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A Sword Without a Hilt: A Song of Ice and Fire/D&D 3.5 Crossover

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I figured the 'seconds' portion of the prestidigitation clock being in wedges was just a neat stylistic thing based around changing once a round. If we could do that section 'ticking' smoothly along that would be neat, but I'm not sure if that fits the limitations Goldfish is working with.
 
Viserys: Timekeeping isn't sensible in this realm!

Harry: Viserys, you gotta calm down--

Viserys: DON'T TELL ME TO BE CALM!

Harry: Murphy, get the liquid nitrogen super soaker! Code red!

Viserys: I'M ALWAYS RED!
 
Also @Goldfish and @Azel , you are having the day change at noon.

That's impractical. You also need a date for determining the "zero hour" through the sun. I suggest summer solstice. Just say that sun at zenith on summer solstice on Sorcerer's Deep is 12:00 exactly. Or 5.00.00 as the case may be.

Having the changeover in the middle of the night gives leeway for the entire "workday", aka sunlight hours, to happen inside the same calendar day, in most of the realm.
 
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Does not having timezones help with scheduling stuff that much though? It may mean not having to muck around converting timezones for scheduling but you would still have to remember when people in another part of the world get up, are in working hours(which will be different hours to yours) end working hours, and are asleep by. And actually, it means for some parts of the Imperium, the date would change while the sun is high in the sky rather than at midnight wherever you currently are. That sounds like it would be confusing.
 
Timezones are a hindrance to the thinking mind, but they help isolate regions in nice little bubbles that can pretend they're at the center of the universe at any given time?
 
Kinda seeing TNE's point.

It's more intuitive to have the middle of the day be the middle of the day, not the start of the new one.

[X] Goldfish

It really makes the most sense to take the measurements of magic as increments and have the 10/60/24 split, ineffiecient as it looks.

We can maybe change it to more sensible units once we can alter the laws of reality, but right now working with magic is best.
 
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Destrark said:
Does not having timezones help with scheduling stuff that much though?
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Yes. Very much so. I was typing up an explanation and I realized I was being redundant. Azel really does an excellent job illustrating why here.
Azel said:
Practical Example:
I want to talk with a company in Florida and need to schedule a meeting. They tell me to call at 17:00. Now I need to translate that into my local time. So I look up the time zones. Florida is UTC -5, while Germany is UTC +1, meaning I'm 6 hours ahead and I would have to call them at 23:00 German time. This is obviously bad for me, so I try to reschedule. They tell me their office times are from 7:00 to 18:00. So now, after some pointless arithmetic, we settle on a compromise at 10:00 Florida time, which is 16:00 German time.

So I call them at 16:00 and reach no one in the conference call and are annoyed that they left me hanging. But slightly over an hour alter, I get email why I didn't show up for the meeting.

Fun Fact: The westernmost part of Florida is actually at UTC -6, so both of us showed up on the "right" time.

No-Timezone Example:
"Let's do the call at 17:00."
"That's in the middle of the night for me. What's you office hours?"
"They are 7:00 to 18:00."
"Then 10:00 or earlier."
"10:00 it is."
"Peachy"
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Artemis1992 said:
It's more intuitive to have the middle of the day be the middle of the day, not the start of the new one.
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I mean unless we do timezones, which I beg you not to for reasons made clear over the last couple pages, "solar noon is the start of the new calendar day" is going to be the case somewhere in the Imperium once we're big enough, with every other permutation of that phenomenon also (new day starts around sundown, or just before sunrise, etc). This gives us a nice clear start point. Sure it's arbitrary, but so is having that point be half way through the day.
 
Sqweaktoy said:
I mean unless we do timezones, which I beg you not to for reasons made clear over the last couple pages, "solar noon is the start of the new calendar day" is going to be the case somewhere in the Imperium once we're big enough, with every other permutation of that phenomenon also (new day starts around sundown, or just before sunrise, etc). This gives us a nice clear start point. Sure it's arbitrary, but so is having that point be half way through the day.
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But as I said earlier we are the cultural and close enough to the geographic centre that it makes sense for SD to be the place where 12:00 is midday.

Things can be arbitrary but there's no need to be arbitrarily arbitrary :p
 
TotallyNotEvil said:
Especially when @Goldfish thought up a cheap magical watch that keeps time even in other planes.
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That clock works with any arbitrary system assigning numbers to time intervals.
//
That whole discussion is hilarious.
Azel said:
Edit: And don't even get me started on this whole "daylight saving" bullshit.
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Why? It's always fun to schedule, for example, with Brazil. The delta between Germany and Brazil is between 3 and 5 hours, depending on who switches when. It's totally hilarious. I mean, for the guys in the Abyss that invented it. Not so much for the guys that are used to their regular scheduled meetings, except, this week ...
Artemis1992 said:
It's more intuitive to have the middle of the day be the middle of the day, not the start of the new one.
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Why? Just because you are used to it?
 
