Swiss Made, Baby!

While Eira and Dag were here we went to visit one of Dag's old friends, who used to work for SGI. He showed us a watch, made by Tag Heuer, which SGI had given him and which he hadn't looked at for some ten years or so. "What time is it?" I asked. "About thirty minutes past eleven." "Exactly how many minutes past eleven?" "Twenty-three past eleven." I laughed and tossed the watch back to Dag's friend, remarking upon the proficiency of Swiss horology with a quip like "Swiss made, baby!" (Tag Heuer is a Swiss brand.)

Upon further investigation we found that the watch, which had been set to an accuracy of plus-or-minus one second back several years ago using NTP, was now only three seconds out of sync according to NTP.

There have been three leap seconds in the last ten years.