An xkcd Leap-Smearing Clock

Anthony Biondo
Filed under: Humor
A recent xkcd comic proposes a new method of adjusting for leap years. Instead of adding on a day called February 29th, it proposes that we simply make the month of February about 3.4% longer ... by slowing down our clocks by 3.4%. The clock below implements this, along with an explanation of the reasoning:

The time is now:
See https://xkcd.com/2266/

Notes:
  • The clock only updates on the slower "tick," of about 1.03 seconds, so if you compare this to your watch it should be going slower, and the two should go in and out of phase every ~30 seconds.
  • If you watch the line in the explanation above with the current unix time, it will skip a number every ~30 seconds because it is ticking too slowly.
  • The clock is configured to update internally every 10ms, and though browsers might not keep up with that, it is hopefully reasonably accurate. Rendering should only happen on the slower tick.
Explanation: