U.S. Moves to Kill Leap Seconds 601
blacklite001 writes "Not content with merely extending Daylight Savings Time, the U.S. government now also proposes to eliminate leap seconds, according to a Wall Street Journal story. Their proposal, 'made secretly to a United Nations body,' includes adding 'a "leap hour" every 500 to 600 years.'
Hey, anyone remember the last bunch of people to mess with the calendar?"
now correct me if im wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
Apparently not... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Apparently not... (Score:2, Redundant)
The
Re:Apparently not... (Score:5, Interesting)
Bingo. You mean synchronization with precision like that which has been used for decades by the telco's (read: ITU jourisdiction). This is a problem what isn't one. Time is relative (sorry, couldn't resist.) I can't believe anyone, let alone Naval Observatory dude thinks in terms of sync to, essentially, a wall clock. That's why internal clocks are used. The time representation for someone looking at the 24 hr clock is simply a representation of an internal clock converted to something us dumb humans can relate to. Is this guy an idiot or what? If he'd been around many years ago, there wouldn't be binary systems, we'd all have to be on decimal systems, becuase he probably couldn't count either (That'll be his next recommendation.) And what happens when they try and add the 'leap hour'? I'm sure he looks at it like the deficit... he won't be around when it has to be taken into consideration. But I guarantee it'd make the millenium 'bug' (ie, original laziness) look like a cakewalk.
As for 'nobody uses a sextant' since we have good old GPS, tell that to the sailors not too many years ago who lost all nav equip and used hmm... a sextant. One NEVER abandons the ability to utilize alternate means of problem resolution. He figures there's no possibility GPS could ever fail or be subverted? Bad mistake. That's what kills people, not leap seconds. He'd probably be the one to say take INS out of planes since GPS works. Right. I'll never fly over the ocean if he's that ignorant.
Die - leap seconds - Die! (Score:2)
Re:Die - leap seconds - Die! (Score:5, Insightful)
WHy would you need to guess when? surely the seconds are added at arbitrary points as required, but I can't imagine it is done with no warning.
>> Imagine you make a very precise schedule in advance (e.g. scheduled events on a spacecraft) and then a leap second is announced and everything is then off by a second.
The industry I working does use highly complex systems where precise timing is critical. I can tell you from experience that you have to design for timing errors. They happen, not if but when.
Besides, assuming you've got a system that requires real-time function and accuracy to the second, why would you sync to outside time for anything but maintenance? Keep your timings relative to the system itself. Then you just need to worry about internal clocks...
Re:Apparently not... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I don't see how the problem occurs (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Apparently not... (Score:5, Interesting)
Since leap seconds are based on changes in the time period of Earth's rotation (the sidereal day), and the decay is both very slow and influenced by hard-to-predict factors, leap seconds are not reliably predictable. They can only be announced when they are necessary -- and so it is easy for the displayed time to drift if a leap second announcement is missed or ignored.
Leap hours, though, are different beasts. Virtually every piece of software in the world that displays time knows how to deal with the hour jumping forward or backward. That transition happens predictably and affects a huge number of users, so errors are easily noted.
Re:Apparently not... (Score:5, Insightful)
But the hour WON'T "jump forward or backward an hour". You'll either have a 23-hour or 25-hour day, plus it will only happen once every 500 years or so. When are you going to test it? When are you going to start putting it into programs? And you thought that programmers storing only 2 digits for the year were stupid and shortsighted...
The whole thing is a crock. Software that hardcodes in conversions between days/hours/minutes/seconds, AND needs to be so accurate to the rest of the world that it has to account for leap seconds, must be rewritten to use a standard library routine. Internally, it should simply keep a seconds counter, and base all intervals off of that. There's no excuse for doing it wrong, and code that does do it wrong should be rewritten if it is critical.
Re:Apparently not... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Apparently not... (Score:3, Informative)
There are many perfectly valid arguments against leap seconds. The difficulty in calculating the exact number of seconds between two events, the fact that calculations involving future times can give different results after leap seconds are declared, t
Network Time? (Score:5, Insightful)
But adding these ad hoc "leap seconds" -- the last one was tacked on in 1998 -- can be a big hassle for computers operating with software programs that never allowed for a 61-second minute, leading to glitches when the extra second passes.
