Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

lists.iana.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 159 posts

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

#11

Post by voxl »

butILoveLife wrote: post #5
wlkr wrote: post #3

Interesting! There's a lot I don't know about this, but I know a little more now. I'll admit, I naively thought this would be more regular than it appears to be [0]. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leap_second

They teach us Scientific Realism in school, but reality is that we are really using Instrumentalism. That said, no one wants to admit it, so contemporary science follows Falsification, where we find ways to not actually make claims about reality. (Which as an Instrumentalist/pragmatist, I love Karl Popper, its just not metaphysical truth. And that would break Popper's heart)

A distinction without a difference. The only way we can interact with the world is via senses, via instruments, via measurement. We can rehash solipsism, but seeing as how that is an immediate dead end we all agree there is a physical reality. If there is in fact a reality, then we are measuring something real.

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

#12

Post by riskassessment »

butILoveLife wrote: post #5
wlkr wrote: post #3

Interesting! There's a lot I don't know about this, but I know a little more now. I'll admit, I naively thought this would be more regular than it appears to be [0]. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leap_second

They teach us Scientific Realism in school, but reality is that we are really using Instrumentalism. That said, no one wants to admit it, so contemporary science follows Falsification, where we find ways to not actually make claims about reality. (Which as an Instrumentalist/pragmatist, I love Karl Popper, its just not metaphysical truth. And that would break Popper's heart)

> They teach us Scientific Realism in school.

I'd argue the opposite is true for anyone who has studied statistics which is largely built on Instrumentalism (think George Box: 'All models are wrong, but some are useful') and Popperian falsification (Null Hypothesis testing). We are absolutely taught to treat models as predictive tools rather than metaphysical truths.

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

#13

Post by Vvector »

Leap Seconds need to be abolished. The only people who need it are Astronomers. They could just use an offset. Implementing leap seconds correctly is a huge burden, for no gain.

Where I live, high noon today occurs at 1:03 PM. No one is complaining that it is 3 minutes (or 63 minutes) off. It's a non-issue for 99.9% of the population.

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

#14

Post by coldpie »

Vvector wrote: post #13

Leap Seconds need to be abolished. The only people who need it are Astronomers. They could just use an offset. Implementing leap seconds correctly is a huge burden, for no gain. Where I live, high noon today occurs at 1:03 PM. No one is complaining that it is 3 minutes (or 63 minutes) off. It's a non-issue for 99.9% of the population.

Hmm. I understand that perspective, but I'm not sure I agree. It does seem to matter over a relatively short & realistic time scale. According to the Wikipedia page, there have been 27 seconds added since 1972, which is only 44 years ago. At that rate, that's about 1 minute per 100 years. We have many systems that have existed for several centuries and I think it's not unreasonable to start making plans for systems that may exist for millennia, where you're starting to talk about a 10+ minute offset at the current rate.

But I do think there is a valid argument that the infrequency of these events cause more issues than maybe one large adjustment 500 years from now would cause. Not sure where I land on this one.

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

#15

Post by 8fingerlouie »

Vvector wrote: post #13

Leap Seconds need to be abolished. The only people who need it are Astronomers. They could just use an offset. Implementing leap seconds correctly is a huge burden, for no gain. Where I live, high noon today occurs at 1:03 PM. No one is complaining that it is 3 minutes (or 63 minutes) off. It's a non-issue for 99.9% of the population.

I mean, in 53 years we have added 27 leap seconds, so in 119 years you'll have to set your alarm a minute earlier if you still want to arrive on time.

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

#16

Post by xorcist »

Vvector wrote: post #13

Leap Seconds need to be abolished. The only people who need it are Astronomers. They could just use an offset. Implementing leap seconds correctly is a huge burden, for no gain. Where I live, high noon today occurs at 1:03 PM. No one is complaining that it is 3 minutes (or 63 minutes) off. It's a non-issue for 99.9% of the population.

Unless you want to abolish timezones entirely, which would simplify clocks but complicate a whole lot else in society, you're going to need leap-something. Would leap minutes or hours really be much better? The idea that doing things less often causes more problems is a reasonable one.

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

#17

Post by 8fingerlouie »

coldpie wrote: post #14
Vvector wrote: post #13

Leap Seconds need to be abolished. The only people who need it are Astronomers. They could just use an offset. Implementing leap seconds correctly is a huge burden, for no gain. Where I live, high noon today occurs at 1:03 PM. No one is complaining that it is 3 minutes (or 63 minutes) off. It's a non-issue for 99.9% of the population.

Hmm. I understand that perspective, but I'm not sure I agree. It does seem to matter over a relatively short & realistic time scale. According to the Wikipedia page, there have been 27 seconds added since 1972, which is only 44 years ago. At that rate, that's about 1 minute per 100 years. We have many systems that have existed for several centuries and I think it's not unreasonable to start making plans for systems t…

> since 1972, which is only 44 years ago

Thanks for making me a decade younger :)

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

#18

Post by [deleted] »

Vvector wrote: post #13

Leap Seconds need to be abolished. The only people who need it are Astronomers. They could just use an offset. Implementing leap seconds correctly is a huge burden, for no gain. Where I live, high noon today occurs at 1:03 PM. No one is complaining that it is 3 minutes (or 63 minutes) off. It's a non-issue for 99.9% of the population.

[deleted]

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

#20

Post by ralferoo »

coldpie wrote: post #14
Vvector wrote: post #13

Leap Seconds need to be abolished. The only people who need it are Astronomers. They could just use an offset. Implementing leap seconds correctly is a huge burden, for no gain. Where I live, high noon today occurs at 1:03 PM. No one is complaining that it is 3 minutes (or 63 minutes) off. It's a non-issue for 99.9% of the population.

Hmm. I understand that perspective, but I'm not sure I agree. It does seem to matter over a relatively short & realistic time scale. According to the Wikipedia page, there have been 27 seconds added since 1972, which is only 44 years ago. At that rate, that's about 1 minute per 100 years. We have many systems that have existed for several centuries and I think it's not unreasonable to start making plans for systems t…

The problem is that Earth's rotation isn't consistently faster. Some years leap seconds need to be added, some years they need to be removed. Would be far better to leave them alone, let them average out, and as the GP said let the people who care about this add the offset they need.
Post reply on HN