!
1. Re:Won't somebody think of the censors! by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-29 22:19 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  And don't get me started on those times when the Bart and Lisa are late for school!
  Yes! We have to ban every episode showing schools. Many Japanese children don't even have a school anymore!
2. Re:Won't somebody think of the censors! by Xupa · 2011-03-30 03:44 · Score: 0
  
  GET OVER IT. They didn't "ban" anything, they chose to show different episodes. This knee-jerk bullshit isn't helping anyone.
Bob Marley again... by dido · 2011-03-29 22:25 · Score: 2, Funny

I thought we should have no fear for atomic energy, mon, cause they could not stop de time!

--
Qu'on me donne six lignes écrites de la main du plus honnête homme, j'y trouverai de quoi le faire pendre.
1. Re:Bob Marley again... by StuartHankins · 2011-03-30 02:23 · Score: 1
  
  Troll? Really? A Bob Marley lyric? I believe it's Redemption Song.
Couple seconds a day? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-29 22:26 · Score: 0

Good mechanical watches would be up to that. Decent quartzs? Couple of seconds a year, maybe even better.
It looks like Bob Marley was wrong... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-29 22:31 · Score: 1

"Have no fear of atomic energy, for none of them can stop the time" - Redemption Song
Unanswered questions by Pesticidal · 2011-03-29 22:34 · Score: 3, Insightful

So I RTFA and am left wondering why the engineers needed to power down the transmitter just because they were forced to abandon it. I would have presumed it would be controlled by computers and not rely on humans regularly hitting a button LOST-style. Also, I presume the differences in transmission frequency between the two halves of Japan is related to the separate power mains frequencies?
1. Re:Unanswered questions by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-29 23:19 · Score: 0
  
  Depends on how it was designed - it might not be fully automated. And even if it was, you don't want to run a high power transmitter without some sort of access for too long!
  If the two transmitters that both cover almost all of Japan with relatively high signal strengths, were on the same frequency, they would interfere with each other. I guess that's why they are on different frequencies. They won't use the mains frequency as time standard (I hope!).
2. Re:Unanswered questions by Shikaku · 2011-03-29 23:19 · Score: 2
  
  This video has the answer to all your questions about this incident: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7e0777z7AY
3. Re:Unanswered questions by Bill_the_Engineer · 2011-03-29 23:59 · Score: 1
  
  Probably because of regulatory constraints that require an engineer at the transmitter's control point (where the transmitter can be turned off quickly) in case something goes wrong with the transmitter. It could also be a safety issue, since the transmitter may have high voltage amplifiers that may catch fire if left unattended.
  
  --
  These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
4. Re:Unanswered questions by herojig · 2011-03-30 00:21 · Score: 1
  
  Yea, a LOST reference. Much more interesting then the rest of this blather...
  
  --
  I think therefore I can't be ~TTNH
5. Re:Unanswered questions by ColdWetDog · 2011-03-30 01:16 · Score: 1
  
  the transmitter may have high voltage amplifiers that may catch fire if left unattended.
  TRANSMITTER: "Is it me or is it getting warm in here/"
  ENGINEER: "Cut that out! Don't try that stunt again!"
  TRANSMITTER: (Lights dim slightly) "OK, but just you wait!"
  
  Could happen, I suppose.
  
  --
  Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
6. Re:Unanswered questions by jittles · 2011-03-30 02:43 · Score: 1
  
  It's a nuclear clock! Hello! DO you not see the word nuclear???? They can't afford another melt down in Japan! The whole country is likely to die if they leave that clock left running while unattended! Won't someone think of the children?
Yearly average is good, but... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-29 22:37 · Score: 0

Over the course of a year quartz can be quite good. But as they are temperature dependent, they will be fast in summer and slow in winter. It averages out nicely.
When I have to set the time twice a year anyway (daylight-saving-time) I find that I'm about three minutes off. And that is on a very cheap watch.
My wall clock at home is synchronised to the time signal from DCF77, so that one corrects itself if it ever would go wrong.
1. Re:Yearly average is good, but... by Overzeetop · 2011-03-30 00:33 · Score: 1
  
  Your watch really does suck. The casio on my wrist (which is helped by having my arm as a thermal sink & source), is rarely off by more than 10-15 seconds in the 8 (?) months between daylight and standard time. I say that seconds, because I rarely checked the seconds for accuracy, as there is nothing in my life which requires my wristwatch to be more precise than a minute or so.
  As for accuracy, it almost exactly 3 minutes fast. That happens to be about how long it takes me to stop what I'm doing and start moving appreciably towards where I need to be at any given time.
  
