The New Year is upon us, time to start swearing at ourselves at the supermarket counter as we write 2005 on our checks and have to cross it out in correction for the next month or so.
Turns out the Earth has been slowing down a bit and to compensate, a leap-second was added to 2005, right at the end. The last minute of the year had 61 seconds, meaning your clock officially read 11:59:60.00 before midnight, and not 11:59:59.
At 11:59:59 it’s fun to leap into the air, landing into the New Year. Hrmm, you know I bet I didn’t catch enough air to compensate for that leap second. But then again it was about 0200 EST Jan 1 at that moment so I’m sure you guys are thinking I was 2 hours late anyway… so who cares, Mike ?!?!?
What an excellent suggestion for the use of a New Year!
And, in fact, our little party we had here had people going well into 3AM by the time things were all said and done.
However, as you pointed out to us in Colorado, NoVA is so self-centered, that the only *real* acceptable form of midnight by any standard definition is obviously GMT -0500, q.e.d. Eastern Time — as observed by all the multi-player game environments where the characters wish you “goodnight” and tell you what time they’ll be back without specifying a time zone.
Actually, I think, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) added the extra second to the atomic clock at 7:00 PM EST on New Years eve.