Why would anyone need to set a 61-second minute to account for leap time other than the guys at NIST in charge of the official time? Just set all your computerized clocks to network sync. We have a network time server that re-syncs itself ever hour and then everything else checks that occasionaly. I've never had to do anything about a leap second except maybe be off by a second for a few hours until time resets itself...
That 0.01% of businesses that require absolute perfect time need to hire better software programmers rather than fscking with how we define time.
"OMGZ! Motorolla screwed up in 2003, and some Russians did the same in 1997! Let's pass a law to protect them!!!"
--
Don't fight Firefox! Let FireFox fight YOU! [bobpaul.org]
Re:Apparently not... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Apparently not... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:now correct me if im wrong (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:now correct me if im wrong (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, the 12 months was to align with the constellations of the zodiac so that certain constellations will be in the same place at the same time. It keeps astronomical calendars in tune.
Cultures which slavishly kept to a lunar calendar (another method of timekeeping, but it ignores the fact that we revolve around the sun) found that every bunch of years their months would be in the wrong season.
A month is an abstraction made by humans for timekeeping, there is no 'should have 13 months' that closely aligns with actual astronomical time passage, which is far more important.
Keeping track of solstices and equinoxes are really important when it comes to things like knowing when your seasons are changing.
Re:now correct me if im wrong (Score:3, Interesting)
Not necessarily. Make them 28 day months, and then in between Firstuary and Lastcember have a holiday (which doesn't get a day-of-the-week name) that lasts 1 or 2 days (depending on whether or not it's a leap year). Poof: the new 13-month year is exactly the same length as the current 12-month year.
The hard part is coming up with a name for the 13th month, and deciding where to put it. That would be a big political mess.
Re:now correct me if im wrong (Score:3, Informative)
It doesn't actually work. It is slowly (VERY SLOWLY) but surely moving off, because the leap month isn't adjusting exactly how much it needs to. I was surprised when I heard this, too - but someone I know programmed one of the Hebrew calendars (it uses GPS coords to calculate exact sunset - quite nice), and showed me the math. Turns out things end up misaligning ala the Islamic calendar, but only after a very long time from now.
Now, the reason it _used_ to work is that the rabbini
Re:now correct me if im wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
Why? If we switch to leap hours, the only software (and that's what the change is about) that will be disrupted by the change will be software that has to be working 500-600 years from now. A lot of programs could safely ignore leap hours, unlike now, when many programs can't ignore leap seconds.
If there were going to be radical changes made to timekeeping, I expect that decimal time would be the top candidate.
Well, this isn't a radical change like decimal time, in that it will have zero effect on John Doe's wrist watch. Second, decimal time is not exclusive with the leap hour; we could do both.
Have they thought about redefining the length of a second (and consequently minute, hour) to achieve these perfect 24-hour days?
Well, we actually can't predict too accurately the rate of the slowing of the Earth's rotation. Leap seconds are added not on a regular schedule, but only when astronomical measurements show they must be.
usual short-sighted thinking by the Americans.
Oh, I get it; you were trolling.
Re:now correct me if im wrong (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, you have two options. Measure time acurately according to the way we orbit the sun, or try to corral it so that it is easly expressable by computers but ultimately out of sync with actual astronomical time.
Yo
Re:now correct me if im wrong (Score:3, Insightful)
It depends on how you define 'accurate'. Our clocks are exceedingly good of measuring out precise intervals of time.
The Earth's rotation is 'accurate' in that it is an objective reflection of what actually happened.
The fact that the Earth's rotation is less mathematically perfect than our computers doesn't affect the 'accuracy' of measuring astronomical time.
Just look at all of the old civilizations whose monuments st
Re:now correct me if im wrong (Score:3, Interesting)
My watch and my alarm clock both set themselves from the signal broadcast by WWVB. That signal will tell my clock and watch if it's DST, whether there's a leap-second change coming up, and in what direction that leap second will go. There's no room for leap hours without changin the encoding standard for the radio broadcast. Changing DST has no effect on these timepieces (the radio signal ind
Re:now correct me if im wrong (Score:5, Informative)
The second is one of the fundamental units in the metric system. Many other units and constants are based on the second. For example, the speedometer in your car shows miles per hour, the speed of light is given in meters per second, etc. If we changed the value of the second, then either:
a. We'd be forcing the world scientific community to relearn an entire set of new constants, or, more likely,
b. There would be two definitions of the 'second', the US definition and the scientific definition.
