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Welcome to IWETHEY!

New Actually it's slowing down a bit every day...
That's where leap-seconds come from.
Regards,

-scott anderson

"Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson..."
New So I actually do have extra time in each day?
Follow your MOUSE
New Not so's you notice :-(
You know...Stuff expands to fill the time youhave allotted for it...Plus 10%....
jb4
"Every Repbulican who wants to defend Bush on [the expansion of Presidential powers], should be forced to say, 'I wouldn't hesitate to see President Hillary Rodham Clinton have the same authority'."
&mdash an unidentified letter writer to Newsweek on the expansion of executive powers under the Bush administration
New We had a leap second last year.
I even posted about it showing up in the logs.
--
[link|mailto:greg@gregfolkert.net|greg],
[link|http://www.iwethey.org/ed_curry|REMEMBER ED CURRY!] @ iwethey
Freedom is not FREE.
Yeah, but 10s of Trillions of US Dollars?
SELECT * FROM scog WHERE ethics > 0;

0 rows returned.
New You literalists are a pain . . .
. . and a drag on the language - but to be literal, let's see you control the spin.
[link|http://www.aaxnet.com|AAx]
New Every move you make...
Has some effect! HA!

Take THAT, you Litteralist picayune show-off.
--
[link|mailto:greg@gregfolkert.net|greg],
[link|http://www.iwethey.org/ed_curry|REMEMBER ED CURRY!] @ iwethey
Freedom is not FREE.
Yeah, but 10s of Trillions of US Dollars?
SELECT * FROM scog WHERE ethics > 0;

0 rows returned.
New Re: Every move you make...
It doesn't count as "control" unless the effect is purposeful. You walk east, it slows the rotation down, but guess what - you're going to have to walk west to get back. That's not control, that's just a consequence of physics.

Now when you've got a zillion people running around at cross purposes, that's entirely out of control.
[link|http://www.aaxnet.com|AAx]
New Talk to my PR agent if you want spin control.
Regards,

-scott anderson

"Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson..."
New Nope
Leap seconds (which can be positive or negative, though recent ones have been positive) come from the fact that the Earth's spin has a tiny amount of variation in it from year to year.

The day getting longer is a significantly slower effect.

Cheers,
Ben
I have come to believe that idealism without discipline is a quick road to disaster, while discipline without idealism is pointless. -- Aaron Ward (my brother)
New Give me *some* credit.
Another semester in school and I would have had a bachelor's in Astronomy.

[link|http://tycho.usno.navy.mil/leapsec.html|http://tycho.usno.navy.mil/leapsec.html]

The Earth is constantly undergoing a deceleration caused by the braking action of the tides. Through the use of ancient observations of eclipses, it is possible to determine the average deceleration of the Earth to be roughly 1.4 milliseconds per day per century. This deceleration causes the Earth's rotational time to slow with respect to the atomic clock time. Thus, the definition of the ephemeris second embodied in Newcomb's motion of the Sun was implicitly equal to the average mean solar second over the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Modern studies have indicated that the epoch at which the mean solar day was exactly 86,400 SI seconds was approximately 1820. This is also the approximate mean epoch of the observations analyzed by Newcomb, ranging in date from 1750 to 1892, that resulted in the definition of the mean solar day on the scale of Ephemeris Time. Before then, the mean solar day was shorter than 86,400 seconds and since then it has been longer than 86,400 seconds.

The length of the mean solar day has increased by roughly 2 milliseconds since it was exactly 86,400 seconds of atomic time about 1.79 centuries ago (i.e. the 179 year difference between 1999 and 1820). That is, the length of the mean solar day is at present about 86,400.002 seconds instead of exactly 86,400 seconds. Over the course of one year, the difference accumulates to almost one second, which is compensated by the insertion of a leap second into the scale of UTC with a current regularity of a little less than once per year. Other factors also affect the Earth, some in unpredictable ways, so that it is necessary to monitor the Earth's rotation continuously.

In order to keep the cumulative difference in UT1-UTC less than 0.9 seconds, a leap second is added to the atomic time to decrease the difference between the two. This leap second can be either positive or negative depending on the Earth's rotation. Since the first leap second in 1972, all leap seconds have been positive and there were 23 leap seconds in the 34 years to January, 2006. This pattern reflects the general slowing trend of the Earth due to tidal braking.

Confusion sometimes arises over the misconception that the regular insertion of leap seconds every few years indicates that the Earth should stop rotating within a few millennia. The confusion arises because some mistake leap seconds for a measure of the rate at which the Earth is slowing. The 1 second increments are, however, indications of the accumulated difference in time between the two systems. (Also, it is important to note that the current difference in the length of day from 86,400 seconds is the accumulation over nearly two centuries, not just the previous year.) As an example, the situation is similar to what would happen if a person owned a watch that lost 2 seconds per day. If it were set to a perfect clock today, the watch would be found to be slow by 2 seconds tomorrow. At the end of a month, the watch will be roughly a minute in error (30 days of 2 second error accumulated each day). The person would then find it convenient to reset the watch by one minute to have the correct time again.
We wouldn't have leap seconds if the earth weren't slowing. The mean solar day is increasing in length, so to have a uniform clock we have to periodically account for the accumulated difference. I didn't say "the earth is slowing a second every year". But the increased length of the day is definitely where leap seconds come from.

