[LEAPSECS] New Year in Times Square

[Poul-Henning Kamp]

In message <4D1EB623.2720.372137B4 at dan.tobias.name>, "Daniel R. Tobias" writes:


>I just watched the ball drop in Times Square (on TV, not in person!), 

>and noticed that my watch (auto-synced daily via radio signal) was 

>about 15 seconds fast [...]


In difference from analog tv/radio, digital transmission of broadcast
signals almost begs to be delayed.

For instance the MPEG encoder will delay the signal, to see if anything
big comes up in just a moment, which it should know about in order to
compress what it has right now.

Similarly, the MPEG decoder, will buffer some signal, so that it will
not stutter, should the transmission-chain hiccup.

And as mentioned, there may be a "tape-loop" to bleep words that only
your preschool kids can tell you what means.

As for the phone:  Sounds like a really bad use of voice-response kit.

-- 
Poul-Henning Kamp       | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20
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Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence.