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from the like-this-year-hasn't-been-long-enough dept.
Phys.org (among many other sites) is reporting on a leap second being added before the end of 2016:
As if 2016 has not been long enough, the year's dying minute will last an extra second to make up for time lost to Earth's slowing rotation, timekeepers say.
Countries that use Coordinated Universal Time—several West African nations, Britain, Ireland and Iceland—will add the leap second during the midnight countdown to 2017—making the year's final minute 61 seconds long.
For others, the timing will be determined by the time zone they live in, relative to UTC.
"This extra second, or leap second, makes it possible to align astronomical time, which is irregular and determined by Earth's rotation, with UTC which is extremely stable and has been determined by atomic clocks since 1967," the Paris Observatory said in a statement.
The observatory houses the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service (IERS), responsible for synchronising time.
"The sequence of dates of the UTC second markers will be: 2016 December 31 23h 59m 59s, 2016 December 31 23h 59m 60s, 2017 January 1, 0h 0m 0s," the IERS website states.
Here is the original IERS announcement. There have been times in the past when the addition of a leap-second caused havoc — it is non-trivial to update the clocks on all the systems in an organization at the same time. When activity "A" happens before activity "B", but because of inconsistent system clocks the timestamps imply otherwise, things can go sideways in a hurry.
(Score: 2) by mmcmonster on Friday December 30 2016, @05:48PM
Couldn't they pick any other day of the year to add the second? Why do it on the one day where people are focused on an exact second variation in time?
Or do they want to be the focus of conversation amongst non-geeks?
(Score: 5, Informative) by Dunbal on Friday December 30 2016, @05:53PM
It is one second in the day, not one second in every single time zone in the day. Unless your New Year happens to coincide with the UTC time zone, the leap second will have come and gone and you'll be none the wiser.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Friday December 30 2016, @06:11PM
Ah, i see you've played knifey--leap second before!
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 3, Funny) by maxwell demon on Friday December 30 2016, @07:06PM
As it does in the UK. Obviously it's a revenge for the Brexit. ;-)
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by Dunbal on Friday December 30 2016, @09:46PM
Get to stay a whole extra second in the EU huh? Don't worry, Theresa May and co are in absolutely no hurry to Brexit, apparently. Looks like it's probably going to be passed along to the next generation of politicians, and the next, and the next. See they figure it was mostly the over 40's that voted for Brexit. All they have to do is wait and we die off.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Friday December 30 2016, @09:33PM
I get my leap second squeezed in just before 7PM.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Gaaark on Friday December 30 2016, @06:29PM
it just means Trump won't be president for ONE. MORE. SECOND!
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 30 2016, @06:43PM
I just spent that long reading your post...and now, I'm in the hole.
I propose a leap year, an extra year that's inserted without changing the date. After a New Year's Eve that lasts 365 days (and one second) we'll all be ready for the Trump era.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Friday December 30 2016, @07:07PM
And give your employer an excuse to not pay you for a whole 365 days?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 31 2016, @02:47PM
Another year of 2016! Haven't enough celebrities died already? ;)