[LEAPSECS] [time-nuts] Leap Quirks

Rob Seaman seaman at noao.edu
Mon Jan 5 13:16:39 EST 2009


M. Warner Losh wrote:


> So leap seconds are hard, eh?


You know, it isn't as if we haven't been talking about this stuff for
nine years. We all know where the bodies are buried. Leap seconds
can be a bit awkward. Not having them is also awkward. But for most
purposes, a more frequent update schedule keeps individual updates (of
whatever sort) below a threshold for causing pain. Like I said, the
point of a leap second is to be ignored.

The recent leap second passed (yet again) with no major issues. That
being the case, one could use this fact to argue that we're spending a
lot of effort on a non-issue. Rather, I'm happy to continue working
toward a resolution satisfactory to all. Simply ignoring the issue
for a thousand years is not satisfactory.

Not to mention that hard problems are the fun ones :-)

However, I tendered the description of a floating point representation
of sexagesimal values for reasons orthogonal to leap seconds.

Rob



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