What could possibly make this year any worse than it already is? Adding more time to it ought to do the trick...
Not so long ago my co-worker told you why 2016 had been a terrible year. If I had my way, the yearly calendar would have ended when David Bowie died - and that was in January.
Considering what followed - the passing of more legends such as Alan Rickman (January 14), Prince (April 21), Kenny Baker (August 13), Gene Wilder (August 24), among many others - we have suffered somewhat of a bump in the road this year.
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On top of the many celebrity deaths, we also witnessed atrocious scenes showing innocent men, women and children who had been caught up in war.
Image credit: PA
Well, considering the bad news that has filtered through the headlines over the past 11 months, and the fact that we still have another month of it to endure, here's some more unfortunate news to add to the list: 2016 will be dragged out longer than usual - a whole second longer to be precise.
The International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service (IERS) has announced that on December 31, a leap second will be added to the world's clocks at 23:59:59 Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), or 18:59:59 Eastern Standard Time.
Basically, time has been traditionally measured by looking at how fast the Earth rotates with respect to other astronomical objects. In order to keep in sync with what's going on up there and making sure that time is accurate, occasionally the IERS inserts a leap second.
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If I were you, I wouldn't think about it too much; blink and you will miss the stray second. Let's just hope 2017 is going to be full of prospects and good news for a change. Donald Trump is going to be the president of the USA and the UK will initiate 'Brexit'. What could possibly go wrong?
Featured image credit: PA
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