Leap-second decision delayed by eight years • Hacker News Board

Re: Leap-second decision delayed by eight years

#21

Post by Veedrac » Sun, Nov 22, 2015, 10:46 AM UTC

If we were to require but not have one leap second a year into perpetuity, it would take 1000 years to drift 1/4h off from true time.

That's 1000 years of more regular, workable time. And I'd hope in 1000 years people would have adjusted to the small offset.

Plus, one hour-big adjustment every 4000 years is certainly easier than 4000 second-long adjustments every year, if they really haven't gotten used to it by then. Note that 4000 years ago we hadn't an alphabet - no doubt we'll be thought of on equal footings.

Re: Leap-second decision delayed by eight years

#22

Post by greglindahl » Sun, Nov 22, 2015, 7:45 PM UTC

urbit wrote: post #13

greglindahl wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a standard for what this is trying to do: TAI, or TAI with an offset of 19 seconds, like GPS. Rolling your own is never a good idea.

Yes, this equates to TAI minus 35 seconds. GPS did exactly the same thing (instantiated at a TAI offset equal to UTC), perhaps in a vain hope that the astronomers would give up their death-grip on time. Not sure the difference between 35 and 19 amounts to "rolling your own." (At least future decisions are out of the hands of the astronomers and into the hands of the timekeepers, so maybe these responsible authorities…

This scheme is different due to the way it handles times between the start of leap seconds and 2012.

And, as an astronomer turned technologist, I think your comments are completely inappropriate for civilized discussion. If you want verbal mud-wrestling, take it elsewhere.

Re: Leap-second decision delayed by eight years

#23

Post by upofadown » Sun, Nov 22, 2015, 8:40 PM UTC

akira2501 wrote: post #5

"Once the drift is appreciable, the argument goes, a correction could be added much further down the line, perhaps by adding a leap minute or hour." Well.. if the leap second is any lesson, that should go smoothly and be really easy to implement.

If it is an hour then you would just change the time zones ... assuming that we even still have those.

Re: Leap-second decision delayed by eight years

#24

Post by c22 » Sun, Nov 22, 2015, 11:16 PM UTC

brudgers wrote: post #20

c22 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except historically some humans have found it useful to coordinate certain events to, say, recur at the same time of winter every year so suddenly a deeper relationship to the cosmos becomes necessary.

By "deep of winter" can I assume you were referring to July?

No, winter was an arbitrary example. Humans need to track yearly events during all seasons.