I don't think either of these is really what we want.
Re:now correct me if im wrong (Score:2)
So then if a second was made longer then a spaceship whose velocity was approaching C would be able to go faster than it does now! Sweet!
Re:now correct me if im wrong (Score:2)
Re:now correct me if im wrong (Score:3, Funny)
Re:now correct me if im wrong (Score:3, Insightful)
c is a constant. Say that at location A there is little gravity affecting light. It takes a time of X to travel Y distance. At location B there is more gravity affecting light. It still takes time X to travel Y distance. If the speed of light is "slower," your perception of time is also altered.
Of course, if different parts of the galaxy have different laws of physics, or if the laws of physics change over time, th
Re:now correct me if im wrong (Score:4, Funny)
Simply being derived doesn't make them "bogus". Thus I fart in your general direction using an ideal gas. (note: R = 8.3144 x 10^7 erg mol^-1 K^-1)
Re:now correct me if im wrong (Score:3, Insightful)
More likely, 500 years from now we won't be using the rotation of the Earth as a time base, as a majority of people will be elsewhere.
Regardless, I think it's time that software that can't handle leap seconds be updated - piss poor programming isn't an excuse for glossing over an inconvenience of nature, especially when the proper programming is already easy to do. Leap seconds shouldn't affect an internal clock, so anything doing interval timing should be unaffected. The only thing that should really ca
Unfair to clockophiles! (Score:3, Funny)
Wait a second... (Score:2)
Re:Wait a second... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Wait a second... (Score:2, Funny)
snore... (Score:2, Redundant)
Leap Minute (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Leap Minute (Score:2)
What problems do you expect from being up to an hour off base if everyone is off the same amount?
Re:Leap Minute (Score:2)
The two aren't the same thing. The "leap year" thing is to adjust for the earth's orbit around the sun. Leap seconds adjust for the earth's rotation. Waiting until we are an hour off to realign with the earth's actual rotation would be like waiting till we were a full month off to adjust for the solar orbit.
GMT R.I,P. (Score:2)
So while there may be plenty of brits that think this is a silly idea (me included) it's got bog all to do with GMT.
HTH
Can we say what we will think 500 years from now? (Score:5, Insightful)
So 500 years from now, with a whole hour of time slip, what will they think of how we just decided to change the manner in which we adjust time?
In China, there is only one timezone, but it works terribly since half the country wakes up in the dark and the other half wakes up in bright sunlight. They have adapted to this by "unofficially" setting work hours according to the longitudinal timezone rather than the government-mandated timezone. I wonder if there were a huge leap second buildup whether people would just start waking up according to the absolute time rather than the political time.
I think it's a bad idea, and I can't think of the benefits. But I guess I'm not a scientist, so I wouldn't understand those issues.
Re:Can we say what we will think 500 years from no (Score:3, Interesting)
My feeling is that they should simply have a chronometer which keeps ISO standard time. Go ahead and use an hours-minutes-seconds based system so that people get used to it. Forget leap-seconds - no need for tha
Re:Can we say what we will think 500 years from no (Score:5, Insightful)
I can see it now... the day will shift mid-day. Try programming that one! The 23rd of August (for example) will change over in the MIDDLE OF A WORKDAY! Not only that, it'll change over at a different time in the work day (so sun's position, but in your proposal not physical time) for every region.
The whole point of time zones is to keep time reasonably standard no matter where you are. I can travel half way across the world and I still wake up at 8am, eat lunch at noon, dinner at 7pm, etc. The concept of a day is very engrained in us. Today is a Saturday! Imagine if it was also sunday based on my location.
Besides- the US would want to manage it, so they'd end up with the same time scheme they have now (probably picking up EST or Mountain as their base zone), while the rest of the world rolls over laughing at their proposal.
-M
Re:Can we say what we will think 500 years from no (Score:3, Interesting)
I eat lunch at mid-day (when the sun is roughly over head).
I eat dinner in the evening (usually when the sun is starting to descend).
