Lmst

How Wind Nearly Took Down Boulder NTP https://hackaday.com/2025/12/29/how-wind-nearly-took-down-boulder-ntp/
#Clockhacks #CurrentEvents #Featured #News #Atomicclock #Cryptography #Ntp #NTPserver

How Wind Nearly Took Down Boulder NTP

https://web.brid.gy/r/https://hackaday.com/2025/12/29/how-wind-nearly-took-down-boulder-ntp/

<div><img alt="" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" height="484" src="https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/timenut.jpg?w=800" style="margin: 0 auto; margin-bottom: 15px;" width="800" /></div><p>NTP is one of the most interesting and important, but all too forgotten, protocols that makes the internet tick. Accurate clock synchronization is required for everything ranging from cryptography to business and science. NTP is closely tied around a handful of atomic clocks, some in orbit on GPS satellites, and some in laboratories. So the <a href="https://groups.google.com/a/list.nist.gov/g/internet-time-service/c/o0dDDcr1a8I" target="_blank">near-failure of one such atomic clock</a> sparked a rather large, and nerdy, internet debate.</p>
<p>On December 17, 2025, the Colorado front range experience a massive wind storm. The National Center for Atmospheric Reassure in Boulder recorded gusts in excess of 100 mph (about 85 knots or 160 kph). This storm was a real doozy, but gusts this strong are not unheard of in Boulder either. That is no small reason the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (now the National Laboratory of the Rockies) has a wind turbine testing facility in the neighborhood.</p>
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<figure class="wp-caption alignleft" id="attachment_889038" style="width: 400px;"><img alt="NWS map showing wind predictions for Colorado on December 19" class="wp-image-889038 size-medium" height="225" src="https://h

"NIST's NTP clock was microseconds from disaster"

#TimeKeeping #NIST #NTP #GPS #GNSS #AtomicClock

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRB7pjRVVkI

Seems bad

https://bsky.app/profile/newsguy.bsky.social/post/3mahccilhhm2z

#AtomicClock #NIST #BITS #Boulder

Steve Herman @newsguy.bsky.social:
The atomic ensemble time scale at the NIST
Boulder campus has failed.

jeff.s...@nist.gov:
to Internet-time-service
Dec 19
Dear colleagues,
In short, the atomic ensemble time scale at our Boulder campus has failed due to a prolonged utility power outage. One impact is that the Boulder Internet Time Services no longer have an accurate time reference. At time of writing the Boulder servers are still available due a standby power generator, but I will attempt to disable them to avoid disseminating incorrect time.
The affected servers are:
time-a-b.nist.gov
time-b-b.nist.gov
time-c-b.nist.gov
time-d-b.nist.gov
time-e-b.nist.gov
ntp-b.nist.gov (authenticated NTP)
No time to repair estimate is available until we regain staff access and power. Efforts are currently focused on obtaining an alternate source of power so the hydrogen maser clocks survive beyond their battery backups.
More details follow.

Reminds me:

Time stands still for no one.

#time #AtomicClock

Atomic clock nerds at #MIT have finally figured out how to make a #watch that’s slightly less wrong, still not helping anyone get to work on time. ⏰🔬 Meanwhile, the rest of us are just trying to remember where we left our keys. 🗝️🌀
https://news.mit.edu/2025/mit-physicists-improve-atomic-clocks-precision-1008 #AtomicClock #Technology #Innovation #Timekeeping #KeysLost #HackerNews #ngated

NIST scientists spent 20 years perfecting an atomic clock with 19 decimal places of accuracy - 41% better than the previous record!

Finally, we can measure exactly how late everyone is to meetings with scientific precision. No more "I'm 5 minutes away" excuses! ⏰

https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/07/15/1735204/nist-ion-clock-sets-new-record-for-most-accurate-clock-in-the-world

#NIST #AtomicClock #Science

What Happens If You Press All the Buttons at Perth Observatory?

I visited Perth Observatory during the day (because apparently stars aren’t required for an existential crisis) — and ended up getting a personal tour from Paul Wadham, the actual Operations Manager. Legend.

He showed me antique telescopes, answered my weird space questions with alarming patience, and introduced me to an atomic clock that I may or may not now be emotionally dependent on.

No stars. Just me, Paul, and the unstoppable march of time. ⏱️🔭🌞

#Astronomy #Space #PerthObservatory #AtomicClock #Telescope #Australia #WesternAustralia #TravelVlog #Educational #BehindTheScenes #DayInTheLife #PrivateTour #Cosmos #ScienceIsCool #HiddenGems #Astrophysics #UnexpectedAdventure #INeedHelp #UnhingedVlog #MainCharacterMoment #ThisChangedMe #FellInLoveWithAClock #IDontKnowWhatImDoing #YouTubeVlog #TimeTravel #ChaoticGood

https://youtu.be/HTflFlpKRDw

Live Science: Physicists create groundbreaking atomic clock that’s off by less than 1 second every 100 million years…

Scientists have developed one of the most precise atomic clocks ever built, and they plan to use it as a reference clock to define time itself... #atomicclock #time #physics

https://formuchdeliberation.wordpress.com/2025/05/08/live-science-physicists-create-groundbreaking-atomic-clock-thats-off-by-less-than-1-second-every-100-million-years/

Atomic Clock trades Receiver for an ESP8266.

