International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service | Hacker News Reader

International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service

iers.org

53 pointsthunderbong10 comments

I wish they hadn’t changed their name from the more evocative “International Earth Rotation Service”. It used to make me think, “What if we stopped paying them and they stopped cranking?”

More seriously though, it should remind us all of what a web of relationships and interdependence we have. Those clowns who blithely say “We should just fire half of the civil service” don’t even understand how things (barely) work. Its only thanks to the quiet efforts of others (in this case halfway around the world) we can do our own things.

> I wish they hadn’t changed their name from the more evocative “International Earth Rotation Service”. It used to make me think, “What if we stopped paying them and they stopped cranking?”

They always had the single most impressive name for any organization, anywhere. It's a shame it changed.

Edit: typo

I always imagined them as some kind of ancient, secret order dedicated to ensuring that the earth continues to rotate - but also ruthlessly hunting down and destroying any evidence that it once didn't.

Paging Dan Brown...

I recall that the US NIST also had some office in Colorado called the Earth Rotation Service. Maybe you can still call them if there is any problem.

Earlier this year I gave a short presentation which gives some context to the work of the IERS https://dotat.at/@/2023-05-26-whence-time.html

Defund the IERS so they can't create any more leap seconds.

Leap seconds are going to be abolished. Should be confirmed at WRC 2023 later this year.

https://www.itu.int/dms_pub/itu-r/opb/rep/R-REP-TF.2511-2022...

https://www.itu.int/hub/publication/s-gen-news-2023-2/

It’s only because they are slack. If they were more diligent with their cranking the days could last a consistent duration.

I assume they have a 24 hour SLA

No, it's only 23.9344696 hours.

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