Eight more years of leap-second problems loom as governments punt decision to 2023

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Tick. Tick. Tick. Clang! That was the sound of an intergovernmental conference kicking the leap-second can down the road. Sysadmins will be dealing with the consequences for the next eight years.

Just as adding an extra day in leap years helps us keep our calendars in step with the rotation of the earth around the sun, adding occasional leap seconds to Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) allows us to keep this time reference in step with the earth’s gradually slowing rotation. Without adjustment, there would be about a minute’s difference between the two by 2100.

Leap seconds are great if you’re using your time reference to note exactly when the sun should be directly overhead, or when certain stars should be in view, but for keeping a bunch of servers or Internet routers in sync around the world, continuity matters more than your place in the universe.

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Source: Internet

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