6 ms·

Hmm, the proposal to do away with the leap second seems yet another instance of humanity's practice of taking decisions that are expedient in the short term but

Hmm, the proposal to do away with the leap second seems yet another instance of humanity's practice of taking decisions that are expedient in the short term but will create problems in the long term (sun rises at noon in a few thousand years?!) Every computer in the past several years I've installed (Windows, Mac, Linux) has had NTP enabled. Almost every cell phone ships with "set time from network" enabled. Wristwatches sales are way down => few people set their watches manually. Keep the leap second! :)

deleted 15y ago
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3pt14159 15y ago
Nope. Let's get rid of this horrible date-time system we have. I can't wait for gataca or the singularity to take away these crazy time and productivity wasters.
sskates 15y ago
I think not being able to guarantee that there always 7200 seconds between 11:00pm and 1:00am the next day could be a worse problem than having the sun rise at noon in a few thousand years.
- crististm 15y ago
  why is this different from leap years?
  - dodedo 15y ago
    Leap years are defined by a known algorithm: If the year is evenly divisible by 4, then it's a leap year, unless it's divisible by 100, unless it's divisible by 400. This defines all future leap years. Because of this, we /do/ know how much time will be between two particular dates. Leap years can be calculated in advance as they represent a well-known, fixed skew between the gregorian calendar and the actual calendar. Contrast this with leap seconds, which represent a variable skew and cannot be predicted by algorithm. Leap seconds are determined by measurement of the solar cycle and are merely announced at 6 month intervals. Because of this we cannot use solar time with seconds-granularity more than 6 months into the future, and a table of past leap-seconds is needed to accurately calculate time in the past. Worth noting: POSIX time functions do none of this for you. There is another system of time, TAI, which is used for scientific measurements which rely on seconds-granularity at arbitrary intervals. TAI is skewed from solar time and will eventually not match the 24 hour solar cycle.
Dylan16807 15y ago
It seems to me that leap minutes would perform no worse and cause a lot less pain from rarity.
- obtu 15y ago
  Code that is exercised once in a century (see: y2k and similar timestamp problems) is buggier than code that is exercised once every six months (leap seconds) or in real time (NTP, which given the poor precision of internal clocks, everyone should be running anyway).
  - Dylan16807 15y ago
    I'll pick mild bugs once a century over milder bugs every couple years.
modeless 15y ago
The sun rising at noon in the far future long after we're all dead is not a problem for us, and it wouldn't be a problem for the people living in that future either. On the other hand, software bugs due to unnecessary complexity are an actual problem, now and in the future.
- luser001 15y ago
  Umm, I think your comment exhibits exactly the attitude I was arguing against. I'm not smart enough to argue conclusively why one should care about what happens after one's death, but this greek proverb moved me a lot. A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in. Example: http://www.gardinclothing.com/blog/?p=31 http://www.gardinclothing.com/blog/?p=31
savramescu 15y ago
Only that you'll have to correct this more and more in time because earth's second isn't constant (actually this is exactly why they started to use the leap second). So why do it? Just to get a /Universal/ time in sync with Earth?

deleted 15y ago

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3pt14159 15y ago

Nope. Let's get rid of this horrible date-time system we have. I can't wait for gataca or the singularity to take away these crazy time and productivity wasters.

sskates 15y ago

I think not being able to guarantee that there always 7200 seconds between 11:00pm and 1:00am the next day could be a worse problem than having the sun rise at noon in a few thousand years.

crististm 15y ago
why is this different from leap years?
- dodedo 15y ago
  Leap years are defined by a known algorithm: If the year is evenly divisible by 4, then it's a leap year, unless it's divisible by 100, unless it's divisible by 400. This defines all future leap years. Because of this, we /do/ know how much time will be between two particular dates. Leap years can be calculated in advance as they represent a well-known, fixed skew between the gregorian calendar and the actual calendar. Contrast this with leap seconds, which represent a variable skew and cannot be predicted by algorithm. Leap seconds are determined by measurement of the solar cycle and are merely announced at 6 month intervals. Because of this we cannot use solar time with seconds-granularity more than 6 months into the future, and a table of past leap-seconds is needed to accurately calculate time in the past. Worth noting: POSIX time functions do none of this for you. There is another system of time, TAI, which is used for scientific measurements which rely on seconds-granularity at arbitrary intervals. TAI is skewed from solar time and will eventually not match the 24 hour solar cycle.

Dylan16807 15y ago

It seems to me that leap minutes would perform no worse and cause a lot less pain from rarity.

obtu 15y ago
Code that is exercised once in a century (see: y2k and similar timestamp problems) is buggier than code that is exercised once every six months (leap seconds) or in real time (NTP, which given the poor precision of internal clocks, everyone should be running anyway).
- Dylan16807 15y ago
  I'll pick mild bugs once a century over milder bugs every couple years.

modeless 15y ago

The sun rising at noon in the far future long after we're all dead is not a problem for us, and it wouldn't be a problem for the people living in that future either. On the other hand, software bugs due to unnecessary complexity are an actual problem, now and in the future.

luser001 15y ago
Umm, I think your comment exhibits exactly the attitude I was arguing against. I'm not smart enough to argue conclusively why one should care about what happens after one's death, but this greek proverb moved me a lot. A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in. Example: http://www.gardinclothing.com/blog/?p=31 http://www.gardinclothing.com/blog/?p=31

savramescu 15y ago

Only that you'll have to correct this more and more in time because earth's second isn't constant (actually this is exactly why they started to use the leap second). So why do it? Just to get a /Universal/ time in sync with Earth?