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Time Lords Set for Three-Week Battle Over Leap Seconds

posted by janrinok on Sunday November 01 2015, @01:05PM   Printer-friendly
from the leap-or-not-to-leap dept.

Phoenix666 writes:

An upcoming International Telecommunication Union (ITU) conference is about to become an international battleground over whether or not to retain the leap second – the periodic adjustment of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) so it stays in agreement with atomic clocks.

The debate's expected to be so intense it will continue throughout the World Radiocommunication Conferences (WRC), which have an agenda spanning more than three weeks starting November 2.

In spite of frequent predictions of a leap second apocalypse, the last leap second passed pretty much without incident. Still, factions in the world of international standards keep the issue ticking over.

That wasn't the case in 2012, when Australian airlines Qantas and Virgin Australia both staggered when the Amadeus booking system crashed, and servers run by Mozilla, Reddit, Yelp, and FourSquare struggled. By contrast, 2015 was so unremarkable that some people argue we've worked out how to deal with leap seconds, so we may as well keep them.

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  • (Score: 2) by Gaaark on Sunday November 01 2015, @01:42PM

    by Gaaark (41) on Sunday November 01 2015, @01:42PM (#257149) Journal

    "Jelly baby?"

    --
    --- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  
    Total Score:   2  

  • (Score: 2) by kurenai.tsubasa on Sunday November 01 2015, @08:03PM

    by kurenai.tsubasa (5227) on Sunday November 01 2015, @08:03PM (#257242) Journal

    Yes, please. *noms*

    Meanwhile, Captain Jack Harkness has been getting to the BAD WOLF bottom of this nonsense (ok, he's probably a top). Anyway, I hear it's rather BAD WOLF complicated plot involving Blaidd Drwg, Inc out of Cardiff.

    Oh shi— the key of Rassilon! Trenzalore! Time paradox!

    • (Score: 2) by kurenai.tsubasa on Sunday November 01 2015, @08:12PM

      by kurenai.tsubasa (5227) on Sunday November 01 2015, @08:12PM (#257245) Journal

      Just give me a moment here… but whatever you do, DO NOT BLINK!

      • (Score: 2) by Gaaark on Sunday November 01 2015, @08:55PM

        by Gaaark (41) on Sunday November 01 2015, @08:55PM (#257254) Journal

        ...for if you do, "YOU WILL BE EXTERMINATED! EXXXXXTERMINATED!!!!!"

        --
        --- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 02 2015, @12:20AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 02 2015, @12:20AM (#257317)

        Just give me a moment here… but whatever you do, DO NOT BLINK!

        Or bother mentioning the good episodes of a poor reboot!