Well, you’d still have a clock. But you’d have to set it manually like some kind of Neanderthal. That wasn’t acceptable to [jim11662418], so after he yanked the misbehaving WWVB receiver from his clock, he decided to replace it with an ESP8266 that could connect to the Internet and get the current time via [NTP].

https://github.com/jim11662418/Atomic-Clock-NTP-Modification

#atomicclock #ntp #esp8266 #diy #it #engineer #media #tech #art #maker #news

The advantage of a radio-controlled clock that receives the time signal from WWVB is that you never have to set it again. Whether it’s a little digital job on your desk, or some big analog wall clock that’s hard to access, they’ll all adjust themselves as necessary to keep perfect time.

[ImageSource: jim11662418]

This modification was made all the easier by the fact that the WWVB receiver was its own PCB, connected to the clock’s main board by three wires: one for the clock signal, another that gets pulled low when the clock wants to turn on the receiver [usually these clocks only update themselves once a day], and of course, ground. It was simply a matter of connecting the ESP8266 dev board up to the two digital lines and writing some code that would mimic the responses from the original receiver.

[ImageSource: jim11662418]

If you take a look through the provided source code, a comment explains that the WWVB signal is recreated based on the official documentation from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) website.

<https://www.nist.gov/pml/time-and-frequency-division/time-distribution/radio-station-wwvb/wwvb-time-code-format>

There are functions in the code to bang out the 500 ms “one” and 200 ms “zero” bits, and once the microcontroller has picked up the correct time from the Internet, they’re called in quick succession to build the appropriate time signal. As such, this code should work on any clock that has an external WWVB receiver like this, but as always, your mileage may vary.

This is a very clean hack, but if you wanted to pull off something similar without having to gut all the clocks in your house.

🙄🎉 Oh wow, another atomic clock to tell us we're late for our meetings! Because what the world needed was a timepiece with a fancier name... 🚀⏰ Bravo, #NIST, for giving us the luxury of being precisely late on #government time.
https://www.nist.gov/news-events/news/2025/04/new-atomic-fountain-clock-joins-elite-group-keeps-world-time #atomicclock #timekeeping #technology #humor #HackerNews #ngated

Telling time by atomic number. Clock on the wall at Milkshakes & More in Irving, TX
.
#photooftheday #atomicclock

What if a nuclear clock could measure time 100x more precisely than today's atomic clocks? JILA’s latest discovery could change everything. #QuantumPhysics #AtomicClock #DarkMatter

https://geekoo.news/cracking-the-nuclear-clock-code-temperature-tweaks-could-revolutionize-timekeeping/

Ah, yes, because clearly the answer to GPS hacking is... more clocks! 🕰️✨ Let's just slap an atomic clock on every plane and hope hackers are too busy setting their alarms to notice. 🚀⌚ Genius!
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cq6yg204pvmo #GPSHacking #Clocks #Innovation #AtomicClock #Cybersecurity #GeniusIdeas #HackerNews #ngated

Plane GPS systems are under sustained attack - is the solution a new atomic clock?

As a Ryanair flight from London approached Vilnius, Lithuania, on 17 January, its descent was suddenly aborted. Just minutes from touching down, the aircraft's essential GPS suffered an unexplained interference, triggering an emergency diversion.

How a new atomic clock might be the way to tackle attacks on plane GPS systems.

https://mediafaro.org/article/20250303-plane-gps-systems-are-under-sustained-attack-is-the-solution-a-new-atomic-clock?mf_channel=mastodon&action=forward

#Aviation #GPS #AtomicClock #Science

Plane GPS systems are under sustained attack - is the solution a new atomic clock?

As a Ryanair flight from London approached Vilnius, Lithuania, on 17 January, its descent was suddenly aborted. Just minutes from touching down, the aircraft's essential GPS suffered an unexplained interference, triggering an emergency diversion.

How a new atomic clock might be the way to tackle attacks on plane GPS systems.

https://mediafaro.org/article/20250303-plane-gps-systems-are-under-sustained-attack-is-the-solution-a-new-atomic-clock?mf_channel=mastodon&action=forward

#Aviation #GPS #AtomicClock #Science

Plane GPS systems are under sustained attack - is the solution a new atomic clock?

As a Ryanair flight from London approached Vilnius, Lithuania, on 17 January, its descent was suddenly aborted. Just minutes from touching down, the aircraft's essential GPS suffered an unexplained interference, triggering an emergency diversion.

How a new atomic clock might be the way to tackle attacks on plane GPS systems.

https://mediafaro.org/article/20250303-plane-gps-systems-are-under-sustained-attack-is-the-solution-a-new-atomic-clock?mf_channel=mastodon&action=forward

#Aviation #GPS #AtomicClock #Science