[LEAPSECS] Leap smear

[Hal Murray]

> However, the tzdata approach ends up with no meaningful common sense

> definition. The offset becomes an ever increasing offset to some arbitrary

> clock to the length of day 500+ years ago that a bunch of time nerds back

> then was more important that the length of the solar day. I posit that

> people would be uncomfortable about that lack of ability to link the concept

> of time and offset to something meaningful, like a solar day. ....


Time zones don't make sense until somebody explains that the Earth is a 
sphere and rotates about its axis and such.  We don't have much troubles with 
them.

It's only one more step to explain that the rotation rate is decaying and 
that the length of the second that they picked way back when doesn't quite 
match a normal day any more and that here is this neat graph of the 
differences...  I'll bet third graders would pick it up.

[I'm not saying we should drop leap seconds, just that I don't think that 
"common sense" is a good enough reason to not do it.]


-- 
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