Vote To Eliminate Leap Seconds

Mortimer.CA writes "As discussed on Slashdot previously, there is a proposal to remove leap seconds from UTC (nee 'Greenwich' time). It will be put to a vote to ITU member states during 2008, and if 70% agree, the leap second will be eliminated by 2013. There is some debate as to whether this change is a good or bad idea. The proposal calls for a 'leap-hour' in about 600 years, which nobody seems to believe is a good idea. One philosophical point opponents make is that the 'official' time on Earth should match the time of the sun and heavens."

Wait

[Monkeys!!!]

Just hang on a sec....

Re:year 2612 bug anyone?

[Thanshin]

We call this "putting off the problem".

We can ignore the problem then too. Eventually, morning and evening will be on different days. We might just gain or lose a whole day. Heck, we can ignore the problem forever. We'll be off by a year, then a decade...

 

Ok guys. We're in California, it's midday 26th June while I have snow falling on my face and I can't see shit because it's new moon.

How many seconds was it already?

Chrono-noobs!

[hedgemage]

I've been keeping time with my sundial and temple-top observatory the way Ra intended! Damn you kids and your new-fangled timekeeping.

Re:Metric time?

[CalicoDreams]

Why use metric time when you can use Imperial time!!!

Re:year 2612 bug anyone?

[aevan]

In other news, people in 2612 voted to put off the issue of 'leap hours' until 16412, where they propose to add a 'leap day', ostensibly in February.

This is why...

[MegaMahr]

This is why I refuse to set the time on my VCR...

Re:Metric time?

[Amiralul]

Or better, wake up at 256, eat lunch at 512 andd GOTO sleep at 1024.

600 years? Who will remember?

[damaki]

Yeah, this 600 years stuff is nice but who will remember to adjust clocks in 600 years? It's far better to have an instantaneous solution to the problem than a remote one.

Re:Yup.

[aproposofwhat]

Oblig. Python quote:

Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving
And revolving at nine hundred miles an hour,
That's orbiting at nineteen miles a second, so it's reckoned,
A sun that is the source of all our power.
The sun and you and me and all the stars that we can see
Are moving at a million miles a day
In an outer spiral arm, at forty thousand miles an hour,
Of the galaxy we call the 'Milky Way'.

Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars.
It's a hundred thousand light years side to side.
It bulges in the middle, sixteen thousand light years thick,
But out by us, it's just three thousand light years wide.
We're thirty thousand light years from galactic central point.
We go 'round every two hundred million years,
And our galaxy is only one of millions of billions
In this amazing and expanding universe.

The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding
In all of the directions it can whizz
As fast as it can go, at the speed of light, you know,
Twelve million miles a minute, and that's the fastest speed there is.
So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure,
How amazingly unlikely is your birth,
And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space,
'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth.

Re:Metric time?

[Slashidiot]

Yay, imperial time!

The smallest unit is the "Moment", and then the "While" (or, less used, the "Whilst"). A while is about 14.4 moments. Then you have the "long while", which is 13.8 whiles, then the "time", and "long time"...

For example, it took me a while and three moments to write this comment. I'm not a quick typer...

Steer the Earth

[SirStiff]

We could just fire off some nukes every six months or year to control the orbital speed of the earth around the sun. Just keep tuning the orbit to our atomic clocks instead of vice-versa.

Re:Please take some care with editing...

[Hal_Porter]

Maybe he's talking about Mr Nobody.

Re:A 'leap-hour' in about 600 years

[jmv]

Who wants to bet that in 600 years, they'll decide to scrap the leap-hour and instead have a leap-day in 13800 years?

Change time

[Joebert]

I think it would be soo much easier to throw away our clocks & base everything on the number of seconds since 00:00:00 January 1st 1979 from now on.

Come on it's been nearly 2008 years since we had BC, it's time for a change !

Bam

[multiferroic]

Buffer overflow [R]estart [R]eboot [R]einstall

Re:South.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, and tomorrow when the sun is exactly in the south at 12:40:00.0164 PM you will be completely disoriented, because when you use that sun to navigate the 10 km between your home and work you will end up at 0.0164 meters from your intended location.

not quite oblig. Simpsons quote

[weighn]

sure, [eliminating leap seconds] may save a few lives... but thousands will be late

Re:If it ain't broke...

[NMerriam]

In this day and age, do we really have to keep lining up our time system to astronomy events, rather than realizing that time is actually linear

time clod insensitive, live some of in nonlinear us you!

Re:Wait

[therufus]

It's about time!

Re:year 2612 bug anyone?

[Warg! The Orcs!!]

16412 is also a leap year The extra day in February would be the ultra rare 30th of February. It's worth doing even if you have to wait 14405 years for it work.

Re:Wait

[PygmyShrew]

Is that a normal second, or a cotton-pickin' second?

Re:Please take some care with editing...

[Idontneed Nobody]

That's right, it is a good idea.

Re:Your post - Bollocks

[Halcyonandon]

Or, a closed fist could represent 6.

Or, why stop at 12? Just use your ten fingers to represent a binary number. Make sure you order the bits properly! We'd certainly end up a more dexterous population...

Re:Your post - Bollocks

[Anonymous Coward]

From Wikipedia:

The person who carries out the glass attack may smash his or her glass on a hard surface, perhaps the side of the bar, and then grip the remaining base of the glass, with the broken shards protruding outwards, and then carry out the attack using arm strength to ram the broken glass in to the face of the victim.[citation needed]

citation needed? What the hell?

Some numbers...

[Cadre]

Just use your ten fingers to represent a binary number. Make sure you order the bits properly! We'd certainly end up a more dexterous population...

That would be an interesting transition period as people got used to indicating or recognizing the numbers 4 or 128...

Re:year 2612 bug anyone?

[backwardMechanic]

That's a long time to wait for a birthday for the poor kid born on Feb 30th!

Re:Wait

[Anne_Nonymous]

Damn the ITU member states and their sloppy seconds.

Re:Metric time?

[Bloke down the pub]

We used to have 120 pence to the pound in the UK.

Hate to break it to you, but your mum was ripping you off on your pocket-money.

My Favorite Reason

[Womens Shoes]

I think the best reason they gave for keeping leap seconds is:

abandoning leap seconds would break sundials.

Won't somebody think of the sundials!? I mean, c'mon! Sundials are cool and important! And what about Stonehenge?

Actually, I'm in favor of keeping UT1 and TAI in sync. But not for the sundials :)

Re:Some numbers...

[ultranova]

That would be an interesting transition period as people got used to indicating or recognizing the numbers 4 or 128...

Take one hundred
Binary add thirty two
Fingers say fuck you