Is it time to PANIC AGAIN? Is it the Lunar Eclipse?

[Ahh!]

Got one of 'em emails today...goes sumpthun like this,
---
From: <deleted-to-protect-the-innocent>
Sent: <deleted-to-protect-the-innocent>
To: <sent to me>
Cc:
Subject: FW: Leap Year?
"Can you think of anything?
---
From: <deleted-to-protect-the-innocent>
Sent: <deleted-to-protect-the-innocent>
To: <deleted-to-protect-the-innocent>
Cc: <a-whole-bunch-a-folk>
Subject: FW: Leap Year?
Do you know of anything special needed to support Leap Year?
---
From: <deleted-to-protect-the-innocent>
Sent: <deleted-to-protect-the-innocent>
To: <deleted-to-protect-the-innocent>
Cc: <a-bunch-a-folk>
Subject: Leap Year?
Since 2008 is a Leap Year are there any system or coding concerns seeing as this happens only every 28 years?
<Looks like sum kinda internet cut-n-paste-deal. I left off all the bold and font changes...>
February 29, 2008
Year 2008 is the next leap year, with 29 days in February. February 2008 has five Fridays - it starts and ends on a Friday. Between 1904 and 2096, leap years with same day of week for each date repeat every 28 years which means that the last time February had 5 Fridays was in 1980 and next time will be in 2036.
What is a leap year?
A leap year is a year with one extra day inserted into February, the leap year is 366 days with 29 days in February as opposed to the normal 28 days. (There are a few past exceptions to this)

<<<My reply follers below>>>
Work an extra day this coming year, it appears. Excel and Outlook don’t seem to care…

In accounting circles, it appears that those operating on 13 4-week periods instead of 12 monthly periods may have 5 weekly batch runs that befall the month of February, but that’s about exciting as a blue moon.

Back in ’80 the leap year passed without incident, because our calendar algorithms were written to accommodate these things.

But in ’52 I heard of rumors of a bug in a computer, but it wasn’t true. And it may not have been that year, either. It was technically a moth. But that is where the term “computer bug” comes from. The dang thing shorted out some of the vacuum tubes. It had nothing to do with Harry Truman announcing that he would not seek reelection, nor hasten the birth of Sharon Dahlonega Raiford Bush on February 29th of that year.

In ’24, Al “The Hebrew Hammer” Rosen was born while Adolph Hitler sat in jail in Bavaria. Again, no correlation to the extra day or to each other.

If you need a technical answer, I think you are asking the wrong person. While I was there <in IT back in the Y2K days>, I can’t vouch for every detail. I do recall it being common business practice to ensure that now that the CCYY and not just the YY had to be accounted for, the date routines had to be inspected to follow the perpetual calendar in the same manner.
<<<end of the email trail>>>

My point is this: Are we a little gun shy? What say you?

[gardener]

Who has time to keep up with all those details? My goodness, as long as my paycheck comes on time, who was born when and what happened because supposedly it was a weird Leap Year is pretty irrelevent in my world...
Thanks for the "insight" though.

[pippin]

Originally Posted by gardener

Who has time to keep up with all those details? My goodness, as long as my paycheck comes on time, who was born when and what happened because supposedly it was a weird Leap Year is pretty irrelevent in my world...
Thanks for the "insight" though.

ditto! I just want my money!

[iCe]

The company that I worked for back in the Y2k days spent millions "getting ready". They mobilized people to be on site during the "switch", developed plans for what to do is something failed, and evaluated thousands of pieces of hardware even though 99.9% of them had no impact and the rest weren't "time aware". A lot of people stayed up to make sure that nothing happened when the date changed. All in in all I thought Y2k was a good example of how well the media controls society but otherwise pretty much a non-event.

[Bartman01]

Originally Posted by phorn45

Since 2008 is a Leap Year are there any system or coding concerns seeing as this happens only every 28 years?

I would gently remind this person that in the current calendar, leap years occur any year divisible by 4 (unless that year is divisible by 100 - then it would only be a leap year if also divisible by 400). That would be about every FOUR years, not every TWENTY EIGHT.

[srwatters]

Originally Posted by Bartman01

I would gently remind this person that in the current calendar, leap years occur any year divisible by 4 (unless that year is divisible by 100 - then it would only be a leap year if also divisible by 400). That would be about every FOUR years, not every TWENTY EIGHT.

I would gently remind you to read the post:

Year 2008 is the next leap year, with 29 days in February. February 2008 has five Fridays - it starts and ends on a Friday. Between 1904 and 2096, leap years with same day of week for each date repeat every 28 years which means that the last time February had 5 Fridays was in 1980 and next time will be in 2036.

[iCe]

Originally Posted by Bartman01

I would gently remind this person that in the current calendar, leap years occur any year divisible by 4 (unless that year is divisible by 100 - then it would only be a leap year if also divisible by 400). That would be about every FOUR years, not every TWENTY EIGHT.

I almost said that...

February 29, 2008
Year 2008 is the next leap year, with 29 days in February. February 2008 has five Fridays - it starts and ends on a Friday. Between 1904 and 2096, leap years with same day of week for each date repeat every 28 years which means that the last time February had 5 Fridays was in 1980 and next time will be in 2036.

[Bartman01]

Originally Posted by srwatters

I would gently remind you to read the post:

I did. I don't understand the supposed significance/issue with the extra day being a Friday. Feb has 29 days next year, just like it does every leap year. The fact that the 1st and the 29th are both Friday is interesting but irrelevant. My point was that we have leap years every 4 years (with few exceptions), and I really don't understand why they think computers would suddenly have a problem with one.

Did you know that on a bi-weekly payroll schedule you normally have 26 pay periods - but every 7 years you have a year with 27 instead. The world hasn't come to an end from that either.