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At least leap seconds will be eliminated by 2035, so there is that. Computers were never good at dealing with it. Keeping computer clocks in UTC instead of TAI

At least leap seconds will be eliminated by 2035, so there is that. Computers were never good at dealing with it. Keeping computer clocks in UTC instead of TAI and rewinding it for leap seconds was always insane. The same goes for UNIX time and NTP.

schindlabua 2y ago
Are they really? I wonder why this wasn't bigger news. Anyway that's good to hear.
GJim 2y ago
> At least leap seconds will be eliminated by 2035 The arrogance of programmers who think it is possible to ignore reality to suit them :-) I suspect the reality is many are unaware of TAI which would be more than 'good enough' and make life much easier for them. EDIT: Downvotes simply for stating facts and opinions from outside the IT industry hardly prompts useful discussion!
- blueflow 2y ago
  Not programmers, the BIPM: https://www.bipm.org/documents/20126/64811223/Resolutions-2022.pdf/281f3160-fc56-3e63-dbf7-77b76500990f https://www.bipm.org/documents/20126/64811223/Resolutions-20... Page 24 / Resolution 4
  - GJim 2y ago
    Input to BIPM to abolish leap seconds was overwhelmingly from the IT industry.
    - michaelt 2y ago
      Does anyone deal with leapseconds without it being mediated by computers?
      - GJim 2y ago
        Computers (and those who programme them) are there to serve humans (with a biology regulated by the Earth), not the other way around!
- tialaramex 2y ago
  No. UTC with leap seconds isn't "reality" except in the sense that some of those awful scripted "reality TV" shows are reality. It's a confection, and it's annoying so there's no real argument for it beyond "That's what we've always done" which is a pretty dubious rationale for anything, but even more so when it's been like that for less than a normal human lifespan. Leap seconds won't even be like the automobile, let alone newspapers or hotdogs, they're a fleeting idea we thought might be good, now we realise it's not good, so bye bye. There are two "realities" here. TAI is the monotonically increasing "Seconds are the same length and happen in order" clock time that it turns out well suits a lot of human enterprises. The exact details have been worked out pretty well. A Day in TAI is 24 hours of 60 minutes of 60 SI seconds, always, forever. UT1 is a descendant of "Solar time" now based on the Earth's rotational angle. A Day in UT1 is the full rotation, how long that is in SI seconds varies very slightly and arbitrarily. UTC wants to have the steady monotonicity of TAI except it wants to match UT1's days exactly, this is not a thing, so the "leap seconds" are conjured to kludge it. This kludge is what's going away, it's not part of "reality" it's a kludge to try to fit a square peg in a round hole and we're giving up the kludge. It has been a long time since humans worked purely from direct observation of the "solar time" or rotation. Once the clock gets invented, so millennia ago, that's out and humans are measuring (albeit not very precisely at first) what we now call TAI. Giving up leap seconds is us finally accepting that while UT1 is astronomically interesting, it's not actually a sensible basis for day to day living.
  - GJim 2y ago
    > while UT1 is astronomically interesting, it's not actually a sensible basis for day to day living. Hard disagree! Allowing ones clocks to gradually drift from the behaviour of the Earth (which regulates our biological lives) is a mess. Once can compare the eventual correction that will be required akin to the shift from the Julian to Gregorian calendar and the problems that caused. TAI was always there for those who needed it.
    - zarzavat 2y ago
      A leap minute every few centuries makes much more sense than a leap second every few years. We have until our great-great-grandchildren to prepare.
- lifthrasiir 2y ago
  Leap seconds were accepted only because they were better than the previous solution (the "rubber second") and not enough people complained. It's just that we finally got enough complaints that they are being abolished. AND the end result is TAI being universally accepted, with a fixed offset due to the historical reason though :-p
- GuB-42 2y ago
  It is not just about programmers, it is just that the Earth is not considered an accurate enough clock anymore. We can do better with atomic clocks. For day-to-day operations, we don't need the exact position of the sun in the sky, in fact, with time zones, we can be off by hours and still do business. Using the sun would be inconvenient anyways, as each location would need its own time. So for that, a few seconds is completely negligible. Not many people care about the precise position of the sun in the sky as seen from an arbitrary location, so there is no real need to skew our overall more useful atomic clocks for this. Maybe, in a distant future, people will need to update their time zones to catch up with what would be a noticeable shift, big deal...
  - GJim 2y ago
    > It is not just about programmers, it is just that the Earth is not considered an accurate enough clock anymore. Computers (and those who programme them) are there to serve humans (with a biology regulated by the Earth), not the other way around!
    - GuB-42 2y ago
      Human society screwed with biology in a big way since the industrial revolution. A few seconds, even minutes don't matter when business hours can disrupt sleep patterns of a significant part of the population by hours. Terrestrial time don't serve society very well, as it is not very precise, it doesn't serve biology well either, as it is based on some arbitrary meridian instead of your actual location. Biology-compatible times would be in relation to sunrise and sunset, as it is sometimes done.

schindlabua 2y ago

Are they really? I wonder why this wasn't bigger news. Anyway that's good to hear.

