[LEAPSECS] The ends we seek

[Mark Calabretta]

On Thu 2012/01/19 10:06:56 PDT, Warner Losh wrote
in a message to: Leap Second Discussion List <leapsecs at leapsecond.com>


>I'll point out that leap seconds redefined the reality that time was a

>uniform radix to be a non-uniform radix was also fairly arrogant,

>taking thousands of years of use and turning it on its head.


Leap seconds did for the clock what Julius Caesar did for the
calendar - 2000 years ago.


>Despite

>40 years for people to understand it and implement this widely, that

>hasn't happened yet.


It seemed to take a long time to get TF460 right, now in its 6th
revision.  And for most of the 40 years it was accessible only by
subscription - assuming that is, that you were even aware of its
existence.  Is it any wonder that leap seconds may not have been
implemented properly?

Even now the many people who refer to UTC as a "discontinuous"
time scale, many of whom should be expected to know better, seem
not to be aware of it.

Mark Calabretta