Thursday, 19 January 2012

1775 Revisited.

It’s been a day of quiet sadness today. The good thing about quiet sadness is that, unlike high anxiety and deep depression, it does at least allow you to continue functioning. And that’s why I was interested to see that Britain and America have gone to war again.

This time the issue isn’t tea and taxation, but the fate of the leap second – that’s the second that’s added to world clocks every so often to keep them in line with natural forces. The Colonists want to scrap the practice on the grounds that it confuses navigation and communication systems. The Crown wants to retain it to avoid long term consequences. The news report didn’t say which side the Mohawks took.

The first battle resulted in a stand off, apparently, and is to be rejoined in three years time. That’s 94,608,000 seconds... from...

Now.

2 comments:

Maria Sondule said...

Wow, I didn't know that a second was added on. Does the American Navy have a problem with Daylight Savings Time or Leap Year? If not, then a second isn't really much different, is it?
Of course, none of this matters to me, especially since my watch is perpetually three minutes slow.

JJ said...

The thing is, I don't know how often the second is added. Could be that we wouldn't notice the difference for about 500 years. I think we Brits just like long term planning.