[LEAPSECS] leap minute or hour

Steffen Nurpmeso steffen at sdaoden.eu
Mon Nov 14 16:16:50 EST 2022


Eric Scace wrote in
 <210D4E22-F86B-4EBE-B6EA-FE6B4FBFF15A at scace.org>:
 |   If a leap minute were to be added/removed at some future date when \
 |   UTC became significantly more that 30 seconds different from mean \
 |   solar time, many years could be made available (e.g., 20 years!) \
 |   to retire/replace/rewrite software for such an unusual event whose \
 |   occurrence is on a KNOWN date/time in the future.
 |
 |   This is much easier to deal with than writing code for future leap \
 |   second changes on dates yet to be established/promulgated.
 |
 |   As an example, if the delta was wandering around 40 seconds, BIPM \
 |   could announce a leap minute to occur twenty years from the date \
 |   of the announcement… and, if a sense of humor existed, put it on \
 |   Feb 29th of a leap year.

On the road of changing civil human time for the benefit of
machines lies madness.

--steffen
|
|Der Kragenbaer,                The moon bear,
|der holt sich munter           he cheerfully and one by one
|einen nach dem anderen runter  wa.ks himself off
|(By Robert Gernhardt)


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