GJim 2y ago

> At least leap seconds will be eliminated by 2035 The arrogance of programmers who think it is possible to ignore reality to suit them :-) I suspect the reality is many are unaware of TAI which would be more than 'good enough' and make life much easier for them. EDIT: Downvotes simply for stating facts and opinions from outside the IT industry hardly prompts useful discussion!

blueflow 2y ago
Not programmers, the BIPM: https://www.bipm.org/documents/20126/64811223/Resolutions-2022.pdf/281f3160-fc56-3e63-dbf7-77b76500990f https://www.bipm.org/documents/20126/64811223/Resolutions-20... Page 24 / Resolution 4
- GJim 2y ago
  Input to BIPM to abolish leap seconds was overwhelmingly from the IT industry.
  - michaelt 2y ago
    Does anyone deal with leapseconds without it being mediated by computers?
    - GJim 2y ago
      Computers (and those who programme them) are there to serve humans (with a biology regulated by the Earth), not the other way around!
tialaramex 2y ago
No. UTC with leap seconds isn't "reality" except in the sense that some of those awful scripted "reality TV" shows are reality. It's a confection, and it's annoying so there's no real argument for it beyond "That's what we've always done" which is a pretty dubious rationale for anything, but even more so when it's been like that for less than a normal human lifespan. Leap seconds won't even be like the automobile, let alone newspapers or hotdogs, they're a fleeting idea we thought might be good, now we realise it's not good, so bye bye. There are two "realities" here. TAI is the monotonically increasing "Seconds are the same length and happen in order" clock time that it turns out well suits a lot of human enterprises. The exact details have been worked out pretty well. A Day in TAI is 24 hours of 60 minutes of 60 SI seconds, always, forever. UT1 is a descendant of "Solar time" now based on the Earth's rotational angle. A Day in UT1 is the full rotation, how long that is in SI seconds varies very slightly and arbitrarily. UTC wants to have the steady monotonicity of TAI except it wants to match UT1's days exactly, this is not a thing, so the "leap seconds" are conjured to kludge it. This kludge is what's going away, it's not part of "reality" it's a kludge to try to fit a square peg in a round hole and we're giving up the kludge. It has been a long time since humans worked purely from direct observation of the "solar time" or rotation. Once the clock gets invented, so millennia ago, that's out and humans are measuring (albeit not very precisely at first) what we now call TAI. Giving up leap seconds is us finally accepting that while UT1 is astronomically interesting, it's not actually a sensible basis for day to day living.
- GJim 2y ago
  > while UT1 is astronomically interesting, it's not actually a sensible basis for day to day living. Hard disagree! Allowing ones clocks to gradually drift from the behaviour of the Earth (which regulates our biological lives) is a mess. Once can compare the eventual correction that will be required akin to the shift from the Julian to Gregorian calendar and the problems that caused. TAI was always there for those who needed it.
  - zarzavat 2y ago
    A leap minute every few centuries makes much more sense than a leap second every few years. We have until our great-great-grandchildren to prepare.
lifthrasiir 2y ago
Leap seconds were accepted only because they were better than the previous solution (the "rubber second") and not enough people complained. It's just that we finally got enough complaints that they are being abolished. AND the end result is TAI being universally accepted, with a fixed offset due to the historical reason though :-p
GuB-42 2y ago
It is not just about programmers, it is just that the Earth is not considered an accurate enough clock anymore. We can do better with atomic clocks. For day-to-day operations, we don't need the exact position of the sun in the sky, in fact, with time zones, we can be off by hours and still do business. Using the sun would be inconvenient anyways, as each location would need its own time. So for that, a few seconds is completely negligible. Not many people care about the precise position of the sun in the sky as seen from an arbitrary location, so there is no real need to skew our overall more useful atomic clocks for this. Maybe, in a distant future, people will need to update their time zones to catch up with what would be a noticeable shift, big deal...
- GJim 2y ago
  > It is not just about programmers, it is just that the Earth is not considered an accurate enough clock anymore. Computers (and those who programme them) are there to serve humans (with a biology regulated by the Earth), not the other way around!
  - GuB-42 2y ago
    Human society screwed with biology in a big way since the industrial revolution. A few seconds, even minutes don't matter when business hours can disrupt sleep patterns of a significant part of the population by hours. Terrestrial time don't serve society very well, as it is not very precise, it doesn't serve biology well either, as it is based on some arbitrary meridian instead of your actual location. Biology-compatible times would be in relation to sunrise and sunset, as it is sometimes done.