31–40 of 259 posts
Notice they only said leap second . Meanwhile.... International timekeepers to vote on changing the leap second to a leap hour https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/international-tim... ( https://archive.ph/GnQUj https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48842329 )
really, my I just don't have the time to keep up with this.
> The difference between Coordinated Universal Time UTC and the International Atomic Time TAI is : > > from 2017 January 1, 0h UTC, until further notice : UTC-TAI = -37s This means the atomic clock is behind the solar clock by 37 seconds? I also don’t understand the reference to 2017.
My guess is that is when they last changed the offset, so the -37s has been in effect since then.
"To authorities responsible for the measurement and distribution of time" is just the best preamble ever.
Even the titles are sci-fi.
> The difference between Coordinated Universal Time UTC and the International Atomic Time TAI is : > > from 2017 January 1, 0h UTC, until further notice : UTC-TAI = -37s This means the atomic clock is behind the solar clock by 37 seconds? I also don’t understand the reference to 2017.
What causes the unpredictability in this? I would have guessed we have earth's rotation and orbit down to many decimals. Does geological activity, weather, or something else cause rotation speed differences that we just can't predict?
"Because the Earth's rotational speed varies in response to climatic and geological events, UTC leap seconds are irregularly spaced and not precisely predictable."
They should have a global holiday to celebrate the people who maintain time/date related code in OS kernels that keeps the world from imploding.
What causes the unpredictability in this? I would have guessed we have earth's rotation and orbit down to many decimals. Does geological activity, weather, or something else cause rotation speed differences that we just can't predict?
Earths rotation has been unusually fast lately. So there is not enough drift to warrant a leap second.
What causes the unpredictability in this? I would have guessed we have earth's rotation and orbit down to many decimals. Does geological activity, weather, or something else cause rotation speed differences that we just can't predict?
As one HN comment said years ago: I feel leap seconds have always lived in the wrong abstraction layer. They should live in the same abstraction layer that does leap days and daylight savings: the time zones.