3 ms·

UTC doesn't stop us from having that, UTC seconds tick at SI rate. The thing that makes UTC special is that minutes might have 59-61 seconds each. But if you ha

by zokier 2y ago

UTC doesn't stop us from having that, UTC seconds tick at SI rate. The thing that makes UTC special is that minutes might have 59-61 seconds each. But if you have stopwatch just counting seconds then leap seconds do not make any difference at all, and UTC and TAI are effectively the same.

kuschku 2y ago
Then why does unix time not include the leap seconds?
- zokier 2y ago
  Because POSIX committee thought it would make things easier for userland. It didn't; it did make things harder, much harder, for userland and everything else. People make mistakes.
  - kuschku 2y ago
    Ahh, so if I used an old unix mainframe, it'd count leap seconds differently?
afiori 2y ago
UTC and TAI are offset by a variable number of seconds
- zokier 2y ago
  Which doesn't impact a stopwatch in any way.
  - afiori 2y ago
    It does if the stopwatch is sinchronizing to prevent drifting, like most clocks do.