[GoLUG] cal 9 1752 and the Gregorian calendar revision

[Hendrik Boom]

On Fri, Mar 07, 2025 at 01:50:16PM +0000, David Billsbrough wrote:
> Kyle wrote:
> 
> > And *that* is one of the craziest things I have learned in a while.
> > The Western countries have one calendar, and the Eastern countries
> > have another. They just happen to coincide for several centuries,
> > partly out of design. After 28 February 2800, the East and West will
> > be off by one day, and someone will need to do something about it
> > again.
> 
> 
> Hello Super-Kyle,
> 
> Your research skills are very good ... now rest up for three days and then explain to us
> *all* about how modern hardware (computers and GPS units) keeps time and represents it!
> 
>    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_2038_problem
> 
> it appears that we will always have a 'best if used by' time limit on current/future technology.

And then there are the leap seconds.  They were inserted off and on
between years occaionally for a fe decades to adjust for variations
in the rotation speed of the earth.

But there has been a recent decision to abolish leap seconds.  Apparently
the confusion they caused for computer systems has been judged
more serious than a few seconds of clock drift.

It did disappoint me that the ceremonial new-year's countdown on television
never took the leap seconds into account, going straight from 11:59:59
to 12:00:00 without steppng through 11:59:60.

-- hendrik