I go to sleep at night (after dark.)
Does it really matter if I wake up at 0000 isntead of 0800? Does dinner taste differently at 1900 than it does at 1100?
Curious.
Re:Can we say what we will think 500 years from no (Score:3, Insightful)
Not really. we've already adjusted and programmed computers to deal with timezones. What's the point of making lives complicated for billions of people, just to solve a problem that doesn't even exist anymore?
Re:Can we say what we will think 500 years from no (Score:3, Insightful)
If you need to place a call to Zimbabwe now you look up the time, find the offset, and know what time it is there, and you guess if their business will be open at those times. In the new system you'd look up for offset, figure out if you'd be open in X hours, and guess about them based on that. Seems almost identical.
But, it offers a benefit of them being able to say "I work from X to Y" and you knowing what those times are becau
Re:Can we say what we will think 500 years from no (Score:3, Insightful)
And if techies couldn't cope with it, what about normal people. They would start almost instantly to use a relative time (or keep to the old time, government be damned). So it would only diminish the usefulness of "official time" and lead to more chaos.
- Erwin
Re:Can we say what we will think 500 years from no (Score:5, Insightful)
We're diurnal creatures and we liking having a time standard that takes that into account. You can't wish away biology with some global standard.
"My feeling is that they should simply have a chronometer which keeps ISO standard time. "
You misspelled BIPM.
"An office would set their working hours as 1830-0230 and that would be it. No changing the time in the summer/winter/etc. They could change their hours in the summer/winter though."
So, instead of just having to deal with jet lag when I cross multiple degrees of longitude in a short amount of time, I also have to cope with the fact that the operating hours of businesses I've grown accustomed to where I live have absoluntely no meaning here. Instead of today's world where, upon arriving, I simply press a few buttons on my watch, I now have to constantly apply a mathematical operation to what my watch says ("If I'm used to somethign happening at time X at home, then it must happen at X-Y here..."), that all but elminates the purpose of having a timepiece to begin with. I want to know what part of the day it is for the people around me, the people I have to interract with, and if a timepiece can't do that (indeed, begisn to serve as an obstacle to it), it's lost its purpose. I would literally be better off looking at the position of the sun in the sky, thereby eliminating several centuries of progress.
And where you suggest that businesses change their hours instead of simply changing the frame of reference (which is what DST represents), you're advocating a system that would bree chaos. Changing the frame of reference, by definition, is uniform. Every business continues to be adequately synchronized with the other businesses they must deal with in the course of the day. If everybody has to change their own hours, then all you'd do is introduce confusion until everybody agreed on a regular, synchronized change of hours outside of the so-called standard you're proposing (making the standard useless). And even then it would be less efficient than simply changing the clocks.
Have you ever had a physics class? If a problem is set in an ugly change of reference, would you rather constantly have to apply a long list of ugly transforms, or would you rather save yourself a lot of time and effort and simply change the frame of reference?
"An office on the other side of the country might start work at 1700 instead."
Your system also complicates communications across long distances. Time zones simplifies differences in time between two locations into an integer number of hours, allowing a simple calculation to be done after glancing at a clock set in the local frame of reference. Without time zones, everybody would attempt to set their operating times accoridng to time at the local meridian (again, going back to local solar time and making mechanical time standards worthless), and you'd be lucky if the difference between your times and theirs was an integer number of minutes. Intercontinental communications would require a degree of pre-arrangement (to first learn their hours of operation) to make sure that when you attempt to call them, they're there to answer the phone. On the other hand, today I know that businesses across the country (if not across the world) tend to stick with a "nine to five" work day, and all I would need to know is what state or country my
Re:Can we say what we will think 500 years from no (Score:5, Funny)
Except growing food, raising livestock, getting married, raising children, defending themselves, scheming, talking with neighbors, and saying, "Someday Martha, one of our great great great great great
I wonder if there were a huge leap second buildup whether people would just start waking up according to the absolute time rather than the political time.
Time is an arbitrary concept created by man. People get up according to when they have to be at work, and if that isn't sometime in the morning they get up when it is convenient for them. Some people have to be at work at 8, others at 9, some at 6 or 7. Where does politics come into this? All the government does is produce a standard benchmark time so we can communicate about time, and know that we will be understood.
