Suggestion for the Zordiac-Time-Page

[Hor]

Hello,

I find myself using the "suntimes"-page from Kiri more often
in recent times.
Its very helpful to lookup IC and OOC date, but I miss some
information.
Perhaps its very easy to add - "The next Zordiac for the specified
date". In the circle-tests you often hear "try again when
Falinea the Centaur is rising" (or something like that).
Would be nice to see the OOC date for that.

Just an idea 8)

Regards,

Hor

[Kiriel]

I'll look into that, but FYI the tests are just a week apart, so you can take your test about 1 week after the last one (if you think it's been a week, wait till after IC midnight and try again). I'm not sure how difficult it would be to do, but if it's not hard I'll put it in.

[Hor]

Thanks Kiri!

I do know about the zordiac wait after a failed test... but I had
several times someone asking me how long until a certain
zordiac to rise. Just wanting to be helpful, I could not help
them... so that original suggestion. 8)

Hor

[Altir]

Fer dem questions ah ask ah mystic! Dem supposed ta know, aye? All dat booklearnin'.

Altir

[Ruen]

I agree, Kiriel's calendar is the best. I use it all the time to make sure I have the correct date on my journal entries.

What I'd really like is high tide and low tide times. I realize that's probably more difficult, and I don't have a good reason for wanting to know, just curiousity. I'd ask a mystic, but it seems like at least half of my mystic friends have left the guild.

[Kiriel]

I'll look into adding that too- if I can get an explanation from someone of how they work it shouldn't be too hard.

[Luminary]

The tides are diacyclic, influenced by the cycles of both the Sun and the Moon. Unfortunately, the land masses around our island chain also have a major effect on the tides. I believe that a simple mathematical equation will not accurately predict our tides.

I haven't checked to make certain, but I think that the tides are also affected by some other, unknown force, as their behavior is often not even close to what one would assume to be correct (ie. Highest point just after Noon of the New Moon day nearest to the Autumnal Solstice*).

Probably the only way to track our tides would be to park a scribe next to Gride, record the tides as he speaks them, and create a chart. Unfortunately, the chart would have to cover the entire year, without interruption. I've tried to get an apprentice or two to create a chart for a week or so, but none seem interested. ;)

(There's an OOC reason for the odd behavior of the tides, but you're gonna have to ask HGM to explain it.)

Luminary

* - Yes, the longest day of the year is the first day of Autumn, thus "Autumnal Solstice."

[Kiriel]

Thanks for the information on the tides Luminary. Sounds to me like this is probably a bit much for me to implement so I'll leave it off unless someone can get a workable formula.

Regarding the next zodiac for the specified date, I just implemented that. Please let me know if you run into any problems with it.

I'm also planning on integrating the time zone setting I use on the events page for generating the OOC dates in the appropriate time zone for the user (assuming they've specified it). I'm not sure yet how workable that'll be but hopefully I'll be able to do it and that'll make the scroll even more useful.

[Kiriel]

Well I was feeling ambitious today so I went ahead and implemented the time zone setting feature on the Date Details page. This was a fairly complex change so there may be some bugs. If you notice any problems with it please do let me know (and let me know if you have a time zone you want me to add). Hopefully it's working ok, all the tests I did so far seem right.

FYI, this uses the same time zone setting as on the events and newbielympics pages, so if you've set your time zone there, it'll use that by default. It defaults to PDT if you don't specify one.

[Hor]

Wow, thanks Kiri!

Thats perfect 8)

Hor