It was a rough weekend for the internet. While Friday's problems with Amazon Web Services and other sites could be chalked up to some wicked thunderstorms, several sites went down Saturday for periods of time thanks to problems with the "leap second."

About every 18 months, according to timeanddate.com, the wizards who run the world's atomic clocks pause those clocks for a second in order to keep those clocks in sync with the speed of the rotation of the earth, which declines ever-so-slightly over the years.