Jesus saved me from my past. He can save you as well.
Did he really? Unless this is Jesus the Hispanic fireman, I don't buy it. Either a magic supernatural man in the clouds helped you, or you are confused about it. Occham's Razor anyone?
To illustrate this point, I encourage people to read this: http://www.somethingawful.com/articles.php?a=2800
Re:Can we say what we will think 500 years from no (Score:2, Funny)
Yeah, I've heard of it. Haven't seen it in action yet.
Re:Can we say what we will think 500 years from no (Score:2)
No, thats Athens...
More info (Score:5, Informative)
Hmm... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Hmm... (Score:5, Informative)
Section 8, Clause 5: To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures
Time is a measure, therefore they actually do thave the authority to regulate it.
Re:Hmm... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Hmm... (Score:2)
neat bit (Score:3, Insightful)
"The U.S. effort to abolish leap seconds is also firmly opposed by Britain, which would further lose status as the center of time. From 1884 to 1961, the world set its official clocks to Greenwich Mean Time, based on the actual rise and set of the stars as seen from the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, just outside London."
I had no idea there was still a physical basis for this. I assumed there was a master atomic clock.
I can see why the USA would do this: they move around the holidays to fit the work week (e.g. Monday or Friday, whichever's closest). Try doing that with Corpus Christi in Continental Europe: it would be considered totally absurd.
Re:neat bit (Score:3, Informative)
(also note that this ends 61, about the time atomic clocks became usable)
Re:neat bit (Score:3, Insightful)
I had no idea there was still a physical basis for this. I assumed there was a master atomic clock.
I'm fairly certain there was no atomic clock in 1884. hances are, the atomic clocks arrived on the scene around, oh, 1961 maybe?
Re:neat bit (Score:2)
Planet (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Planet (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Planet (Score:3, Interesting)
I wonder just how much mass would be required to adjust the length of a day by the required fraction of a second per year?
Re:Planet (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Planet (Score:3, Funny)
I say just blow up the moon, that little bastard is just slowing us down.
It'll happen soon enough, once we have moonbase alpha [space1999.net] there...
Shall the rest of the world.. (Score:2, Funny)
Best quote of the article (Score:5, Insightful)
The astronomers are not convinced. "If your navigation system causes two planes to crash because of a one-second error, you have worse problems than leap seconds," said Steve Allen, a University of California astronomer who maintains a Web site about leap seconds.
That's so right.
Big leap of faith... (Score:5, Informative)
I actually agree that leap seconds are a bit of a mess, and I wouldn't mind seeing a better solution. But the one proposed sounds a bit bizarre. Surely the real problem is an artifact of the infancy of computer systems and the ad hoc, non-general solutions to time representation we've been using due to very small address spaces that are rapidly falling by the wayside. Why not just delay the issuing of them for a couple of decades until we can think harder about the problem. Pretending that any law passed now is going to stand unused for hundreds of years before it has any effect seems a little
The connected geek question (Score:5, Interesting)
The problems don't come from the complexity of the underlying problem of adding leap seconds, but rather because leap seconds are added so infrequently that the code to handle the leap seconds isn't well tested.
So the real question here (to me, at least) is this: what do the leap second problems tell us about how software is developed?
Are people not thinking about leap seconds when they write code? Or are they thinking about them, but not testing the leap second cases properly? What's going on?
And how does the emergence of really big collections of APIs affect this? I mean, if people use standard routines for calendar functions, and if people keep their tools up to date, shouldn't these problems be mitigated? Shouldn't we be able to have some hard core calendar geeks solve the problem once in the API, and carry the rest of us?
If that doesn't work, why not?
We can solve this particular problem by changing the calendar. But what if we couldn't, and we had to try to address it with engineering practices? How would we proceed?
Re:The connected geek question (Score:4, Insightful)
Second, we are talking about a leap second, which happens once every year or so. Not often, but not never. This change is far outweighed by the normal timekeeping error, which for the average watch is like 3 minutes a year. The clock of a computer is not necessarily better. Also, we are only taking about clocks that need to keep track of the time, and not jut the passage of time.
