Replication of the NOW() function (also, time travel)

Notice the result of the NOW() function in the following query. The query was run on a real database server and I didn’t change the clock of the server or change anything in the database configuration settings. mysql> SELECT NOW(),SYSDATE(); +---------------------+---------------------+ | NOW() | SYSDATE() | +---------------------+---------------------+ | 1999-01-01 00:00:00 | 2012-11-29 05:50:03 | +---------------------+---------------------+ [...]