[LEAPSECS] Leap Sec vs Y2K

[Poul-Henning Kamp]

In message <1292189518.25675.85.camel at localhost>, Paul Sheer writes:


>I have a strong suspician that if someone put a gun to your head and

>said "Poul-Henning, we are not getting rid of leap seconds, but we are

>telling YOU to make sure those computers don't crash next December" that

>you would find that Poul-Henning suddenly started asking all the right

>questions and having all sorts of brain waves.


I wish you would have read the list-archives before you launch such
ridiculous straw-man arguments against me.

You wouldn't need to use a gun, all you'd have to do is promise to
pay the invoice I would send you.

The argument against leap-seconds is only in terms of money and
lives, wich money being the bigger of the two.

Leap-Seconds are expensive, because the require manual intervention
on operational short notice, and they will cost lives because humans
makes mistakes.

The question is:  Are the minor inconvenience astronomers will
suffer, by having to subscribe to a DUT distribution service, a
bigger issue than the money and lives leap seconds will cost.

Purist would say that until astronomers figure out how to kill
people with DUT one, they will never win that argument.

If Geophysicist announced leap seconds with at least 10 years
firm notice, 90% of the problems they cause would be eliminated
by the normal software update cycle.

And now:  Please shut your trap until you have taken time to find
out what we are talking about here.

Poul-Henning

-- 
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