As such we are really talking about a select set of software that much keep up with the time and not depend on a time server. If good techniques are used, the code to handle the leap second is one place, and good regression testing can check many different scenarios to insure that the code will work and changes do not break it. I am not saying it is trivail, but certain not prohibitively difficult. Since we are talking about network critical devices and specific military hardware, I do not see the problem with funding this development. What is really sounds like is that some people took government money for a project, and now want to changes the specs because they cannot do it.
The only other thing i can think of is that these apps are 20 years old and no one want to update them. There is some wisdom to letting working system run, but these are obviously not working. Next legislation will the pi=3, and francium will now be known as freedium.
last to mess with calendar (Score:2)
Double Standard? (Score:2)
Re:Double Standard? (Score:2)
Right. Two very different problems. The DST issue just involved aribtrary labeling of what time it is. The elapsed time in seconds doesn't change. But when the number of ticks in a minute does have to change, a lot of stuff breaks.
Stardate 1.00 ! (Score:2)
In Mr. Allen's view, absolutely not. "Time has basically always really meant what you measure when you put a stick in the ground and look at its shadow," he said.
I couldn't agree more.
The only sensible alternative is that we no longer keep time based on celestial mechanics, and we abolish leap days/year, daylight savings and the 365 day year too. Those are annoying to programmers like myself too.
Let's start counting in Stardates !
Government secrets (Score:2)
inaccurate (Score:2)
It would make much more sense to use more accurate measuring system like one that bases on half-life of isotopes.
Of course it would be rather inconvenient to say it's 12*10^6 past last decay of u-358, but it could be commonplace already to our great grandchildren.
Re:inaccurate (Score:2)
oh well, need more coffee
Astronomers will be unhappy (Score:5, Insightful)
It will make it harder to run telescopes, but also a number of navigational devices. The mention of the Glonass screwup is actually misleading - even if you abolish the leap second, you still have to have software in your satellites compensate for changes in Earth rotation rates - abolishing the leap second will not change that at all.
Probably the worst argument for getting rid of leap seconds is "they are rare anomalous events that cause potential danger for systems like ATC that are tightly coupled to time". That's misleading, though, because the proposal is actually to replace leap seconds with leap hours every 500 years. Which means that you replace a small, bi-annual anomaly with a gigantic one 500 years from now (on a scale larger than the Y2K bug, for sure.) Kicking the problem down the road so to speak - I'm not surprised it was originally suggested by a bunch of lazy programmers. Not to mention that that practice would mean that 400 years from now solar noon would be almost an hour away from actual noon (not that big a deal, of course, but annoying).
The argment for keeping the leap second is more than just tradition - it has practical value too.
Re:Astronomers will be unhappy (Score:2)
Well, solar noon is up to half an hour away from calendar noon now, for places near the edges of timezones. Somehow life goes on.
The last people to mess with the calendar (Score:2)
Haha.
Last bunch of people? (Score:3, Interesting)
And does this mean the Romans had leap seconds where they adjusted their atomic clocks to keep in synch with the sun?
I know much of /. will be complaining about how this is about the Bush Administration attacking science in their quest to please big business, but in reality from a purely scientific stance this makes sense. The definition of a second hasn't been linked to the Earth's orbit since 1967, so why should we keep on pretending it still is?
Wikipedia link off base. (Score:2)
Yeah, and Pi... (Score:2)
A Modest Proposal (Score:2)
Lunar Calendar Is Better (Score:2)
Doesn't this 'keep it simple' approach sound better than 'keep bandaiding it'? Yes, it is a huge switch as opposed to a minor ajustment, but you would never have to adjust again, and all of your time-keeping processes woul
Really Good Reference on Time (Score:2)
I have a hardcopy of a book called the Timing Reference Handbook. It is a fairly length tech note from a company called Austron, who got bought by Datum, who got bougth by someone else. At one point I know it was available as a PDF, but a quick search at the Datum website didn't reveal it, though. The interested party should be able to dig it up.
The book describes the difference between the various time bases (UT0, UT1, UT2, UTC, atamic time, etc) and gives some pretty good detail about why we have lea
Re:Really Good Reference on Time (Score:4, Informative)
This has everything you mentioned above, plus some very current research, the role of the USNO in the GPS satellite constellation, and even the history of timekeeping in the USA. On the whole an excellent resource to look at if you want to know more about time.
