Feedback: Where little fears grow great


Feedback is our weekly column of bizarre stories, implausible advertising claims, confusing instructions and more


FEAR may, sometimes, best be tempered by focusing on a new fear. This may even be the hidden editorial policy of some publications whose every article could be prefaced: "Be very afraid, Middle England..." In any case, whatever dire threats present themselves this week, Feedback hopes you appreciate the opportunity to distract yourself by worrying about the apocalypse coming at the end of June. Virtual apocalypse, anyway.


We were looking up when a "leap second" is going to be inserted this year, to get hyper-precise atomic clock time back in sync with the rotation of our planet. We were startled to find our search results dominated by this from CNN Money: "This year's Y2K: 'Leap second' threatens to break the Internet".


"Y2K" is, of course, a reference to the millennium bug that might ...


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