4 ms·
It's a lot easier to test and prepare for something that occurs at least semi-regularly than a monumental event far into the future that is "so far into the fut
by lutorm 7y ago
It's a lot easier to test and prepare for something that occurs at least semi-regularly than a monumental event far into the future that is "so far into the future we don't have to worry about it"....
- wmf 7y agoIf we abolish leap seconds (and any other changes to UTC) and let the error accumulate until it hits 30 minutes then a 1-hour time zone change can adjust for it. Time zone changes happen at least semi-regularly so it wouldn't be monumental.
- quickthrower2 7y agoWouldn’t that move the international date line?
- wmf 7y agoI guess so, but I don't know why that matters.
- beojan 7y agoThe international date line isn't straight in order to avoid land. Moving it would be problematic.
- killjoywashere 7y agothink of it as ordinal: you're shifting left 1 unit, not moving the line, per se.
- thefringthing 7y agoStill matters because some places want to make sure it's the same day (according to their local reckoning) as it is somewhere else in particular (usually a major trading partner).
- beojan 7y agoOr the next town over.
- beojan 7y agoThe other boundaries are a lot straighter. Imagine what would happen when the International Date Line ends up in the middle of the US.
- tinus_hn 7y agoIt would take millennia for such an error to accumulate. Leap seconds are inserted less than once a year and 30 minutes is 1800 seconds.
- bloak 7y agoFalsehoods programmers believe about leap seconds: 1. The rate at which leap seconds are inserted will remain roughly constant. [...] The Earth's rotation is slowing down (by about 2 ms per day per century), so the difference between TAI and UT1 is increasing quadratically, not linearly.