Wait a second!

Back in February, I wrote about all sorts of ways humans adjust our clocks to more closely match the natural world. Here's an example of how bad we are at doing this stuff. Back then - ten months ago - scientists whose job it is to do this stuff were predicting that the next "leap second" would be added at the end of 2009.

WRONG! It's tonight. We get a leap second - one last dying gasp of 2008 - before we get to begin 2009. So when the ball starts dropping and the corks start popping, check your watch - and wait a second.