Bay 12 Games Forum

Dwarf Fortress => DF Modding => Topic started by: Fenrir on February 29, 2008, 02:38:00 pm

Title: Missing Time
Post by: Fenrir on February 29, 2008, 02:38:00 pm
According to the archive of the old wiki, a season is 84 days long. There are four seasons a year.

84 * 4 = 336

When last I checked, there were 365 days in a year. Are dwarven years shorter or is the wiki wrong?

Title: Re: Missing Time
Post by: Sowelu on February 29, 2008, 02:42:00 pm
Dwarven years are shorter.
Title: Re: Missing Time
Post by: Sean Mirrsen on February 29, 2008, 03:53:00 pm
Very fitting to dwarves, I must add.  :)
Title: Re: Missing Time
Post by: PTTG?? on March 01, 2008, 01:19:00 am
quote:
Originally posted by Sowelu:
<STRONG>(Compared to real-world years) Dwarven years are shorter.</STRONG>

quote:
Originally posted by Sean Mirrsen:
<STRONG>Very fitting to dwarves, I must add.</STRONG>

You should both be ashamed of yourselves.
Now somebody has to add that to the front page of the Wiki.

Title: Re: Missing Time
Post by: Fenrir on March 01, 2008, 09:06:00 am
Are the years shorter in DF or aren't they?!
Title: Re: Missing Time
Post by: Helmaroc on March 01, 2008, 09:12:00 am
quote:
Originally posted by Fenrir:
<STRONG>Are the years shorter in DF or aren't they?!</STRONG>

YES.

Title: Re: Missing Time
Post by: Fenrir on March 01, 2008, 09:20:00 am
Oh, I thought you people were messing with me.
Title: Re: Missing Time
Post by: Pickerel on March 05, 2008, 02:12:00 am
He was messing with you.  The dwarven years aren't shorter, the days are just longer, just as how a dwarf's stature is made up for by it's strength, endurance, and beard length and bushiness.

People should start using metric time.  10 hours per day, 100 minutes per hour, 100 seconds per minute.  Much easier to do math in.  Since normally there's 86,400 seconds per day, but now we have 100,000, we simply account for this ratio: each metric second is 0.864 times as long as a normal second.  Or each normal second is 1.15741.  No more of this base 60/60/24 babylonian crud.

Title: Re: Missing Time
Post by: Kagus on March 05, 2008, 02:25:00 am
Heh, that's not the only thing.  The 'standard' measurement system is completely and utterly ridiculous.  How the hell people managed to come up with these systems baffles me...


Kinda strange though.  I'm clueless as far as the metric system for weights and measurements is concerned, and I have no luck with Celsius temperatures.  I still think they're smarter than the systems I'm used to, however.

Title: Re: Missing Time
Post by: Dwarfaholic on March 05, 2008, 04:14:00 am
And to be honest, this 10-numeral system isn't exactly the best possible either.
We would be better off with one with 12 numerals, as counting for example fractions would be easier (as 12 is divisible by 2,3,4 and six compared to 10, which is only divisible by 2 and 5).

/rant.

Title: Re: Missing Time
Post by: Kagus on March 05, 2008, 04:35:00 am
Yes, but then we'd need to grow some extra fingers and toes.
Title: Re: Missing Time
Post by: Alfador on March 06, 2008, 12:49:00 pm
quote:
Originally posted by Kagus:
<STRONG>Yes, but then we'd need to grow some extra fingers and toes.</STRONG>

Or find an alternate method of counting on fingers. Heck, when I was little I learned a method (think it was called Chisanbop or something weird like that) that lets you count from 0 to 9 on one hand, thus allowing you to use one hand per digit and count to 99 on your hands. Or 9999 if your feet are agile.

Title: Re: Missing Time
Post by: Tahin on March 06, 2008, 01:29:00 pm
While we're on the topic of counting on your fingers, I like binary.
Using off/on (finger raised/closed) you can count to 1023 using both hands.
Title: Re: Missing Time
Post by: Hyperturtle on March 06, 2008, 01:40:00 pm
Have you actually had to count to 1023 with both hands?

--

While we're on the topic of time, has there ever been any discussion about a day/night cycle and perhaps lighthouses that can be built to illuminate areas?

I notice some creatures are nocturnal, but judging from the map, the fortress is a happening place, day or (lack of) night.

Title: Re: Missing Time
Post by: Othob Rithol on March 12, 2008, 04:37:00 pm
I'm a big fan on the base one numeric system, makes calculus a snap.
Title: Re: Missing Time
Post by: Pickerel on March 12, 2008, 05:58:00 pm
Base 12 is still hard to work with as a human.  Base 8 and 16 are good for computers because it makes good use of their binary storage (or something like that, I am not well versed herein) but as a human, I like to be able to multiply and divide things easily.

Example: lets say base 12 sconds, base 12 minutes, somehow.  I say 34 minutes, how many seconds is it.  34 * 12 is not something I can do in my head.  If under a base 10 time system though, I say 34 minutes, I say 3400 seconds, 0.34 hours, 0.034 days.  Try 1342.56 minutes.  I can say 1.34256 days, or 13.4256 hours, or 134256 seconds.  Base 12 would be... egads, I am still not going to try.  And I don't feel like trying in the 60:60:24 system either ^.^

Another point in favor: once you get into decimals of seconds, you use a base 10 system, because if you had to use fractions to do the math in our base 60, 60, 24 system, or even base 12, it would be really difficult.

