Did you know tomorrow will be one second longer than today? It’s true! On Tuesday, June 30 at just before 8 p.m. Eastern Time the entire planet will experience a leap second. What’s a leap second you ask? A leap second is a handy thing that comes around every so often to help us timekeeping mortals make up for the fact that Earth’s rotation is slowly slowing down.
While you probably won’t get too much extra work done at 7:59:60 p.m. EST tomorrow, your website might feel some pain. It should come as no surprise that the digital world really likes predictability when it comes to time; so when time decides to do something unpredictable (like a leap second), developers and programmers around the globe hold their collective breath.
In 2012, a leap second was to blame for Reddit.com and Amazon.com both crashing within 24 hours of each other. It was decided that the servers of these huge sites ground to a halt as a result of not properly accommodating for that year’s leap second. Not being able to finish your order for canned unicorn meat is really a tough price to pay for staying in sync with the Earth’s rotation.
Since these very notable crashes, developers have taken more precautions to ensure that leap seconds won’t bring down their websites. However, there is no way to know for certain if your site is safe until that extra moment arrives.
If you have any questions about how the impending leap second will affect your website, give the web developers at Brandography a call! We will tell you everything you need to know and help make sure that your website is prepared for every future leap second. Better yet, do something productive with your extra second tomorrow and contact our team of digital marketing specialists to learn how we can help boost your online presence.
Contact Brandography at 612-460-0016, info@brandography.com , or through our online contact form.
