[time-nuts] Leap second? Yay or nay?

Jim Palfreyman jim77742 at gmail.com
Mon Jul 2 00:24:33 UTC 2012


As an astronomer I've been a supporter of the current leap second situation
and have not really liked the idea of changing.

However, after yesterday I'm thinking of changing my mind.

I quite enjoyed having to go through and change all my clocks (including a
pendulum clock - now that's a pain!), but then the news came through that
Amadeus crashed worldwide. Passengers everywhere were left stranded for
hours because of this.

Y2K all over again - but this time something big happened.

This could also have been serious. Were planes tested in-flight for this? I
bet they weren't.

Software writers the world over are notorious for not fully testing their
code, so the leap second situation in our increasingly time-dependent world
has the potential to one day take a life.

Maybe it is time to swallow this bitter pill and remove the leap second.

I haven't jumped ship yet - but I'm very very close.

Thoughts?

Jim Palfreyman


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