For decades, we've used leap seconds to keep our computers in sync with
Earth's rotation time. Now, Meta and many others argue that new leap
seconds are more trouble than they're worth.
In her hit song, Cher sang, "If I could turn back time
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9n3A_-HRFfc>." For her, that would be a
good thing. But in the computing world, Meta, formerly Facebook,
believes it would be a very bad thing indeed. In fact, Meta wants to get
rid of leap seconds
<https://engineering.fb.com/2022/07/25/production-engineering/its-time-to-leave-the-leap-second-in-the-past/>,
which keep computing time in sync with Earth's rotational time.
Meta's not the only one that feels that way. The US National Institute
of Standards and Technology (NIST), its French equivalent (the Bureau
International de Poids et Mesures or BIPM), Amazon, Google, and
Microsoft all want to put an end to leap seconds.
Why? As Meta explained in a blog post
<https://engineering.fb.com/2022/07/25/production-engineering/its-time-to-leave-the-leap-second-in-the-past/>,
"We bump into problems whenever a leap second is introduced. And because
it's such a rare event, it devastates the community every time it
happens. With a growing demand for clock precision across all
industries, the leap second is now causing more damage than good,
resulting in disturbances and outages."
Therefore, Meta concludes, we should simply "stop the future
introduction of leap seconds."
https://www.zdnet.com/home-and-office/networking/tech-giants-want-to-put-an-end-to-leap-seconds/
--
Gabriel Goldberg, Computers and Publishing, [email protected]
3401 Silver Maple Place, Falls Church, VA 22042 (703) 204-0433
LinkedIn:http://www.linkedin.com/in/gabegold Twitter: GabeG0
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