[LEAPSECS] Hetzner mail to customers: 1 megawatt more power due to leap second

[Warner Losh]

On Jul 5, 2012, at 10:50 AM, Michael Spacefalcon wrote:


> Carlos Alberto Lopez Perez <clopez at igalia.com> wrote:

> 

>> Computers are not designed to cope with random time drifts,

> 

> Mine are.  Please don't make blanket statements.


I think this was more of a comment about how fragile our modern infrastructure is when confronted with a Leap Second.  Bugs that existed in the system for years weren't fully deployed in time for the leap second. The result was what was outlined in the story.  Bugs that would have been trivial to identify had any testing actually been done, I might add.  And not only one bug, but 6 different, or interrelated bugs to boot.  People didn't take the leap second seriously, since it is only a second after all, so many people did understand the problems well enough and made the decision not to deploy.  Many others never heard of the problem because it is just a leap second after all, so didn't get much attention....

That's one of the big problems with Leap Seconds. People rarely take it seriously, so problems happen with great frequency.  Contrast this with leap days, which everybody takes seriously, and everybody prepares for and there are rarely problems with them, if you avoid Microsoft mp3 players.

Warner