[LEAPSECS] An example

Poul-Henning Kamp phk at phk.freebsd.dk
Tue Nov 2 22:57:06 EDT 2010


In message <E1PDShh-00007x-BE at grus.atnf.CSIRO.AU>, Mark Calabretta writes:


>Do I understand correctly from your answer that you also don't

>discern any benefit from leap days?


Being non-religious: No, I don't really care. Being born in January
I wouldn't mind seeing a different season on my birthday.

But the comparison is not valid to begin with:

Leap days are predictable with a horizon of hundreds of years, nobody
has any reason to be suprised when they happen.

Leap seconds are erratic and are announced with only six months warning,
which is far too short for an economical implementation in many contexts.

If you tell me when the leap seconds will happen, at least 10 years
in advance, you can keep them for all I care.

Poul-Henning

PS: I belive you're sort of new here: I actually personally *LIKE*
leap seconds, the appeal to my time-geek nature. I just don't want
to see planes falling out of the sky because of them, and being
involved in a number of ATC applications, that is not an empty joke
for me.

--
Poul-Henning Kamp | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20
phk at FreeBSD.ORG | TCP/IP since RFC 956
FreeBSD committer | BSD since 4.3-tahoe
Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence.


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