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MTB said:
Why? Just because you are used to it?
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All humans are "used to" the concept of a beginning and an end, the day will still begin and end so this isn't as arbitrary as it's being made out to be.

The Solar day beginning and ending in the capital at the same time the Temporal day begins and ends is important symbolically.
 
Deliste said:
All humans ...
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Well. And why would we tie our time measurement to the minority? Also, I was referring to "It's more intuitive to have the middle of the day be the middle of the day, not the start of the new one.", which has nothing to do with the argument you are making. Your argument has merit on its own, but I don't see how it fits to what I was replying to.
 
I just found that we are planning to equip Crake's misfits completly next month.
Two questions:

Do we have charsheets to see if that equipment is fitting @Crake ?
Are we sure we'll successfully diplomance them in our service in one month @Azel ?
 
Artemis1992 said:
Rethinking, the most intuitive options would be to set the beginning of a day on a sunrise.

Maybe equinox sunrise in SD?
@Goldfish
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The point of picking noon is that it's something that can be measured each day. It gets us slightly ahead of building our clocks from megaliths.

Also, see the above argument. At some point of the Imperium, the day change will be at noon anyway. With your proposal, that would be around Slavers Bay.
 
Azel said:
The point of picking noon is that it's something that can be measured each day. It gets us slightly ahead of building our clocks from megaliths.

Also, see the above argument. At some point of the Imperium, the day change will be at noon anyway. With your proposal, that would be around Slavers Bay.
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Sunrise can be measured as well? Not really seeing the difference.

And of course it's different somewhere, but we are designing for SD, with the rest of the world having to adjust.
 
Vote looks like it's solidifying now.
Adhoc vote count started by Snowfire on Mar 8, 2019 at 4:04 AM, finished with 287384 posts and 30 votes.
  • [X] Plan Doing Proper Time - Goldfish Version
    -[X] Divide the day into 24 hours, each hour into 60 minutes and every minute into 60 seconds.
    -[X] The time of 0:00 is defined as the sun standing in it's zenith above Sorcerers Deep.
    -[X] Commission clock-towers for SD, Tyrosh, Lys, Myr, Mantarys and Tolos who all display the time for everyone to see.
    -[X] There will be no time-zones or similar shenanigans, so that nobody has to do any conversion for long-distance communications or trade.
    -[X] A constant effect Prestidigitation-based clock will be be used to create magical timepieces, measuring the passage of time based on the Cantrip's ability to color an object once every six seconds. Each timepiece will cost 200 IM to enchant, with further costs determined by its size and upgrades.
    --[X] The magical timepiece will consist of a circular disk of Hardened quartz, upon which numbers and colors will be highlighted using Prestidigitation as follows:
    ---[X] With the passage of each six second increment, a 1/10th "slice" of the inner half radius of the clock will turn from red to black. Each time this circle darkens fully, one minute will have passed, which automatically causes the circle to turn red once again.
    ----[X] Minutes will be shown on the middle radius of the timepiece. The passage of each minute, or one darkening of the inner radius, will cause a 1/60th segment of the ring portion of the timepiece to change from black to gold. Each time the minute ring becomes fully gold, one hour will have passed, which automatically causes it to darken once more.
    -----[X] The outer ring of the timepiece will consist of 24 segments, each colored red with a white border. The passage of each hour, or one gilding of the middle ring, will cause a segment's border to turn red and its color to turn black, with the exception of a number representing the hour of the day which will remain white. Segments will be numbered 1 thru 24, starting and finishing at the timepiece's apex.
    -[X] Additional enchantments can be included to further refine these timepieces:
    --[X] For 10 IM, Continual Flame-based back lighting can be added so that the timepiece's face is clearly legible regardless of ambient lighting.
    --[X] For 180 IM, a Ghost Sound-based chime, with specific types of chime and desired volume decided upon prior to the enchantment being completed, can be added to signal the passage of specific increments of time, such as one hour, three hours, twelve hours, etc.
    -[X] Fund a group of engineers, mathematicians, and craftsmen to produce a mundane clock more cheaply, but with similar function and accuracy, to our magical timepieces.
    [X] Plan Doing Proper Time - Compromise
    -[X] Divide the day in two ways, one astronomical and one decimal, like Yi-Ti does.
    --[X] Astronomical: 24 hours, 60 minutes, 60 seconds
    --[X] Decimal: Divide the day into 10 hours, each hour into 100 minutes and every minute into 100 seconds.
    -[X] The time of 0 is defined as the sun standing in it's zenith above Sorcerers Deep in both countings. Commission a sun dial that will be set in the University Square to measure that exact time.
    -[X] Commission clock-towers for SD, Tyrosh, Lys, Myr, Mantarys and Tolos who all display the time for everyone to see.
    -[X] There will be no time-zones or similar shenanigans, so that nobody has to do any conversion for long-distance communications or trade.
    -[X] Fund a group of engineers, mathematicians, and mages to conduct research into lowering the cost of time keeping instruments to make them more affordable, with both magic and mundane solutions being explored.
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