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> leap seconds present a "risk to air travel in the future" because a glitch might shut down traffic-control systems. This downright scary if true - a system t
by agwa 14y ago
> leap seconds present a "risk to air travel in the future" because a glitch might shut down traffic-control systems.
This downright scary if true - a system that's not robust and fault tolerant enough to withstand a leap second bug without putting lives in danger is going to suffer from other bugs which will put lives in danger. Since software development practices actually tend to be very paranoid when it comes to air travel, I suspect this is really a scare tactic to garner support for abolishing the leap second.
> the U.S. has proposed adding in a "leap hour" every 500 to 600 years, which also accounts for the fact that the Earth's rotation is expected to slow down even further. That would be no more disruptive than the annual switch to daylight-saving time
I'm incredulous. Daylight savings time effectively works by changing your timezone offset from UTC. UTC itself doesn't change. Daylight savings time is actually very disruptive to programs, and the solution is to just use UTC for everything. A "leap hour" would presumably require changing the UTC-equivalent itself. I guarantee you that no one will actually code for such a rare event, which will make it a big and scary flag day which will get postponed repeatedly while everyone prepares (probably by bringing a bunch of legacy programmers out of retirement if software still exists by then). The only thing appealing about this is that we'll all be long dead by then.
- wmf 14y agoA "leap hour" would presumably require changing the UTC-equivalent itself. Earlier I proposed exactly the opposite. Never change UTC, just redefine your timezone to create an apparent leap hour. Since we already do this twice a year in many countries, it should be less of a problem.
- agwa 14y agoInteresting idea! So basically every several hundred years we would shift the center of time farther and farther away from Greenwich. That explains why the British are opposed. I was thinking timezones would stay relative to Greenwich and the "leap hour" would be thousands of accumulated leap seconds applied at once. Your proposal sounds better.
- bloat 14y ago> The only thing appealing about this is that we'll all be long dead by then. I'm going to use this line a lot in all my future planning meetings.