>Leap second events have caused issues across the industry and continue to present many risks. As an industry, we bump into problems whenever a leap second is i

>Leap second events have caused issues across the industry and continue to present many risks. As an industry, we bump into problems whenever a leap second is introduced. And because it’s such a rare event, it devastates the community every time it happens. With a growing demand for clock precision across all industries, the leap second is now causing more damage than good, resulting in disturbances and outages. Translation: We suck at computers and think you all do too. So let's just bury our head in the sand and make some cash before it all falls down. I'm being glib, but come on guys. You're trying to tell me that your crummy programming and cash flow is more important than the literal spinning of the Earth. You can try all you want, but the sun will set when it does, your clock be damned. I may be a rare person on HN that actually has dealt with these leaps from the 'source'. I used to work for a pico-second accurate timing company and had to go through the microsecond adjustment due to the March 11th, 2011 earthquake in Japan. The company was a backup site for the NIST clocks. I've even worked with the second at NIST. Yes, that little port at about eye level that the whole US uses as it's second. You can't take things out of the room (like asbestos) and you can only be in there for short periods, it's that sensitive and important. All that said, the Earth is a really crummy clock! But guess what? You can't fix that. It's mother nature's world and we just live on it. If FB thinks that trying to get everyone to quite literally 'not look up' is going to work in the long term, they are in for even more headaches than they already have. Many, many industries and sectors must use hyper precise clocks and they must be aligned with the Earth's rotation. If are not, then they will drift psuedo-randomly apart as all clocks do. And then you're screwed when you try to get your own little clock system to talk to other clock systems that have been drifting too. You think you have issues now with imagined negative leap seconds? Wait until you try to define time.