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No leap second will be introduced at the end of December 2026

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Re: No leap second will be introduced at the end of December 2026

#131

Post by calfuris »

wincy wrote: post #84
jefftk wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clocks used to be able to use the 60Hz cycle to track time, and grid providers would run slightly slow or fast ("time error correction") to get back into sync. A leap second would just be part of this. I believe in the US this error correction has been discontinued in the East and in Texas, but is still done in the West for some kind of non-clock "inadvertent interchange" reasons I don't understand.

Wait is that why my oven and microwave clocks are constantly getting out of sync by multiple minutes every year?

Out of sync with each other, or are they drifting together in lockstep? In the latter case, yes, that's the most likely explanation.

Re: No leap second will be introduced at the end of December 2026

#132

Post by dooglius »

tialaramex wrote: post #70
_alternator_ wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In short, yes, the weather, geology, and signicantly, human movement of water via aquifer draining and dam building, as well as glaicial and ice melts, all contribute to unpredictable changes in the earths rotational period, as well as the axis of rotation. The models for this are IIRC trigonometric polynomials of fairly low order, so even if we could model the unpredictability perfectly, truncation error would limit…

2035 is the agreed drop dead date. Everybody agreed that "Leap seconds" are a sufficiently bad idea that they should be replaced by 2035. Nobody has agreed how to fix it, and "Just turn them off" isn't technically legal. However, "What if there were Leap hours instead?" is technically legal and of course those hours would happen in the very distant future (likely after our civilisation is gone) so it's functionally i…

What does "technically legal" mean here, what authority is that coming from?

Re: No leap second will be introduced at the end of December 2026

#133

Post by dcminter »

charonn0 wrote: post #126
BoxOfRain wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the subject of amusing British political legislation, should he defeat Nigel Farage in the resulting by-election Count Binface will not be able to wear his costume in Parliament; not only is business attire required in the House of Commons, it's specifically forbidden to wear a suit of armour there due to a law from the 14th century. For those unaware, the major parties have declined to participate in the by-elect…

> Count Binface I did not expect this to be a real person. Is he with the Standing At The Back Dressed Stupidly And Looking Stupid party?

Hilariously, no.

That would be the Monster Raving Loony party who will apparently also be standing in this by-election. Count Binface has ruled out a pact with them.

Re: No leap second will be introduced at the end of December 2026

#134

Post by prerok »

tialaramex wrote: post #116
prerok wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, it's solving a real problem, why are we dropping it? I mean, why does everybody agree it's a bad solution?

Basically we guessed wrong. We thought knowing "Solar time" would be more useful than in it, and we thought these "Leap seconds" would be less trouble than they are. It's like you buy a cat to help with your rodent problem, figuring the cat will eat mice and isn't much trouble to look after, but after purchasing a cat you find that your problem was actually rats, your cat is terrified of these large dangerous creatur…

Heh, I like the analogy but my question was really why it was considered such a hassle.

I mean we deal with daylight saving time all the time and I know it's not the same because the leap second affects UTC, not just local time zone, it's just that you are either dealing with monotonically increasing time like epoch, or you are dealing with "human" time and I found no distinction in the latter.

Is it "just" that leap seconds or delay seconds caused problems in epoch to utc conversion? Note the just in quotes, but did I just answer my own question? :)

Re: No leap second will be introduced at the end of December 2026

#135

Post by Sohcahtoa82 »

Perz1val wrote: post #89
delichon wrote: post #21

Hear me out. We can just mount jet engines along the equator and rotate them 180 to gain or lose time. And then connect them to my snooze button.

No, jet engines push against the atmosphere and the atmosphere is a part of the earth

If the jet engines are pushing hard enough, then the atmosphere won't be a part of the earth for long.

Re: No leap second will be introduced at the end of December 2026

#136

Post by layer8 »

flexagoon wrote: post #7
bombcar wrote: post #6

"To authorities responsible for the measurement and distribution of time" is just the best preamble ever.

The only better thing is the organization being called "International Earth Rotation Service"

Someone should establish the Interplanetary Sun Orbiting Service.

Re: No leap second will be introduced at the end of December 2026

#137

Post by aidenn0 »

tialaramex wrote: post #97
jeffrallen wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Farage is such an ass, the King should make him feed donkeys or something.

"Vote Count Binface and Bin the Cunt" :D There's a long tradition in the UK of having electoral candidates who don't expect to win but run because it's free publicity in a high profile race. "Count Binface" is a comedian who dresses up as a space alien whose outfit resembles well, having a Bin for a face. The serious political parties told Nigel to fuck off, if he wants to step down and then immediately contest the s…

Next we need someone running on a platform promising "Truth, Justice, Freedom, Reasonably Priced Love, and a Hard-Boiled Egg"

Re: No leap second will be introduced at the end of December 2026

#138

Post by aidenn0 »

eqvinox wrote: post #127
AbstractH24 wrote: post #125

ELI5: How does this impact UNIX timestamps? Particularly for things that are in maintenance mode or otherwise minimally maintained. Nothing I do requires this level of precision, but certainly there are things that do.

UNIX timestamps are fully ignorant of leap seconds, i.e. pretends they don't exist. That means there can be physical seconds of time that cannot be referenced with a UNIX timestamp (when a leap second is inserted) as well as UNIX timestamps for seconds that don't exist (when a leap second is deleted).

It also means that if you subtract two timestamps, you might not get the actual time between them. Though this is also true of most ways of representing time (TAI being a notable exception).

Re: No leap second will be introduced at the end of December 2026

#139

Post by rzzzt »

AbstractH24 wrote: post #125

ELI5: How does this impact UNIX timestamps? Particularly for things that are in maintenance mode or otherwise minimally maintained. Nothing I do requires this level of precision, but certainly there are things that do.

Whenever leap seconds were added, Google was running the clocks on their servers slower/faster over a longer period of time (hours) so they would slowly drift back in sync with the solid platinum, perfectly spherical grandfather's clock sitting in NIST or whatever: https://developers.google.com/time/smear

Re: No leap second will be introduced at the end of December 2026

#140

Post by layer8 »

404mm wrote: post #64
declan_roberts wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Director Earth Orientation Center of IERS Observatoire de Paris, France" Even the titles are sci-fi.

“Time Lord” could have been used instead of Director. At least once. Please.

Being located in Paris, it would have to be "maître du temps".
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