poltr1 | Leap second, or 23:59:60.....

For those of you that care about such minutia, the time gods at NIST (in association with the time standards bureaus of other countries) are adding a "leap second" to the atomic clocks this year at precisely 23:59:59 GMT 31 Dec 2005. Instead of going right to 00:00:00 GMT 01 Jan 2006, the clock will momentary read 23:59:60 before advancing to 00:00:00.

Now, most people don't care about this small of a time adjustment, but if you're heavily into astronomy, maintain a computer network where system time is critical, require a high degree of precision on time values, or dropping the ball on Times Square, it's an important issue.

The leap second is being added because the earth's rotation has slowed ever so slightly that the earth's time -- Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), aka Grenwich Mean Time (GMT) -- is no longer in sync with astronomical time (UT1), and needs an adjustment to stay in sync.

More info: tf.nist.gov/timefreq/general/leaps.htm

Bottom line: We get an extra second on New Year's Eve, so in the meantime, let's party!