OK, so I'm a geek

[rhu]

In one window, we turned on ABC TV. In another, we had www.time.gov running. The TV was 2 seconds behind the official time. Heather mocked me, but the way I see it, if you're going to celebrate an arbitrary second in time, you might as well celebrate the correct arbitrary second in time.

Then the TV started playing Auld Lange Syne and I said (in my worst Scottish accent, which is about the same as my best Scottish accent), "Ach, it's Robbie Burns's Greatest Hit!"

Well, it was funny at the time.

Comments

[ken_r]

I wonder how much is transmission lag, TV station signal processing, video signal compression delay, cable company signal processing (if you aren't tuning an OTA signal), receiving-computer signal decoding and processing, etc. They can't be expected to start the ball-drop in NYC (or whatever other televised event) early to compensate. :-) Not that I expect them to be all that precise about it anyways (or most of their audience to care)....

[530nm330hz.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm impressed that with all those delays that it was only two seconds (or less) behind.

[eichin.livejournal.com]

Someone on zephyr was complaining the NBC was 8 seconds behind. I just ran watch -n 0.2 date in an xterm, after making sure the laptop had good ntp sync :-)

[*] credit to nelhage for suggesting "watch"; I *had* been running while true; do date; sleep 0.1; done instead :-)