  --
  Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Re:A man with one watch, knows what the time is by zippthorne · 2011-03-29 23:02 · Score: 1

It doesn't matter how many watches you have. You never really know the time without a sextant, a spirit level, an almanac, and a clear sky.

--
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
Re:time space math truth all 'suspended' paralyzed by jonamous++ · 2011-03-29 23:50 · Score: 2

I wish that I could understand that sentence but without becoming insane. Your mind must be a wild and interesting place.
Re:time space math truth all 'suspended' paralyzed by underqualified · 2011-03-30 00:05 · Score: 1

that place is probably located under a bridge
Lost... by xororand · 2011-03-30 00:08 · Score: 1

Call Daniel Faraday ASAP!
Someone has to wind the atomic clock daily by Kupfernigk · 2011-03-30 00:09 · Score: 1

Those things don't just wind themselves, you know. Keeping all those superstrings under tension is a major job.
This post may have been brought to you by someone whose physics is a bit pre-Newtonian.

--
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
1. Re:Someone has to wind the atomic clock daily by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-30 08:36 · Score: 0
  
  Don't look now, Shroedinger's Cat is chasing the three blind mice up the atomic clock!
who cares? Japan is already from the future by WonderingAround · 2011-03-30 00:33 · Score: 1

They're pretty much warlocks of an Atlantis like society from the future, time should be irrelevant to them automatically!

--
It's like the mind going AWOL, it's there somewhere
Phew... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-30 00:36 · Score: 0

A rare opportunity for the rest of the world to catch up with Japan!
Legacy kit by DomHawken · 2011-03-30 00:40 · Score: 1

There's still a bunch out there. The HF frequencies used for the time signal are also better at going through walls than the near line-of-sight needed for GPS satellites.
GPS needs terrestrial atomic clocks. by 140Mandak262Jamuna · 2011-03-30 00:50 · Score: 1

The GPS satellites use these time signals from these atomic clocks to sych. Your little wrist watch could be off by 10 seconds and you would not even notice. The GPS satellites need to by synched with each other correct to ten billionth of a second. GPS receivers triangulate using the phase difference between the signals transmitted by the satellites. If any one satellite is off by 1.0e-08 sec, the distance calculation will be off by 10 feet.

--
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
1. Re:GPS needs terrestrial atomic clocks. by mcvos · 2011-03-30 00:55 · Score: 1
  
  The GPS satellites use these time signals from these atomic clocks to sych.
  GPS satellites each have their own atomic clock. They don't depend on land-based clocks as far as I know.
2. Re:GPS needs terrestrial atomic clocks. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-30 01:48 · Score: 0
  
  The GPS satellites use these time signals from these atomic clocks to sych.
  GPS satellites each have their own atomic clock. They don't depend on land-based clocks as far as I know.
  The slashtardism has hit a head for me.
  Did you not think before you wrote that? Do you think that the "atomic clock" you bought for $20 at Wal-Mart has it's very own atomic clock in it? How and why in god's fucking name do you think they put an "atomic clock" in the satellite? How do they keep all of these synchronized?
  It's a cesium atom vibrating at a precisely known frequency. It doesn't just "know" what time it is. The device is the size of an SUV.
3. Re:GPS needs terrestrial atomic clocks. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-30 02:03 · Score: 0
  
  GPS satellites have four atomic clocks. Cesium clocks for long term accuracy and hydrogen masers for short term. Two of each, for redundancy. Of course, they are also corrected for the relativistic effects of being in geosynchronous orbit!
4. Re:GPS needs terrestrial atomic clocks. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-30 02:05 · Score: 0
  
  And these atomic clocks need to be regularly syncronized. Time passes differently at different locations in a gravitational field.
5. Re:GPS needs terrestrial atomic clocks. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-30 02:22 · Score: 0
  
  The corrections sent to GPS satellites is not about time, it is about position. The Earth is not a perfect sphere, and because of this things in orbit tend to wobble. This is common amongst communications satellites, and even one that are not in geostationary orbits (such as a GPS satellite). There is no problem with the clock on them, as they are all atomic clocks. And in reality they are not updated all that often (unless you count the encrypted messages sent to them). GPS satellites are not used *just* for positioning.
6. Re:GPS needs terrestrial atomic clocks. by mcvos · 2011-03-30 02:32 · Score: 1
  
  Did you not think before you wrote that? Do you think that the "atomic clock" you bought for $20 at Wal-Mart has it's very own atomic clock in it? How and why in god's fucking name do you think they put an "atomic clock" in the satellite?
  It might have been worthwhile to read up a bit before you flipped out like that. A GPS satellite does not cost $20 at Walmart, and does contain an atomic clock.
7. Re:GPS needs terrestrial atomic clocks. by mcvos · 2011-03-30 02:36 · Score: 1
  
  I stand corrected. They are indeed synchronized from the ground. Though not in the way a simple Walmart clock is synchronized.
  Interesting detail is that GPS time is officially a few seconds off compared to UTC.
8. Re:GPS needs terrestrial atomic clocks. by 140Mandak262Jamuna · 2011-03-30 02:57 · Score: 1
  
  I did not know that. Thanks for the information. Times like these, I wish I could retract my original posting. Some kind soul, please mod my OP down. Thanks.
  
