In message <001d01c614bd$d4096dc0$4f18f204_at_computer>, Tom Van Baak writes:
>The danger, though, is that in the 60s maybe ten systems
>were affected by leap seconds. In the 80s maybe a
>thousand. Today, the number of systems affected (or is
>it infected?) with leap second awareness is in the millions.
>
>I worry about this trend in the decades to come. I am
>a fan of leap seconds as a weird and curious nuisance
>but am not sure I like the idea that eventually my car,
>traffic lights, airlines, television, and my thermostat will
>have to be reliably tied to the IERS in order to function
>properly.
>
>Don't forget the quartz wristwatch is only 40 years old.
>What if cesium wristwatches show up 10 years from
>now. What if some killer app 40 years hence requires
>100 ms or 1 ms time accuracy. Do we still want UTC
>leap seconds when it will infect ten billion devices?
You mean like mobile phones and optical tele networks ?
We have those today.
>This is not an argument for change right now. But no
>matter how you look at it the current scheme does not
>scale well into the future; either a technological future
>(way too many devices affected by unscheduled time
>steps) or an astronomical future (way too many leap
>seconds a year).
Amen.
--
Poul-Henning Kamp | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20
phk_at_FreeBSD.ORG | TCP/IP since RFC 956
FreeBSD committer | BSD since 4.3-tahoe
Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence.
Received on Sun Jan 08 2006 - 23:19:25 PST