It's not bad enough I'm a nerd...
I'm perfectionist nerd.
Lemme 'splain:
I fully admit, there are a vast number of things in my life I have simply not given a damn about when I did them. Very often, in fact, it would be simply a matter of 'this is something someone is requiring me to do. I will do it well enough to get them off my back, and then I will go back to doing the things I want to do.'
I'm not saying that's a great way to be; it's not. I'd much rather be able to say that I've always been the kind of person who tries to do whatever they're doing as well as they possibly can... but honestly, there's been too much stuff I've really just wanted over.
yuripup, this is all your fault.
Except it's not.
I am currently elbows-deep in my Middle-Earth campaign's calendar. I've worked out* the days of the week for the campaign year (for example, the last day we've done, April 22, 1940 T.A., is a Friday). I am now going back in, and with a far more critical and careful eye (now that I have an entire year stuffed in an excel sheet to work with) I am reworking the lunar cycle. Feb 3rd 1940 T.A. - Game Day 1, is a Known Good value - it was the date I used to initially work out the lunar phase, and came up a Full Moon. From there, I'd been doing a q&d '7-8-7-7' pattern to get a 29-day lunar cycle.
Except a synodic lunar month (new moon to new moon) is 29.53 days.
So I have to work that in now, in order to get everything right. I'm not sure exactly how strict I'm going to be on that... my mind is offering 'if we split each day into 100 segments, we can model is precisely'... and I may actually go w/that, frighteningly enough...
But of course, I'd really want to split each day into 800 segments, to precisely model the full moon, half moon, gibbous and crescents, as well.
And from there, I'm likely to look into moonrise/moonset models, too. They're simple in the abstract - the moon rises 50m later each night, on average... unfortunately, once you map the seasons in, that average is just that, an average. The autumn numbers in the northern hemisphere, for example, are down around 30m later each night.
And why am I doing this? Because I'm a gorram nerd. And because I find myself looking at the tiny little inaccuracies and thinking 'eh, that's not too bad... except it'll magnify over time, and I'm set up for a 35 year campaign... crap.'
and this is all in addition to the normal weekly prepwork I feel like I've been slacking off on... and am resolved to not slack off on anymore.
* - This included a seriously speculative assumption on Leap Day structure - at the very least, the elves are aware of the need for one, and every 12 years, insert 3 days in, doubling the mid-year holiday from 3 days to 6. Then, for precision, they'd remove 3 days (instead of adding) once every third yén - a yén being an elven unit of time equal to 144 years. Thus, the last year of a yén was always one of the 3-day leap years, and the calendar would be rejiggered this way every 432 years. Rather than attempt to work out those numbers (since we don't even know if the calendars of Men and Hobbits use that structure - they don't seem to use yén, after all) I went with a standard 'extra day every 4 years in mid-year's day, except on the century'.
Lemme 'splain:
I fully admit, there are a vast number of things in my life I have simply not given a damn about when I did them. Very often, in fact, it would be simply a matter of 'this is something someone is requiring me to do. I will do it well enough to get them off my back, and then I will go back to doing the things I want to do.'
I'm not saying that's a great way to be; it's not. I'd much rather be able to say that I've always been the kind of person who tries to do whatever they're doing as well as they possibly can... but honestly, there's been too much stuff I've really just wanted over.
yuripup, this is all your fault.
Except it's not.
I am currently elbows-deep in my Middle-Earth campaign's calendar. I've worked out* the days of the week for the campaign year (for example, the last day we've done, April 22, 1940 T.A., is a Friday). I am now going back in, and with a far more critical and careful eye (now that I have an entire year stuffed in an excel sheet to work with) I am reworking the lunar cycle. Feb 3rd 1940 T.A. - Game Day 1, is a Known Good value - it was the date I used to initially work out the lunar phase, and came up a Full Moon. From there, I'd been doing a q&d '7-8-7-7' pattern to get a 29-day lunar cycle.
Except a synodic lunar month (new moon to new moon) is 29.53 days.
So I have to work that in now, in order to get everything right. I'm not sure exactly how strict I'm going to be on that... my mind is offering 'if we split each day into 100 segments, we can model is precisely'... and I may actually go w/that, frighteningly enough...
But of course, I'd really want to split each day into 800 segments, to precisely model the full moon, half moon, gibbous and crescents, as well.
And from there, I'm likely to look into moonrise/moonset models, too. They're simple in the abstract - the moon rises 50m later each night, on average... unfortunately, once you map the seasons in, that average is just that, an average. The autumn numbers in the northern hemisphere, for example, are down around 30m later each night.
And why am I doing this? Because I'm a gorram nerd. And because I find myself looking at the tiny little inaccuracies and thinking 'eh, that's not too bad... except it'll magnify over time, and I'm set up for a 35 year campaign... crap.'
and this is all in addition to the normal weekly prepwork I feel like I've been slacking off on... and am resolved to not slack off on anymore.
* - This included a seriously speculative assumption on Leap Day structure - at the very least, the elves are aware of the need for one, and every 12 years, insert 3 days in, doubling the mid-year holiday from 3 days to 6. Then, for precision, they'd remove 3 days (instead of adding) once every third yén - a yén being an elven unit of time equal to 144 years. Thus, the last year of a yén was always one of the 3-day leap years, and the calendar would be rejiggered this way every 432 years. Rather than attempt to work out those numbers (since we don't even know if the calendars of Men and Hobbits use that structure - they don't seem to use yén, after all) I went with a standard 'extra day every 4 years in mid-year's day, except on the century'.