[Info-vax] Leap second checking

[JF Mezei]

As you may have heard, the economic slowdown of 2008 has caused the
earth to slow its course around the sun and they had to add an extra
second to 2008 before allowing 2009 to start.

While Microsoft's zune crashed at the tought of a leap year, there have
been a few reports of some unix systems crashing because of the leap second.

My VMS and os-X systems did not complain.

However, how can I check if those systems actually processed the leap
second and are in sync with the real time of 2009 ?

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>     INTERNATIONAL EARTH ROTATION AND REFERENCE SYSTEMS SERVICE (IERS) 
> 
> SERVICE INTERNATIONAL DE LA ROTATION TERRESTRE ET DES SYSTEMES DE REFERENCE
> 
> SERVICE DE LA ROTATION TERRESTRE
> OBSERVATOIRE DE PARIS                                   
> 61, Av. de l'Observatoire 75014 PARIS (France)
> Tel.      : 33 (0) 1 40 51 22 26
> FAX       : 33 (0) 1 40 51 22 91
> e-mail    : services.iers at obspm.fr
> http://hpiers.obspm.fr/eop-pc
> 
>                                               Paris, 4 July 2008
>                                                            
>                                               Bulletin C 36
>                                 
>                                               To authorities responsible 
> 					      for the measurement and 
> 					      distribution of time                                         
> 
> 
>                                    UTC TIME STEP
>                             on the 1st of January 2009
>                       
> 
>  A positive leap second will be introduced at the end of December 2008.
>  The sequence of dates of the UTC second markers will be:		
> 		
>                           2008 December 31,     23h 59m 59s
>                           2008 December 31,     23h 59m 60s
>                           2009 January   1,      0h  0m  0s
>               
>  The difference between UTC and the International Atomic Time TAI is:
> 
>   from 2006 January 1, 0h UTC, to 2009 January 1  0h UTC  : UTC-TAI = - 33s
>   from 2009 January 1, 0h UTC, until further notice       : UTC-TAI = - 34s 
>   
>  Leap seconds can be introduced in UTC at the end of the months of December 
>  or June, depending on the evolution of UT1-TAI. Bulletin C is mailed every 
>  six months, either to announce a time step in UTC or to confirm that there 
>  will be no time step at the next possible date.
>  
> 
> 
>                                               Daniel GAMBIS
>                                               Head		
>                                               Earth Orientation Center of IERS
> 					      Observatoire de Paris, France