[LEAPSECS] Testing computer leap-second handling

[Rob Seaman]

On Jul 9, 2012, at 8:53 AM, Warner Losh wrote:


> Try to bring up the leap second in most computing contexts and people roll their eyes at the annoying pedant in the corner who needs to get a life…


Perhaps less so in the future.  We should build on that.  We might start by sitting front and center, not in the corners.


>> There are multiple messages and messengers.  More deeply engrained yet is the simple fact that "day" on any planet, dwarf planet, or (spheroidal) moon means the synodic day.  There are one fewer days per year than rotations.  Orbital mechanics and the geophysics behind Earth orientation are hard, but the fact that we lap the Sun once per year is simple.

> 

> I'd say that's universal among astronomers, and people would give you the same annoying pedant in the corder scowls that leap second messengers get when you mention it outside astronomical domains.


May say more about us as messengers than the message :-)  The public treasures science and technology oddities.  Folks like Phil Plait (the "bad astronomer") and Neil deGrasse Tyson don't receive scowls:

	http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2012/06/30/wait-just-a-second-no-really-wait-just-a-second/

	http://www.startalkradio.net/show/time-lords-the-science-of-keeping-time/

I have a collaborator on another project who bursts out laughing whenever the subject comes up, but no scowls :-)

Rob