I noticed this from the ACM newswire and thought I'd post in reference to our summer contest ...
Who's
Got the Time?
Government Computer News (06/23/08) Vol. 27, No. 15, Jackson, Joab
The discontinuity between computerized and human timekeeping complicates
the continued operation of the Internet and computer networks, which depend on
accuracy and precision. "Time is a perfect example of something that needs
to be taken out of the realm of human interaction because we don't do it well,
and machines do it well," says former Homeland Security Department
metadata program manager Michael Daconta. Machines' interaction with time
typically takes one of two forms, says Sita architect Stephen Colebourne:
Marking a period of time or gauging an interval between events. Demand for more
granular levels of accuracy is rising as networks and computers increasingly
depend on time, and Internet Engineering Task Force engineers are working to
divide time measurements in the Network Time Protocol into even finer chunks.
... Observers say a problem could crop up from computer systems' growing dependency
on accurate time measurement, and some researchers have proposed the
elimination of the leap second and strict adherence to atomic time as a
solution ...