Philip Rowlands, Jane Street
This is a talk about calendars, clocks, and computers. We’ll look at the metrology of the second, from candles to atoms, and consider how your phone always seems to know the right time.
If you’ve ever wondered why is today Thursday? or how was the Gregorian calendar adopted? then come and learn the mistakes to avoid the next time you are the Pope.
If you’ve ever wondered why do these two clocks disagree? then come and learn about the challenges of finding the elusive perfect tick, and why it’s not at the top of Mount Everest.
And if you’ve ever wondered how calendars and clocks work together in modern computer systems, then come and learn about protocols and APIs for keeping clocks reliable and accurate.
Philip Rowlands, Jane Street
Philip Rowlands has been an SRE since before he really understood what it meant. He has worked over the years on automated telephony, Google Production SRE, Mainframe Linux, and more recently for various financial firms, all of which had timekeeping challenges.
author = {Philip Rowlands},
title = {You Depend on Time, This Is How It Works and You {Won{\textquoteright}t} Believe It},
year = {2024},
address = {Dublin},
publisher = {USENIX Association},
month = oct
}
