On 2026-07-25 11:38 AM, Aaron Brown wrote:
On Sat, Jul 18, 2026 at 1:54 PM Tim Parenti via tz<[email protected]> wrote:
I noticed the poor quality of the article, too. In particular, these two
statements stood out as most jarring to me:
"Any system that uses elapsed-time calculations to rate-limit operations,
generate sequence numbers, or verify audit logs built on the assumption
that time only moves in one direction — and only stops momentarily, never
jumps."
This feels backwards, at best. Any system that can handle the positive
leap seconds we've already had can, in fact, deal with the fact that "time"
either slows, stops, or repeats, depending on the implementation. The
negative leap second is arguably the easier case, because time *does* only
end up moving in one direction — the discontinuity is the hard part, yes,
but no harder than the positive ones. Either speed up a bit or skip, but
time is always moving forward.
"At the rate Earth's rotation currently varies, a one-hour threshold would
not be reached for somewhere between 50 and 100 years, effectively making
both positive and negative leap seconds a concern for the distant future."
We managed with only 27 in the last ~half-century, and now 0 in a decade,
but somehow there's an imminent threat that we might need another 3600 so
quickly that we'd literally run out of months to put them in one by one?
The math isn't mathing here. It's not even remotely close.
I noticed that too. And, as has already been mentioned, I can understand
waiting until a minute of offset has accumulated before taking action, but
waiting until an hour of offset has accumulated seems like a really bad
idea.
In addition to the significant errors that have already pointed out, the
sentence "For most of history, Earth's rotation has been gradually slowing
— tidal friction from the moon drags on Earth's oceans, braking the
planet's spin by roughly two milliseconds per century." should really say "For
most of history, Earth's rotation has been gradually slowing — tidal
friction from the moon drags on Earth's oceans, braking the planet's spin
by roughly two milliseconds*/day* per century."
I am informed by a college who was in the meetings the adoption of a
"one - hour" adjustment was decided because the 1-hour DST shifts are
well known and accepted. A one-minute shift has no widely used precedent.
Draft Resolutions
of the General Conference
on Weights and Measures
(28th meeting)
13-15 October 2026
https://www.bipm.org/documents/d/guest/cgpm-2026-draft-resolutions
See:
Draft Resolution C
On the technical actions needed to ensure
the continuity of UTC
page 23
"decides that
- continuous UTC will become effective on 20 May 2027,
- the maximum value for the difference |UT1-UTC| will be 3 600 seconds
(1 hour), ensuring the
long-term continuity for UTC for several centuries..."
