982
xkcd #2867: DateTime (imgs.xkcd.com)

https://xkcd.com/2867

Alt text:

It's not just time zones and leap seconds. SI seconds on Earth are slower because of relativity, so there are time standards for space stuff (TCB, TGC) that use faster SI seconds than UTC/Unix time. T2 - T1 = [God doesn't know and the Devil isn't telling.]

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] nybble41@programming.dev 4 points 9 months ago

It might be more accurate to say that Unix time is the number of days since Jan 1st, 1970, scaled by 24×60×60. Though it gets a bit odd around the actual leap second since they aren't spread over the whole day. (In some ways that would be a more reasonable way to handle it; rather than repeating a second at midnight, just make all the seconds slightly longer that day.)

this post was submitted on 14 Dec 2023
982 points (99.2% liked)

xkcd

8582 readers
208 users here now

A community for a webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS