Dickerson, By Kelly. "2015's 'Leap
Second' Could Scramble Computers." LiveScience.
TechMedia Network, 09 Jan. 2015. Web. 09 Jan. 2015.
This
week for my current events, I read an article by Kelly Dickerson, a writer at
livescience.com, that talked about the “leap second” we will be having this
year. Dickerson says that the Earth is slowing down two thousandths of a second
every day, and even thought the number is small, it still adds up. To make our clocks caught up with the change,
every time that the Earth’s rotation slows down a full second, we add a second
to either December 31st, or June 30th, the middle and
endpoints of our calendar year.
Now
this may seem unimportant because it’s only a second but you’d be surprised how
impactful this really is. To start off, this years “leap second” will be the 26th
of its kind added to the calendar since we began doing this in 1972. Past leap seconds, like the one in 2012, caused
major problems for companies such as Reddit and LinkedIn as the internal clock
on the computer thinks time is going backwards, causing all kinds of errors in
their systems. Dickerson says that although some companies have taken safety
precautions for the upcoming “leap second” this year others that have not may
have some problems coming their way. Not only does this affect the big
corporations, but also this may affect us too. The “leap second” does not only
affect computers, but GPS as well. Although this may sound a little over the
top, an expert on this topic, Demetrios Matsakis from the Time Service at the
US Naval Observatory, recommends not going on airplanes on June 30t, because
the pilots may experience difficulty if their GPS go down even just
temporarily. Another thing to add is
that there could come a point in time where 12 noon could be pitch black out
because of the slowing rotation of the Earth, which is truly a crazy thing to
think about.
In
this article, I thought the author did an amazing job in explaining a complex
idea like a “leap second.” When I read the intro to this article, I was blown
away by what the author, Kelly Dickerson, was talking about but by the end I
felt as if I were an expert on the topic. Finally, I really liked how
connections were made to the real world, specifically about the long and short
term affects of the “leap second.” All in all, this was a well-written and very
informative article and I would highly recommend reading it.
John did a great job in summarizing the article. It was written very well and clear. He did a good job of giving examples from the article and backing his evidence up with experts. John also explained how even two thousandths of a second makes a big difference.
ReplyDeleteEven though the review was very nicely written, John could have done a better job on explaining what “leap second” means. In his critique he said the author did a great job at explaining it, but John did not explain or at least quote the author. There were also little grammatical mistakes.
I thought that it is amazing that something so small as two thousandths of a second makes a huge difference.
Current Event Comment Sean Curran
ReplyDeleteDickerson, By Kelly. "2015's 'Leap Second' Could Scramble Computers." LiveScience. TechMedia Network, 09 Jan. 2015. Web. 09 Jan. 2015.
http://www.livescience.com/49370-leap-second-added-2015.html
John did a very good job summarizing his article.One thing I liked was how John included quotes from his article, giving his review a better sense of legitimacy. A second thing I liked was how John was able to describe how leap seconds were impactful in his own words because it shows that he provided his own thoughtful analysis. A final thing I liked was how John was able to provide the information he learned in an easily comprehensible way because it made it so almost anyone who read his review would understand what a leap second was. There were a few thing that John still could have improved upon though. One thing was there were several grammatical mistakes which ruined the quality of his review. To prevent this mistake in the future, all John has to do is check over his work. A second thing I feel he could improve upon is saying where the author of the article gets their information. To change this, all Jon would have to do is add an extra sentence explaining why the author has credibility. After reading this article, I learned about leap seconds. However, I do not think this new knowledge will affect me in really any way.
John did a good job summarizing his article. His style of writing was very clear, fluid, and was overall easy to follow. For example, his transitions between paragraphs were quite good and seemed to have a certain flow to them. A second thing that I thought John did particularly well was his use of quotations from the actual article. He managed to pull facts and important information from the article and use it in his summary in a well thought out way. The third thing that I thought John did well in his summary was his insight to the topic. His final paragraph provides us with his thoughts and his perception of this topic and article.
ReplyDeleteAlthough his summary was written very well, there are still some areas for improvement. An area he had some faults in was his grammar. To fix this problem in the future I would recommend double checking his writing and look for mistakes in grammar. Another thing John could improve is explaining his topic a little bit more. I would like to know why this "leap second" disrupted things such as Reddit. To improve on this issue John could maybe check his sources to look into the information he is including into his summary.
After reading his summary and the article I learned an interesting fact about a "leap second", however, I don't think this information will affect me.