It's That Most Wonderful Time of the Year When Tech Cannot Handle the Date
owl writes:
https://www.theregister.com/2024/02/29/fuel_pump_leap_year_bug/
Today is February 29, an unusual day in that it is added to the common 28 in years that are multiples of four to keep the calendar in sync with the astronomical year.
This kludge prevents our seasons from drifting out of whack, but it presents a problem for computers and software, which have to be programmed to account for the extra day to avoid error conditions and incorrect data.
We are all using a computer of one sort or another to read this and hopefully nothing has caught fire, yet every leap year, something somewhere falls over hard.
In New Zealand, which has a head start on most of the world, it was payment systems at fuel pumps that have just staggered back to their feet after a nationwide outage lasting more than ten hours.
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