Timeline Issues

[Birdhead]

*smacks* Don't get smart with me. *sniffs* When I said "I don't know," I meant "Actually I haven't bothered to look but she's probably right." So there.

You think you understood what I said, but what you did not know is that what I said was not exactly what I meant.

of course, in the NZ edition, it may say July...

What NZ edition? If you find one, PLEASE, tell me, that way I might actually be able to purchase them...

[Peter Murray]

Oh, Ok.

I needed a footnote, so I made up a NZ edition for the purpose. There's no UK editions any more, either, though I've got the UK editions of 1-4 and the two cat books. This means I either have to go to a specialist bookshop, probably Forbidden Planet in London (the place Fox and friend were looking for) or buy new DD books from Amazon. I got Alone and Holiday from Amazon.

Ok, on to Dilemma in the timeline. I need to start by working out what day of the week chapter 1, "Friday Afternoon" takes place. This may not be the hardest thing to do...

I've just realised something: I have an advantage in doing this, as I've actually got all of the books, and don't have to borrow them from the library again, as some YW regulars would have to do. I keep forgetting this.

[Peter Murray]

I was looking for a Julian date to try out that converter, and picked the start of Darryl's Ordeal. 4777598.3 ... that's 19:12 on July 8, 8368. Changing UT to EDT, 15:12. This seems a little odd, even for the eternal present, but I can't find any old posts nitpicking it .

It's a Monday, by the way.

Am I missing something here? It ought to be a date in October 2001, from the "eternal present" angle. 2452198.3 keeps the last four digits and makes it October 15, 2001.

[Birdhead]

8368? Is that the year?

*grins* I know. I was just mucking around. And, mm, you're lucky to have them all. *nods*

[Fox]

PM cool site, went there the other day and this is the first chance in three days I've had time to post! Anyway I thought I would congrateulate you on your master peace (sorry for the spellings!)! Does anyone know if DD has looked at it yet? I thought she would be interested, hahaha all this date stuff is way beyond me anyway but I will still keep looking in!
Fox

[Peter Murray]

Fox: Thanks .

I'd like to know too if DD has looked at it - I don't get any weblogs that would tell me, only a summary that 10 or 11 people a day have looked at it since the topic started. She may find its existence an insult, though I've reworded anything I've realised was ambiguous and sounded like that.

Anyway, so I was adding the beginning of Wizard's Dilemma today (this is going to take a while, the book is forcing me to read it, not skim it) and it finally dawned on me that the date I worked out for Nita getting her manual...

...is DD's birthday.

[Caitlin]

personally, i think it's awesome. although the whole time passage thingus IS adressed in the afterward of SYWTBAW 20th ed. i don't have the book to quote it, but it was a nice way to put the whole time differences.

but you know... if any of us can regress to our past and try to figure out if the sun went out at any point..... (well, the sun for tui, the moon for most of us)

vv

[Nathan]

Originally posted by Peter Murray:
I was looking for a Julian date to try out that converter, and picked the start of Darryl's Ordeal. 4777598.3 ... that's 19:12 on July 8, 8368. Changing UT to EDT, 15:12. This seems a little odd, even for the eternal present, but I can't find any old posts nitpicking it . ... [ellipses mine] Am I missing something here? It ought to be a date in October 2001, from the "eternal present" angle. 2452198.3 keeps the last four digits and makes it October 15, 2001.

Oh, that number! *rolls eyes* I've been bothered by it ever since I first read Alone, but I never got around to posting anything about it, mainly because I kept hoping that I would think of something else it could be besides a Julian date. I haven't come up with anything, though, and a Julian date makes the most sense, given the context and the number of digits. (For those who are interested, there's a copy of Darryl's entry in the Seniors' Manual in Kat's post "Just a couple of things wrong" in "The Nitpickery".) I hadn't thought about positing such a large typographical error as Peter did, though it's not outside of the realms of possibility (however, I do feel obligated to point out that only the last three digits match). The real test of Peter's and my assumptions will come when we find out how well they fit together (though it's unfortunate that we don't have a really independent check on our assumptions).

That's neat to know about the date for Nita acquiring her Manual, though I'm not at all surprised that it's a special date, given DD's fondness for that sort of thing.

Regarding the problems Peter's having with the date for starting school given in Abroad and the date for Kit reporting to Tom: First, the date of September 9th for school starting is probably a correct date for the 'eternal present' in 1992/1993 and, in fact, can't possibly be correct in 2000 as it's a Saturday! What's more, in 2000 the New York public school system started its session on September 7th (see their abbreviated calendar for 2000-2001), which provides far better congruence with the given dates. However, there's still a problem with the given Julian date (2451796.6) for when Nita should expect an update in the manual on Kit's status, as this date is during Friday evening (~9 PM), and Nita reads this on Saturday morning. While we could just assume that DD messed up the Julian date yet again, it's unrealistic (not to mention impolite) to use this explanation too often, no matter how convenient it is (and its very convenience should caution us to use it only when absolutely necessary).

Just to be picky, here are a few other typos and whatnot I noticed on Peter's page (though these are just minor details and I am still very much impressed by its entirety):

1. You don't need an article, either definite or indefinite, in the title for Holiday.

2. The note on Kit's status in chapter 4 is actually "adjunct talent in training" [emphasis mine].

3. I would quibble with 2451796.6 being the date Kit is supposed to report to Tom, as it'a not specifically advertised as such and is in the evening, while Kit goes to see Tom in the morning/afternoon (though the fact that it appears to be a day too early may make this something of a moot point).

Nathan

[Peter Murray]

The advantage of keeping the last three digits (apparently I counted the decimal point as a digit - too much time spent coding numbers into fixed fields on punch cards) is that October fits the three-month duration of Darryl's ordeal, as Alone starts in January.

Fortunately, by putting Dilemma in 1986, September ninth is a more reasonable Tuesday - I was just taking the day and month, and shoehorning the year into the timeline regardless of the "eternal present" date.

Typos time:
1. Oh, right. Fixed those stray "A"s in book seven's title.

2. *sigh* stray repeated words, something I do too often. Thanks for spotting it.

3. True, it may just be when the manual was expected to update. In fact, I got the date wrong anyway - it's the eighth, not the ninth, in Nita's time zone. Now it's even more confusing . The .6 part is the main thing, since Dairine uses it to say the update will be after dinner.

Thanks for the comments.

[Evangelion999]

Someone find out what date 2451796 that was (since 2435209 was thursday/friday), it will tell us what year DD is writing these in...whether is still be the 80s or a mystery jump to the 2000's.

[Peter Murray]

2451796 was Friday, 8 September 2000, and 2435209 (why that one?) was Monday, 11 April 1955. 2434151, which you didn't ask about, was a Sunday in 1952. "But the child born on the Sabbath Day, Is fair and wise and good and gay."

Nathan gave the URL of a webpage that can convert between the formats, for people who don't have a manual to do it for them. Apparently, my birthdate was 2436222.43056.

It's clear that each book is set in the year DD writes it. The timeline I'm doing is to see if I can fit them into a range of dates (well, actually two ranges of dates) that fit with Nita's age in each book.

[semiramis]

Umm... I'm going to mention this randomly, since I've been out of the loop for a week or two now... >.<

I notice that you've got different versions of the oath on the page-thingummy... you may or may not also want to include Arhu's version, and possibly Ith's version, in TBONWM (sorry, I don't have them handy right now on account of being in China...)

There's also a "private rescension" for the Oath in the beginning of Alone, which goes:

Life
more than just being alive
(and worth the pain)

but hurts:
[tab]fix it
grows:
[tab]keep it growing

wants to stop:
[tab]remind
[tab]check / don't hurt
[tab]be sure！

One's watching:
get it right!
[tab]later it all works out
[tab]honest

meantime,
make it work
now
(because now
is all you ever get:
now is)

("[tab]" indicates a tab, because this thingy won't let us use tabs, and won't let us put spaces at the beginning of lines... >.&lt

(I think this may or may not have been Darryl's Oath, which he could have taken prior to actually having to say the "full" oath... but, myah... it's hard to speculate XD)

[Peter Murray]

Yes, since I was rereading all the books anyway to get the timeline sorted out, I included some random lists. (Also minor points like Ronan being turned into a soggy beermat, so I know where to find them again.)

I haven't reached the two cat books in this rereading, so I'll remember those for when I get there - ditto for Alone.

[Birdhead]

Peter, that must be The Greatest Young Wizards Miscellany of All Time, Ever, Officially.

I just noticed you have Kit's otherworlds. Thank you! Very handy.

[nitafan211]

Very nice, Pops! Thankyou, this will make things easier for all, especially newbies like me.