Time Lords kill leap seconds, before they become the new Y2K bug

The Time Lords at the General Conference on Weights and Measures (GCPM) have decided to cease introducing leap seconds. This decision is due to the potential issues they could cause with Internet of Things (IoT) devices and the risk of a Y2K-scale remediation effort. The General Conference harmonizes Universal Time (UT1) and Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) standards, which are used to set time for humans.

Earth's rotation speed is variable, so leap seconds are added when needed to keep UT1 and UTC in sync. However, recent years have seen debates about the implementation of leap seconds, as they become harder to manage with billions of devices in use that share timing data. The possibility of a negative leap second has been a major concern, as it is considered to pose a high risk of disrupting critical infrastructures that are largely unprepared.

The Time Lords estimate the financial investment required to mitigate such risks to be similar to the costs incurred during the millennium bug remediation in the late 1990s. They also worry about the potential malfunction of connected devices and inconsistencies in timing between different systems due to the use of various mitigation methods for leap second introductions.

To address these concerns, the GCPM is implementing a new scheme called Continuous UTC, which will allow UT1 and UTC to diverge by up to 3,600 seconds. This change is set to come into effect next year.