[HN Gopher] What is a second?
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What is a second?
Author : zdw
Score : 17 points
Date : 2024-12-29 16:11 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.johndcook.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.johndcook.com)
| jader201 wrote:
| Related:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leap_second
|
| It seems like there's not much agreement on what to do about --
| or whether to even use -- leap seconds.
|
| Sounds like a fairly complex problem to solve, given such a
| relatively miniscule amount of time -- possibly even tougher than
| solving leap year and/or time zones/DST.
| Karellen wrote:
| A thought I've had is we should ignore leap seconds until the
| difference between UTC and timezone reference times (e.g. mean
| midnight at the Greenwich meridian) reaches some significant
| threshold, e.g. 5 minutes. At this point, all timezones
| worldwide should perform a coordinated shift by the threshold
| amount - so Europe/London moves from UTC+0000 to UTC+0005,
| Eastern Standard Time moves from UTC-0500 to UTC-0455, etc...
| and stay there until the difference reaches the threshold again
| (one way or another). We should get at least a couple of
| decades of forewarning if such a shift is likely to be needed,
| which should be enough to plan for and test the first
| migration.
|
| Whether this co-ordination involves everyone switching at the
| exact same instant, or each timezone switching at e.g. 01:30 in
| that timezone, is left as an exercise for the reader.
|
| Also... it pushes the first change far enough in the future
| that the people designing the rules likely won't have to worry
| about having to implement them. Which might make it easier to
| agree on them ;-)
| luxuryballs wrote:
| a 4 hour day/night cycle would be wild
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