TIL: Today I Learned

Emrys

Emrys

Ravenpoe said:
I was always under the impression that piranha are not as dangerous to humans as are usually depicted, and will not attack humans unless they are severely starving.
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That's correct. They're actually quiet gentle and skittish around humans.

Their close cousins, pacu, are actually more vicious and will attack unprovoked.
 
fade

fade

Staff member
So, wait. You're telling me they can't fly with their fins and knock on doors? Have all the 80s movies been lying to me?!?
 
Gruebeard

Gruebeard

fade said:
So, wait. You're telling me they can't fly with their fins and knock on doors? Have all the 80s movies been lying to me?!?
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I'm most upset about being lied to about hoverboards.
Also, I'm regretting betting my life savings on the Cubs to win this year.
 
Chad Sexington

Chad Sexington

stienman said:
I'm just glad when leap day happens on a weekend, so I get a 3 day weekend, rather than a 6 day workweek.

Sadly, the additional leap second we will have this year is occurring Tuesday evening, June 30th, during the week. I wish they'd lengthen out the weekends rather than the weekdays, but scientists don't seem to care about that, preferring to keep the leap second either at the end of December, or the end of June regardless of where on the week they fall.

If your shift does cover midnight during the leap second though, talk with your employer about your extra second's work and make sure you get paid. If they balk, tell them they already have a way to handle the daylight savings time change, so this is the same but for one second rather than a whole hour.

Oooh, I should sell GPS clocks that perform the leap seconds correctly. Then people could get excited about seeing 6:59:60 (EST)

If some scientists get their way in November 2015, this might be that last leap second we see. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leap_second

"In January 2012, rather than decide yes or no per this plan, the ITU decided to postpone a decision on leap seconds to the World Radio Conference in 2015. This is scheduled for 2 - 27 November in Geneva, Switzerland. France, Italy, Japan, Mexico, and the US were reported to be in favor, while Canada, China, Germany, and the UK were reportedly against.[36] Others, including Nigeria, Russia, and Turkey, called for more study. The BBC states the ITU decided further study of broader social implications was needed.[37]"

This mean that in perhaps a few centuries people will be asking for a leap minute to bring our time keeping into synch with our solar position. However in the interim, individual nations and states could simply adjust their own time relative to UTC if they wanted to incorporate this synchronization. So rather than EST being UTC-5:00:00 it would become UTC-5:00:01 after a few years.

I bet most people won't actually care, except astronomers, and they'll manage by simply keeping track of the offset. It's them that's been telling us how much we need to correct it by and when anyway.

Of course, eliminating the leap second has been discussed for over a decade now, so it may not happen this year, but given that adding leap seconds has slowed to one every 3-4 years, it's still rare enough that making a clock that highlights when it happens might still be interesting.
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I am not going to lie, I would legitimately buy that clock. Actually I even have a few friends who would think that was an awesome gift. The anticipation would be like waiting to see the pitch drop in miniature.
 
Bubble181

Bubble181

I don't see why they can't spare 'm up and add a leap minute or hour every...longer time.
For pretty much all automated systems, it's the same - either they're built to handle it, or they're not, and if not, it leads to mayhem and destruction and oh god the horror (my works' servers crash every time, without fail). A minute or a second, no different.
For humans, though, a minute or whatever of "stolen time" coudl be romantic/fun/special. A second....Well, eh.
 
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