[ale] OT ntp - leap second - how many knew what this was 3 weeks ago

[Justin Goldberg]

I knew that a year in "rotational time" lasts 365 days, 6 hours, and
0.xx seconds. The 6 hours accounts for the leap day but I suppose the
leap second is only once every few years. I'll defer to wikipedia for
facts.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leap_second



On 7/4/12, Ron Frazier (ALE) <atllinuxenthinfo at techstarship.com> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> Around the beginning of this year, I was doing quite a bit of research into
> ntp and gps and eventually set up my own gps based ntp time server in both
> Linux and Windows. At the end of June, a leap second was inserted into the
> time sequences of the clocks on Earth. For those that may not know what that
> is, the atomic clocks are coordinated with the earth's rotation, so, for
> example, when the clock says noon, the sun is always roughly overhead.
> However, the earth's rotation speeds up and slows down at times.
> So,sometimes, we have to tweak the clocks to match the earth again. At the
> end of June, an extra second was inserted. Normally, the seconds go 58 ...
> 59 ... 00. This time, they went 58 ... 59 ... 60 ... 00. As it turns out,
> this crashed a number of servers.
>
> I find this very interesting, and somewhat scary as a potential programmer.
> Since I'm thinking of learning programming again, and since I have an
> interest in timekeeping, I have considered writing a world clock program
> etc., to show the time in different parts of the world. However, prior to my
> NTP research, I never knew about the leap second. So, there would have been
> a good possibility, had I written the program prior to this year, that my
> program would have crashed as well.
>
> So, my question is, how many of you knew about leap seconds prior to this
> incidence of it and prior to my describing it. If you were writing a clock
> program, would you have known to account for this?
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Ron
>
>
> --
>
> Sent from my Android Acer A500 tablet with bluetooth keyboard and K-9 Mail.
> Please excuse my potential brevity.
>
> (To whom it may concern. My email address has changed. Replying to former
> messages prior to 03/31/12 with my personal address will go to the wrong
> address. Please send all personal correspondence to the new address.)
>
> (PS - If you email me and don't get a quick response, you might want to
> call on the phone. I get about 300 emails per day from alternate energy
> mailing lists and such. I don't always see new email messages very
> quickly.)
>
> Ron Frazier
> 770-205-9422 (O) Leave a message.
> linuxdude AT techstarship.com
>


-- 
Looking for better conference calls? Try Uberconference:

http://uberconference.com/zevcxTpX