Monday, August 01, 2005

No More Leap Seconds?

Sez the WSJ:

Apparently, computers have problems when the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service (yes, that is a real group) has to add "leap seconds" to days to get human time (accurate) match up with what the planet Earth is doing (not so accurate). (Leap seconds are nothing. Think about what it would be like to be Gordon Jump's computer.) (OK, that's a reach.) So, to help out computer programmers, there is a proposal afoot to get rid of leap seconds, which would render sundials and sextants inaccurate. So if Magellan ever came forward in time, he'd have a heck of a time navigating (not that he didn't back then, either). I don't know. I like the idea of a computer suddenly thinking it's 62 o'clock. After all, I am a big fan of 25 O'Clock.

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