The direction of the leap second comes from the variation in spin. Over the long run, though, they tend positive, and the current 2 second difference is entirely due to the slowing of the earth's spin.
Regards,

-scott anderson

"Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson..."
New I stand corrected. My apologies.
I have come to believe that idealism without discipline is a quick road to disaster, while discipline without idealism is pointless. -- Aaron Ward (my brother)
New What a dumbass
Well, this is the flame forum. We can't end a thread on an apology.
===

Purveyor of Doc Hope's [link|http://DocHope.com|fresh-baked dog biscuits and pet treats].
[link|http://DocHope.com|http://DocHope.com]
New Shit for brains!
Yes we fucking CAN end a thread that way.

Stupid GIT!
--
[link|mailto:greg@gregfolkert.net|greg],
[link|http://www.iwethey.org/ed_curry|REMEMBER ED CURRY!] @ iwethey
Freedom is not FREE.
Yeah, but 10s of Trillions of US Dollars?
SELECT * FROM scog WHERE ethics > 0;

0 rows returned.
New I stand corrected. My apologies.








Dumbass.

===

Purveyor of Doc Hope's [link|http://DocHope.com|fresh-baked dog biscuits and pet treats].
[link|http://DocHope.com|http://DocHope.com]
New Now piss off and die!
I have come to believe that idealism without discipline is a quick road to disaster, while discipline without idealism is pointless. -- Aaron Ward (my brother)
New What the...
Fuck was that?

I came here for an a\ufffdru\ufffdgu\ufffdla\ufffdment!

As\ufffdpar\ufffda\ufffdgus is concerned you are tos\ufffdta\ufffdda hear.
--
[link|mailto:greg@gregfolkert.net|greg],
[link|http://www.iwethey.org/ed_curry|REMEMBER ED CURRY!] @ iwethey
Freedom is not FREE.
Yeah, but 10s of Trillions of US Dollars?
SELECT * FROM scog WHERE ethics > 0;

0 rows returned.
New Actually, it *would* have created a nice symmetry...
...and contrast to my brainfart the other day, when I thought your post was in this forum and it turned out it wasn't.

Ben could have made up, so to speak, for my (inadvertent, for once. In some sense) rudeness.

So thanks a whole fucking lot for fucking that up, you fucking moron![*]




[*]: Yeah, well, if I tried to do it myself now, intentionally, it wouldn't count, now would it?

ObLRPD: "Make your time, Finland."


   [link|mailto:MyUserId@MyISP.CountryCode|Christian R. Conrad]
(I live in Finland, and my e-mail in-box is at the Saunalahti company.)
Yes Mr. Garrison, genetic engineering lets us correct God's horrible, horrible mistakes, like German people. - [link|http://maxpages.com/southpark2k/Episode_105|Mr. Hat]
     EVERYTHING SUCKS - (bionerd) - (39)
         Hang in there, Bio! - (imqwerky) - (18)
             'the world will still keep spinning no matter what' . . . - (Andrew Grygus) - (17)
                 Actually it's slowing down a bit every day... - (admin) - (16)
                     So I actually do have extra time in each day? -NT - (bionerd) - (2)
                         Not so's you notice :-( - (jb4)
                         We had a leap second last year. - (folkert)
                     You literalists are a pain . . . - (Andrew Grygus) - (3)
                         Every move you make... - (folkert) - (1)
                             Re: Every move you make... - (Andrew Grygus)
                         Talk to my PR agent if you want spin control. -NT - (admin)
                     Nope - (ben_tilly) - (8)
                         Give me *some* credit. - (admin) - (7)
                             I stand corrected. My apologies. -NT - (ben_tilly) - (6)
                                 What a dumbass - (drewk) - (5)
                                     Shit for brains! - (folkert) - (4)
                                         I stand corrected. My apologies. -NT - (drewk) - (3)
                                             Now piss off and die! -NT - (ben_tilly)
                                             What the... - (folkert)
                                             Actually, it *would* have created a nice symmetry... - (CRConrad)
         Hang in there ++! It will get better. -NT - (Another Scott)
         :( - (inthane-chan) - (2)
             Some weed would work. ;-) -NT - (n3jja) - (1)
                 quay--loooods -NT - (bepatient)
         everything is broken - (cforde) - (12)
             since he is married elsewhare I dont she wants to recon him - (boxley) - (3)
                 He didnt show - (bionerd) - (2)
                     what a wad - (boxley) - (1)
                         Yeah. the crap I went through to visit - (imric)
             Take time for myself- - (bionerd) - (7)
                 Any way to find a good sistter a couple of nights a week? - (Another Scott) - (2)
                     You sound like my best friend - (bionerd) - (1)
                         Good! Don't put it off -You can pay her back in the future. -NT - (Another Scott)
                 fix it? - (cforde) - (1)
                     I'm breathing. - (bionerd)
                 Not sure how, but can you - (Arkadiy) - (1)
                     well first he has to show up twice. -NT - (boxley)
         Sorry to hear it's so bad Laura - (Nightowl)
         Hang in there, girl! -NT - (a6l6e6x)
         A little late, but - (Ashton)

More fun than a fart in a spacesuit.
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