  --
  sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
9. Re:GPS needs terrestrial atomic clocks. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-30 03:36 · Score: 0
  
  GPS satellites each have their own atomic clock. They don't depend on land-based clocks as far as I know.
  They absolutely depend on land-based clocks in order to compensate for general relativity effects (their atomic clocks run faster because of their high orbit). Without this correction GPS positioning accuracy would drift by about 10km per day.
10. Re:GPS needs terrestrial atomic clocks. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-30 04:52 · Score: 0
  
  Yes, thanks for joining the knowing party. In the future, maybe know something of the subject matter you are attempting to appear as an expert on.
11. Re:GPS needs terrestrial atomic clocks. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-30 05:44 · Score: 0
  
  Each satellite does in deed have its own atomic clock, but "master" time is kept on earth. This master time is used to monitor the time of the satellites and make adjustments as necessary due to things such as relativistic differences. The land-based clocks are also used to make very precise measurements of the satellites positions, which in turn are used to keep the whole system running.
12. Re:GPS needs terrestrial atomic clocks. by mcvos · 2011-03-30 07:04 · Score: 1
  
  Now you're just being an ass. I never attempted to appear an expert on anything, and I was correct in everything I stated as unqualified fact.
13. Re:GPS needs terrestrial atomic clocks. by mcvos · 2011-03-30 07:08 · Score: 1
  
  I hope you've seen that I'm actually wrong about them not depending on land-based clocks at all. They all do have their own atomic clock, but due to relativistic effects, they're not accurate enough. So they still need to be synced regularly, also with data on the exact orbit they're in.
14. Re:GPS needs terrestrial atomic clocks. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-31 02:56 · Score: 0
  
  Since they don't have perfectly circular orbits, the effects of relativity are not constant. Clocks in a gravity well run at a different rate than those outside.
they dont have internet time servers? by hesaigo999ca · 2011-03-30 00:58 · Score: 1

MS offers the service by default so if u r connected to the internet, your clock self adjusts, or...wait.....that's right....you never use MS for mission critical stuff.....never mind.
Re:time space math truth all 'suspended' paralyzed by ColdWetDog · 2011-03-30 01:04 · Score: 1

Nah, it's just him again.

--
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
hmmm by thatskinnyguy · 2011-03-30 01:16 · Score: 2

"You Americans have clocks. We have time." - Some random Mexican I asked the time of in Mexico.

--
The game.
1. Re:hmmm by c6gunner · 2011-03-30 06:39 · Score: 1
  
  "You Americans have clocks. We have time." - Some random Mexican I asked the time of in Mexico.
  Proving, once again, that there are dicks in every nation around the world ...
TV stations use computers/NTP by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-30 01:39 · Score: 0

I doubt even BBC uses radio to sync their clocks anymore
Actually, by DFurno2003 · 2011-03-30 02:32 · Score: 1

Everyone's wristwatches now read: "All Your Base Are Belong To Us"
Two Words: Solar Flares by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-30 03:14 · Score: 0

With the sun picking up activity again, it is quite likely that satellites may have a bit of weather to deal with.
In Soviet Russia ... by srobert · 2011-03-30 03:34 · Score: 1

...nuclear crisis stops you.
We need a Hospital & Soylent Green Factory Com by PolygamousRanchKid+ · 2011-03-30 03:58 · Score: 1

The doctor takes a look at you, the patient, and your insurance status . . . and decides if you are treated, or become Soylent Green. The sales of the Soylent Green would finance the medical system.
Nurse: "You seem to not like the food here in the hospital?"
Patient: "No I don't."
Nurse: "Well do you know what will be served tomorrow? . . . You!"

--
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Re:We need a Hospital & Soylent Green Factory by PolygamousRanchKid+ · 2011-03-30 04:01 · Score: 1

Whoops! Wrong thread . . . loose nut behind the keyboard . . .

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Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Oh my! by Locke2005 · 2011-03-30 04:38 · Score: 1

Gee, timothy... write sensationalist headlines much? I realize anything that gets people to click on an article is considered fair on the 'net, but "stops time"?!? Really???

