[LEAPSECS] IERS Message No. 129: Plots of Earth Orientation Data (fwd)

[Poul-Henning Kamp]

In message <98D91D01-1536-4EF2-A6BA-467F5AC0270A at noao.edu>, Rob Seaman writes:



>What clever chap was it who suggested ALWAYS having a leap second at  

>the end of each month - toggling positive and negative?  An actual  

>leap transition then becomes the omission of a (negative) leap.  Since  

>systems would have to deal with the monthly cadence they would be  

>forced to work correctly.  (Evolution trumps design any day.)  And  

>since a leap would be the absence of an event, nothing would break.


Provided you get the funding sorted out, I'm all for it.

Without funding, that proposal is deader than a doornail[1]


>> Should we make an informal bet on when the next leap second happens ?

>

>I'll take December 2008.  A Carlsberg Elephant (what do the locals  

>drink?) versus your choice from the Nimbus brewery in Tucson?


That was my guess too...

Elephants are falling out of fashion here, along with pretty much
any other Carlsberg product.  In the last couple of years Denmark
has gone from 8 to several thousand (mostly micro-)breweries as a 
tasteful revolution against industrialized beer has taken hold.

But I'll promise you a good beer if you pop around here, no matter what.

Poul-Henning

[1] For a quantification of this, see:
    http://www.amazon.com/Best-Annals-Improbable-Research/dp/0716730944

-- 
Poul-Henning Kamp       | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20
phk at FreeBSD.ORG         | TCP/IP since RFC 956
FreeBSD committer       | BSD since 4.3-tahoe    
Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence.