[LEAPSECS] Crunching Bulletin B numbers (POSIX time)

[Joe Gwinn]

At 5:13 PM -0500 2/19/11, Tim Shepard wrote:

>  >

>>  this is why leap seconds announced ten years in advanced

>>  are important: they allow for a stand-alone machine, albeit

>>  one that only needs to have it's software upgraded once in

>>  ten years.

>

>

>A stand alone machine is going to have its clock drift by more than a

>few seconds over 10 years.    Leap seconds are in the noise compared

>to errors due to accumulated drift of standalone machines.


Not necessarily.  A Rubidium clock will take a few thousand years to 
drift by a second.  So, we cannot assume that isolated machines have 
drifty clocks.



>If it has a way of receiving a time signal to stay synchronized, then

>it ought to have a way of receiving info about the leap seconds (if

>they even matter).


True.  But then it isn't isolated.


Joe Gwinn


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