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I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Re:A man with one watch, knows what the time is by Abstrackt · 2011-03-30 05:07 · Score: 1

One day I got so sick of changing all the clocks that didn't change themselves I just set them all to UTC left them alone. Quickly converting to local time took a bit of practice but I still think it was worth it.

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They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it's not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance. - Terry Pratchett
Radio clocks not that accurate anyway by wsanders · 2011-03-30 05:24 · Score: 1

You can get down into the hundreds of nanoseconds accuracy with GPS. Radio clocks aren't that good, WWVB is only accurate to a millisecond or so in good propagation conditions. Shortwave is even less predictable. Still, good enough for "household" use.
I live in California, and my WWVB signal is marginal, so my radio clocks only sync up onc a week or so. Still, they are accurate to within a fraction of a second. I can get still better with NTP.

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Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
1. Re:Radio clocks not that accurate anyway by AmiMoJo · 2011-03-30 10:10 · Score: 1
  
  Low frequency radio time has about 1ms propagation delay per 300km. The US is pretty big. In the Europe and even within the UK a lot of clocks use the DCF77 signal rather than the MSF one so unless you calibrate for distance there will be a few ms just from the distance.
  
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  const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
  SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Re:A man with one watch, knows what the time is by anethema · 2011-03-30 06:42 · Score: 1

Atomic syncing clocks are fantastic.

Without the signal they simply use their quartz timing. If you think the clocks are simply displaying some received signal for time,that isn't how it works. They have a clue.

My Casio Pathfinder is always accurate to within a good deal less than a second, and the face is a solar panel so it keeps itself charged.

I wouldn't have it any other way.

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It's easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.
That's no nuclear reactor! by DarthVain · 2011-03-30 07:05 · Score: 1

So Radioactive. Bubbling Water. Controls Time.
That's Hot Tub Time Machine!
Probably because you're full of it. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-30 10:14 · Score: 0

Japan isn't exactly topping the scoreboard in terms of suicide rates, and the US isn't trailing that far behind..
Where's the +1 sarcasm mod when you need it? by reiisi · 2011-03-30 11:37 · Score: 1

(Faced with the dilemma, post the above or just mod parent +1 funny.)

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Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
Quartz is in there. by reiisi · 2011-03-30 11:50 · Score: 1

Most of the clocks and watches that receive these signals have internal quartz frequency sources and will do just fine until the signal is back up, unless the evacuation situation drags on for months.
Our Japanese sister site has more information, and a link to the information from the guys operating the time base signal, also in English, with slightly less information.
(Although I'm not sure the nict.go.jp site is going to be able to handle a slashdotting, so I'll suggest only going there if you can read Japanese or really need the information.
There's also a link in the article on slashdot.jp to a project on Make! Japan for simulating the signals, which should be more interesting anyway.)

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Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
Not safe for work. by reiisi · 2011-03-30 12:22 · Score: 1

(Working at home and the wife thinks I'm playing because I link to two seconds of Mr. Bean saying "magic, snort, snort".)

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Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
1. Re:Not safe for work. by cffrost · 2011-03-31 11:04 · Score: 1
  
  (Working at home and the wife thinks I'm playing because I link to two seconds of Mr. Bean saying "magic, snort, snort".)
  You got off easy. I just got fired for playing that video. Nineteen fucking years with the company. =(
  
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  Thank you, Edward Snowden.
  
  "Arguments from authority are worthless." —Carl Sagan
suicide honorable? by reiisi · 2011-03-30 12:29 · Score: 1

Never really was, definitely not now.
You have to understand, in a non-free society that functions, there are always at least two levels of communication. Truth is to be found in our own synthesis. That's why they don't understand the pre-occupation the Yanks have shown with making freedom a foundation principle in the government.
Until lately, anyway.
I guess the US has got to learn how to deal with that now that the idealogues from both the left and the right are taking over.

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Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
RTUM instrucion by reiisi · 2011-03-30 13:02 · Score: 1

Microsoft will be happy to sell you a filter that reads your mind.

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Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
Tinfoil Hat Time! by DrChandra · 2011-04-01 06:31 · Score: 1

OK now we know why Al Qaeda set off their nuclear bomb under the Pacific Ocean to start the earthquakes to begin with: They wanted to take the nuclear power plant offline so they can skew the system clocks to perform a COMPUTER HACK ATTACK on all the computers in Japan! See how it all lines up? I HAS to be a plan!
Next the people in Japan will be rioting in the streets, calling for the ouster of the Emperor, just like Mubarak! See how this all works?
I knew this technology stuff was a bad idea. :)

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Words, words, words ... Buz, buz! - Hamlet, Act II, Scene II