When Tom commented recently that his schedule makes last-minute date changes difficult, it occurred to me that this could cause him serious difficulties.
Several folks (Hi Z! Hi SueP!) have taken me to task because I’m oftentimes awake when the date changes. This does leave me a bit sleepy from time to time, but it does put me in the position to make the occasional scientific observation. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but what I’ve observed is that date changes almost always take place not merely at the last minute of the day, but at the absolute end of the very last second of the last minute.
The sole exception I’ve noticed to this rule has been the occasional incident of a “leap second” in between years. At that point there’s no date whatsoever and you end up with not just the single transition between dates, but instead a transition from December 31 to no date at all, and then a second transition when January 1 finally arrives.
It would be remiss of me to ignore the fact that things would have gone quite badly for Indy midway through the first movie if Sallah hadn’t noticed that the dates had changed from tasty to deadly. That sort of date change is a problem for us all.