[LEAPSECS] presentations from AAS Future of Time sessions

[Greg Hennessy]

On 01/14/2014 05:48 AM, Poul-Henning Kamp wrote:


> The defining feature of UTC is the bit they put in the name:  Coordinated.

>

> To everybody else but the scientists who tickled the atomic clocks,

> leap seconds was an academic detail of no consequence.


Maybe you think the defining feature of UTC is the Coordinated
part, others think the defining feature is the presence of leap seconds.

The people who wrote computer software considered the
plusses and minuses of doing a proper job verses doing
a half assed job, and decided to implement part of the job.

Now we are 40 years later, where many people want to keep track
of seconds, and there is no standard way to do it correctly.

And people argue that since computers don't match reality,
we should change reality.