IERS ponders reverse leapsecond...

Wed Aug 10 18:58:43 UTC 2022

On Thu, Aug 4, 2022, 15:53 Forrest Christian (List Account) <
lists at packetflux.com> wrote:

> Having at least a part of one foot in the global time and frequency
> community I'd say that it seems that the consensus is building toward
> eliminating leap seconds.
>
> There was a vote planned in 2012 to do so after a straw poll showed that
> most member countries was in favor to do so.   But in a typical committee
> move they elected to study it more before making a decision.
>

Yes.

After all, modern democratic governance can solve any problem......

Next we should vote on those pesky leap years. They're the work of Julius
Cesar, some old white guy who owned a tone of slaves, so anything he came
up with is "problematic" and gotta go; and if you disagree someone's gonna
burn down your Walgreens in a peaceful demonstration.

You know, I seem to remember some government body voting a while ago to
simplify Pi to exactly 3.....

I think a much better answer to the nuisance of leap seconds (their
uncertainty), instead of dropping them all together, MIGHT be let them
build up for a century and deal with it every hundred years or every
thousand.  Maybe every decade?

That way when the scheduled time comes, you can be pretty confident an
adjustment is needed.  Whereas today its anyone's guess every 3 (6) months.

Then again, as fidgety as humanity is, saying no today might in practice BE
the same thing as putting it off until the next century.  Then in a few
generations they can play catch up if they really need to.

Maybe by 2300, we'll be able to snapshot Earth (and any other celestial
bodies then inhabited by man) and test the change in a 'sandbox' before
rolling it to prod.
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