All Things Quality: 06/01/2015

June 30, 2015

Leap Second Day - Will This Be The Start Of The Apocalypse?

19:59:60

On June 30, 2015 at 8:00 PM ET, an extra second will occur. This "leap second" is added sporadically to keep the earth's clocks in tune with the rotation of the Earth.

While not a big deal with most humans, extra seconds are not particularly a good thing for computers.

A 61 second minute
The extra second will take place at 8 p.m. ET on June 30
Markets around the world are frantically trying to avoid a leap second that threatens to disrupt global trading on Tuesday
There’s a chance the leap second could crash your favorite website or maybe even delay your flight.
The previous leap second, which took place in 2012, brought down Reddit, Yelp, LinkedIn, FourSquare, Gawker and StumbleUpon, among other sites and apps.
Qantas' entire computer system went down for hours, forcing employees to check in passengers by hand.
Amazon.com Inc. said it’s planning to add time to all 86,400 seconds of the day before the event so at midnight its systems will be caught up.
Experts at Britain’s National Physical Laboratory (NPL) who will officially add the second to UK time, warned that markets which are already jittery from Greece could suffer transaction delays if their software was not prepared.

So are all of your systems tested and ready for The Longest Day, 2015 Edition?

And how will you be spending your extra second? I'll be spending that time closing my eyes and coming up with a list of my all-time favorite metrics... and fending off zombies, as needed.

This article originally appeared in my blog: All Things Quality

My name is Joe Strazzere and I'm currently a Director of Quality Assurance.
I like to lead, to test, and occasionally to write about leading and testing.
Find me at http://AllThingsQuality.com/.

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June 30, 2015

Leap Second Day - Will This Be The Start Of The Apocalypse?