Whenever I setup a new system, I usually drop by their "what time is it" to set the clocks on systems (especially if I don't want to download or enable a nettime client). It will get you the correct time +/- 30 seconds with the web interface, which is as good or better than most casual users really care to get it anyway. Usually far more accurate than most people's watches as well.
Good question from a lazy asker... (Score:3, Interesting)
With our current system of leap seconds, does the Unix timestamp actually reflect the CORRECT number of seconds since Jan 1st, 1970?
Sure some of the Unices are probably different but I'm guessing that many of the implementations of the algorithm calculate the seconds with basic math using only leap years as the deviation from standard.
Ah, hell, maybe I'll go google it, too, but, I'll still ask here.
Re:Good question from a lazy asker... (Score:4, Informative)
It's easy to see where this is coming from... (Score:3, Interesting)
Ask yourself who benefits from this. The only answer I can come up with is software programmers, specifically OS programmers (programs usually read what time the OS is reporting). Which OS manufacturer has the most clout with the US gov.? Which company is reported to have the most liquid cash? To take a quote from Mr. Moore: Who your Daddy?
Egotistical maniac? (Score:5, Funny)
The Naming of the Months (Score:3, Interesting)
Janus [wikipedia.org]
Februus [wikipedia.org]
Mars [wikipedia.org]
Aphrodite [wikipedia.org] (actually a Greek goddess, but the Romans identified their [wikipedia.org] gods and the Greek gods together)
Maia [wikipedia.org] (another Greek goddess, the Roman name is Bona Dea [wikipedia.org])
Juno [wikipedia.org]
I also knew that July and August were named after Julius & Augustus Caesar. After August, the months are named with their numbers.
September (7)
October (8)
November (9)
December (10)
But wait! Those numbers aren't right! And here began my speculation. I figured the Romans (like most 10-fingered humans) were fond of 10 (X in Roman numerals), so they may have started with 10 months (which actually is the case). I also assumed that August and July were the last months added to the calender, based of their being named after Julius and Augustus Caesar (this assumption turns out to be false; January and February were the last months to be added to the Roman calender: the Romans originally considered winter to be monthless). I found the (incorrect, of course) conclusion of my speculation to be rather humourous: the Roman calender began with ten months, until Julius Caesar came along, and decided he was important enough that he deserved his own month, and so he created July. He wasn't arrogant enough to think he was more important than the gods, but he was more important than just a bunch of numbers, so he sticks July after the months named after the gods, but before the numbered months. That changes the numbering, but the names from the old numbering stuck. Augustus Caesar dittoed Julius Caesar.
Sadly, the explanation based on research rather than speculation that Wikipedia gives for the number mismatch is not so humourous. They simply say that March was originally the first month. But I always thought (incorrectly, it seems) that January was named for Janus, the god of Beginnings and Endings, because it was the first month of the year, that marked the end of the old year and the beginning of the new year. But even when January became the first month, it wasn't because of Janus, but rather because the Roman consuls had a year long term, and took office on the 1st of January.
Re:Heh (Score:2)
Re:Heh (Score:3, Interesting)
Not that a little reality will get in the way of bashing the US...
Re:The _last_ bunch? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Lazy Americans... (Score:2)
The savings from the time change are much less than a cost of doing that.
Unfortunately, the cost of eliminating this idiocy is to big now
Re:Birthdays (Score:2)
A leap year would be a whole new year inserted in the calendar, and it's a possibility in the future that something like this may happen.
Re:Birthdays (Score:2)
Maybe the extra year will be called 2005½.
Re:Birthdays (Score:3, Insightful)
No, it's not. The point of leap periods is to maintain the length of the day and the year to their astronomical counterparts. Inserting a year would do absolutely no good towards any end as there is no astronomical measurement beyond a year that is used in the standard time measurements.
Re:Birthdays (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Oh No! (Score:2)
That's not exactly clear. Sometimes the law in the US says "Implement international treaty X" -- especially if X is a technical standard. If the treaty provides for an international body to define the standard, and that body defines it differently, then the change would automatically propagate into US law. The basic idea is, some things are better decided by teams of arcane experts than by elected representatives. No