How Do We Measure Time Now?

FAscinating reading worth your "time"

http://openjurist.org/11/f3d/1054/marcel-watch-company-v-united-states especially 7, 9 et sequitur...

http://www.faqs.org/rulings/rulings2005NYL85912.html

Milo

Thanks for those links, I had read the ruling on CROSS (2nd link) already the first one is more on target to my dilema and it was interesting to see the court wrangle out of what the tariff actually says. However.......

1. The first link deals with a case that uses the old tariff system. That is pre-Harmonized System (HS) The HS is a world wide tariff system designed by the World Customs Organization (WCO) and accepted by most of the trading world. It was adopted in Canada in 1989, not sure when the US switched over.
2. The USA doesn't play by all the rules of the WCO and watches/clocks is one good example of that. In the reat of the world a finished watch is a watch and classified as such. The USA insists that importers break down the value and declare the case, the movement and the band seperately.
3. We use the US customs ruling web site (CROSS) a lot up here to see how a court may look at the wording and such, it is a great reference site. Canadian customs considers product rulings to be subject to privacy laws and does not publish them for others to consult. So while US rulings are interesting reading and very useful to me, they carry no legal standing up here in Canada and I cannot quote tham as precident.

A synchronous motor's speed is determined by the frequency of the AC current that is supplied to it. In the US that would be some multiple of 60 Hz.

I'd say it's safe to assume that anything with a digital display has no moving parts.

I'm not sure how you'd classify a watch with moving hands, cause something has to move them.

Is there an expert out there?

Thank you for the info on the motors. So as long as the frequency stays exactly steady the device will be accurate?

Watches are seperated in the tariff by the material their case is made of, precious metals or other materials. It is more the items that don't tell me what time it is that I am concerned with right now like, punch clocks, time recorders, time switches, parking meters and such. Things that measure and/or record a time duration.

I remember being told not to correct the time on electric clocks because the electric company would adjust the frequency until they were back on time. Whether it was here in the USA or in the UK, I can't remember.

As a political tool, I think customs tariffs have devolved along with politics and bureaucracy.

While you may be right it is really an interesting book. I look at it all as a sort of game. Everything in the world has a specific number in this book and there are rules to how these numbers are applied. My job is to find the right number for the items my clients import. The book is very detailed in it's description of things and I have to understand all the technical terms used in it. Therfore I have to try to know quite a bit about everything. I am getting paid to learn stuff. It really doesn't get much better than that.

Occasionally I get to go to court to debate about intreprtations of the book and its rules. Believe it or not I once had a case concerning a cat toy. You know the one, a plastic rod with a long thin piece of cloth on one end to dangle in front of a cat. To make a long story short the legal question was "Who is being amused? The cat or the person on the other end? This was a million dollar question. My argument was that the person was the one being amused and that would render the item duty free. I reasoned that no person would spend an hour giggeling this device about if they were not being amused. However those crafty government lawyers argued that the device amused the cat and it was the cat that amused the person. A subtle difference that applied 17% duty to the item. I lost

"I am getting paid to learn stuff. It really doesn't get much better than that." Too right! For instance, Milo's linked document explained something I had always questioned (Why the imprinted number of jewels on a timepiece) but never investigated.

Having to deal with a branch of the Federal government concerned with the potential hazards of equipment used in mines, the difficulty is adapting modern technologies to laws and regulations that were developed quite some time ago, with laws and terminologies that literally take an "act of congress" to change.

I was hoping that someone with a bigger brain would explain the synchronous motor better than I did.

Thanks.

Well golly gee thanks, I think.

Thanks for the info on how the motor runs a clock accurately. See I learned something thus justifying my salary

You comment/question about cell phones is actually an interesting one as that is definately an item where the tariff is being left in shambles. Currently they fall into 8517, "telephones for cellular networks". But the same device now takes digital pictures (8525) records and plays music( 8519), etc. Right now they still fall into 8517 due to the "essential character" clause of the "General Intterpretive Rules". These rules though can handle just about any situation where if all else fails the last rule states if an item is genuinely classifiable under two or more numbers you take the one that comes last in numerical order.

The WCO is supposed to update the tariff every five years but the last update was 2005 and nothing from Brussels this year. An example of the slow evolution of the tariff, computers are still in chapter 84, "machines and mechanical appliances" and not in chapter 85 "electrical machinery and appliances". Why? Because computers descend from the old crank type adding machines that were originally manual and not electrical. So it is a slow process but the tariff changes over time. Hey in 2005 they moved computer printers from 8471.90 "computer parts" to 8443 "printing machinery". See they have almost caught up to the 20th century, only about 25 years behind now.

You know, this is exactly the kind of high quality discussion that I come to CR4 hoping to find. I have rated this thread 5 stars.

Milo

redfred,

Do you remember when some wall clocks used shaded pole motors? As a joke, I reversed one for a friend some years ago and he reversed the numbers so it was the correct time only in reverse. It finally quit. I have not been able to locate another one. I have only found the hysteresis type.

I had a Chinese lady who worked for me many years ago. I forget what she was supposed to be doing, but one of the things she actually did was reverse the wall clock and change all the numbers to Chinese characters (not in the right location), so that we all had to ask her the time.

I find that if I hold my index finger and thumb about an inch apart I can get a pretty good indication of how much time it will take to get something done.

There is an alternate reading of "synchronous motor" in clocks. This is the system first used in the "Silent Electric Clock" where a pulse sent to the dial motor causes one revolution of said motor, resulting in a 30 second pointer step. The circa 1900 forerunner of the stepper motor.

This system also had a 'master clock' and 'slave' dials and was aimed at rail stations, large factories, retail store and schools.

In the conversation/documentation/interpretation, they seem to have 'timers', like crystals, motors and chips, stitched up.

What I don't see; is that linking to/receiving, the international time signal, or 'internet time', is equivalent to the item being "a clock".

The bigger argument seems that of "principal function". And in the linked thing, that seems to be an "accounting aid/invoice reporting system", incidentally having time and date reference, like any communication since letters were first penned.

Can I add my 1c worth on this subject- keeping up with measuring time technology.

The GPS system-nearly global now- has a one second date & time stamped "ping".

Will this not supplant other "time mechanisims" in the near future?