do it's job it would have to choose between two cases:
1. either it would take a very long time to get the correct adjustment, thus,
if you are not currently on the net right, you wait a long time (or must
type ^C, which is ridiculous)
2. ntpd could be modified to "abort early", but then would not meet the
promise made by -s in the manual page (note: it does not say that it
"tries")
therefore, -s and -S must become user choices. Sorry. This same choice is
made in lots of other places