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Diploid
Cuban


Registered: 01/09/03
Posts: 19,274
Loc: Rabbit Hole
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2006 Will Arrive One Leap Second Late
#5124668 - 12/30/05 11:21 PM (18 years, 4 months ago) |
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One small step for time, as clocks leap forward 1 second
By Wu Chong (China Daily) Updated: 2005-12-31 07:06
The arrival of 2006 will be delayed by a "leap" second, due to the deceleration of the Earth's self-rotation.
All the clocks in the world will be reset on midnight of December 31, 2005, based on Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), by one whole second, to keep pace with the Earth's spin.
"Since China is eight hours ahead of GMT, we will add this leap second before 8 am on January 1," said Dou Zhong, a senior official with the National Time Service Centre.
People in the country who have shortwave radios or televisions can actually witness an extra second correction 7:59:60 being made between 7:59:59 am and 8:00:00 am.
It will be the 23rd leap second to be added since its introduction at the end of June 1972. And this year's leap second will be the first for seven years.
The extra second will allow the Earth to stay in sync with ultraprecise clocks, which mark time based on the vibration of atoms.
The correction is a result of the difference between International Atomic Time based on atomic clocks, and Universal Time, which is decided by the rotation of the Earth.
Universal Time changes as the speed of the earth's rotation changes, mostly due to the friction of tides raised by the Sun and Moon, astronomers said.
"The current time is actually 32 seconds behind that of 47 years ago," said Dou.
Though ordinary people will hardly be affected by the extra one second, some industries will, such as space research and global positioning systems.
Dou said domestic industries that are concerned were informed in advance. These include space and aviation, power systems, telecommunications, scientific research, earthquake monitoring and financial sectors.
However, complaints from communication engineers about the time correction are growing. They argue that it has increased difficulty of updating communication and navigation systems, as the change ultimately depends on the unpredictable slowing of the Earth's rotation, according to the American Astronomy Society (AAS).
This view has been rejected by astronomers.
Li Jing, a senior astronomer with the National Astronomical Observatories, said: "Human activities are highly dependent on the movement of the Sun and the Earth. It is necessary to adjust our time to what the Earth decides it to be."
"A difference of one second would lead a spacecraft to drop in a different place, delay our prediction of an earthquake or volcano eruption, or a failed rescue when using GPS."
Over a few decades, when the error might grow up to half a minute, lawyers and insurance companies might have disputes over whether an event occurred just before or after midnight, the AAS argued.
-------------------- Republican Values: 1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you. 2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child. 3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer. 4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.
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Ythan
ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ


Registered: 08/08/97
Posts: 18,840
Loc: NY/MA/VT Borderlands
Last seen: 5 seconds
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Re: 2006 Will Arrive One Leap Second Late [Re: Diploid]
#5124868 - 12/31/05 12:14 AM (18 years, 4 months ago) |
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Good thing I have a Waveceptor so I won't be a second behind!
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Learyfan
It's the psychedelic movement!


Registered: 04/20/01
Posts: 34,267
Loc: High pride!
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Re: 2006 Will Arrive One Leap Second Late [Re: Diploid]
#5126024 - 12/31/05 01:05 PM (18 years, 4 months ago) |
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Log in to view attachment
Uh oh, it's the Y26 bug! 
-------------------- -------------------------------- Mp3 of the month: Sons Of Adam - Feathered Fish
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Shdwstr
FSRCanada


Registered: 02/17/01
Posts: 2,156
Loc: Ontario, Canada
Last seen: 10 years, 5 months
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Re: 2006 Will Arrive One Leap Second Late [Re: Diploid]
#5126258 - 12/31/05 02:19 PM (18 years, 4 months ago) |
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I heard that 2006 was cancelled until further notice... no one wanted Bush to screw up another year
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chemiKalz
u r tripp0r?

Registered: 09/08/05
Posts: 761
Loc: upstate ny
Last seen: 11 years, 17 days
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Re: 2006 Will Arrive One Leap Second Late [Re: Shdwstr]
#5127903 - 01/01/06 12:10 AM (18 years, 4 months ago) |
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"Since China is eight hours ahead of GMT, we will add this leap second before 8 am on January 1," said Dou Zhong, a senior official with the National Time Service Centre.
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Diploid
Cuban


Registered: 01/09/03
Posts: 19,274
Loc: Rabbit Hole
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Re: 2006 Will Arrive One Leap Second Late [Re: Diploid]
#5127975 - 01/01/06 12:52 AM (18 years, 4 months ago) |
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http://blogs.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2005/12/new_exploit_for.html
New Exploit for Unpatched Windows Flaw
It appears we will be ringing in the new year with a new and improved exploit that online miscreants can use to attack an unpatched Microsoft Windows flaw and install spyware, viruses and other dangerous digital intruders.
The latest bit of malware takes advantage of the same Windows Metafile (files ending in .wmf) security hole that Security Fix warned about earlier this week, the one where Windows users can get infected just by clicking on a specially crafted link in an e-mail or visiting a Web site that hosts the malicious code.
The part that's different about this attack is that it's designed to generate slightly different program code each time the exploit is run -- creating a new threat with a random file size, non-WMF file extension (like .jpeg) and other variable tricks. The folks over at the SANS Internet Storm Center have more detailed information about the new exploit if you're interested.
This is a big deal because so far -- without a patch from Redmond to remedy this problem -- the major antivirus vendors have been the first lines of defense against this attack, and they have relied mainly on adding new signatures to their software to detect the latest threats each time a new one appears. But by changing the profile of the attack slightly with each iteration, the new exploit's random attack code has a far greater chance of slipping past software shields.
SANS said the random garbage added onto any attack code generated with the new exploit could make it very hard for anti-virus companies to develop signatures to detect the new threats.
Last week, I wrote about tests run by Andreas Marx of AV-Test.org that looked at the response time of various antivirus products to some of the largest computer worm outbreaks of 2005. This morning, Marx sent me an e-mail listing each of the products that now detect all 73 known versions of the old WMF exploit: those products included AntiVir, Avast!, BitDefender, ClamAV, Command, Dr Web, eSafe, eTrust-INO, eTrust-VET, Ewido, F-Secure, Fortinet, Kaspersky, McAfee, Nod32, Norman, Panda, Sophos, Symantec, Trend Micro, and VirusBuster.
But, Marx said, "It looks like that some of the 100% companies have simply added detections for all of the files I've sent out, without actually have a generic detection in place, but instead of this, 73 different signatures to detect all 73 different files. That's not good."
Not good indeed, given the morphing abilities of this new exploit. I suspect the 2006 work year will begin a bit too soon for many network and computer defense professionals out there.
-------------------- Republican Values: 1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you. 2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child. 3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer. 4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.
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