[ March 12, 2008: Message edited by: Pickerel ]

Title: Re: Missing Time
Post by: Puzzlemaker on March 12, 2008, 06:39:00 pm
Did someone say... Celsius?

0  - freezing
10 - cold
20 - cool
30 - warm
40 - hot

There you go.  Freezing, Cold, Cool, Warm, Hot, starting at 0.  Celsius is sooooo much easier then Fahrenheit.  

AS FOR BINARY, Another lowdown!

Binary is base 2.  We normally use base 10.

00, 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 06, 07, 08, 09
10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19

That's base 10.  Base two is...

00, 01
10, 11

There you go.  Now, binary is stored in Bytes.  Each Bytes has 8 bits.  In laymens terms, the computer stored stuff in chunks of 8 digits.

00000000

So, how can you easily see what is being shown?

01001011

It's not easy to look at a huge stream of 1's and 0's and figure stuff out.  So, it's split into two four-digit groups, called Nybbles.  Nybbles, Bytes, get it?  haha?

Anyway, split into two different groups of 4 digits.

0000
0000

Each group of four digits can count up to a max of 16.

0000 - 0
0001 - 1
0010 - 2
0011 - 3
0100 - 4
0101 - 5
0110 - 6
0111 - 7
1000 - 8
1001 - 9
1010 - 10
1011 - 11
1100 - 12
1101 - 13
1110 - 14
1111 - 15

Since we started at 0, thats 16 different possible numbers.  Well, heck, lets just count in base 16!  Base 16 is:

00, 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 06, 07, 08, 09, 0A, 0B, 0C, 0D, 0E, 0F
10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 1A, 1B, 1C, 1D, 1E, 1F

As you can see, the extra numbers are replaced with letters.  Now we can represent bytes with two hex digits, like so.

FF = 1111, 1111
F0 = 1111, 0000

etc, etc.  

NOW YOU KNOW!

(The same applies for base 8, but that's for 3 bits, 000)

Title: Re: Missing Time
Post by: Jamini on March 12, 2008, 06:43:00 pm
Binary counting easily allows one to count to 1023, additionally it's excessivly easy to work arithmatic on when all you have are 1 and 0 for digits. The only reason that many computer languages use Hexadecimal for microprograms and above is  because computers often deal with far more than digits and need to perform operations on several high-order binary numbers. Hexadecimal can use a single digit to display four binary digits, making it idea for expressing notation.

Also, with a little practice anyone can learn their base-16 tables. Just remeber where your median values are. I mean if you remember that 04H*08H= 20H than it's easy to inferance that 04H*09H=24H. (1*9=9. 2*9=12. 3*9=1A, 4*9=24)

Title: Re: Missing Time
Post by: BurnedToast on March 13, 2008, 08:56:00 pm
quote:
Originally posted by Puzzlemaker:
<STRONG>Did someone say... Celsius?

0  - freezing
10 - cold
20 - cool
30 - warm
40 - hot

There you go.  Freezing, Cold, Cool, Warm, Hot, starting at 0.  Celsius is sooooo much easier then Fahrenheit.  
</STRONG>


You must live somewhere really warm to consider 68ºF cool and 86ºF merely warm.

Title: Re: Missing Time
Post by: Puzzlemaker on March 13, 2008, 09:02:00 pm
quote:
Originally posted by BurnedToast:
<STRONG>

You must live somewhere really warm to consider 68ºF cool and 86ºF merely warm.</STRONG>


Ah, crap, my bad.  I have a 25C in there usually that I like to use in my internal calculations, and it threw me off.

0 - freezing
10 - cold
20 - normal
30 - hot
100 - boiling

Title: Re: Missing Time
Post by: Janne Joensuu on March 17, 2008, 06:07:00 am
quote:
Originally posted by Pickerel:
<STRONG>Example: lets say base 12 sconds, base 12 minutes, somehow.  I say 34 minutes, how many seconds is it.  34 * 12 is not something I can do in my head.  If under a base 10 time system though, I say 34 minutes, I say 3400 seconds, 0.34 hours, 0.034 days.  Try 1342.56 minutes.  I can say 1.34256 days, or 13.4256 hours, or 134256 seconds.  Base 12 would be... egads, I am still not going to try.  And I don't feel like trying in the 60:60:24 system either ^.^</STRONG>

Under base 12, 34 would be written 30. 3*12 + 0. 12-base 17 would be 12-base 15 (1*12 + 5). 10-base 10 and 11 would be marked by a single character, likely A and B. 6 + A = 14 (10-base: 6+10=12+4), 20 - 2 = 1A (24-2=12+10), 14+8 = 20 (12+4+8=24) etc. 20/2 = 10, 20/3 is 8, 20/4 = 6, etc.

10 is 12, 100 is 144, 1000 is 1728. 20736  12^5--248832, 12^6--2985984, 12^7=35831808

As far as your examples go...

First, how many seconds (12 seconds in a minute) are in 34 minutes? In base 12, 12 equals 10 and 34 equals 2*12+10 or 2A.
1 minute has 10 seconds. How many seconds are there in 2A minutes? 2A*10 = 2A0.

2A0 is 2*144 + 10*12 + 0, or 408.

Let's see if that's right: calculator says 12*34 is... 408! Conversions back into ten-base are tricky, but calculating in 12-base really is that easy.

Second, calculating 3400 in 10-base:
3400 - 1*1728 = 1672
1672 - 11*144 = 88
88 - 7*12 = 4
4 - 4*1 = 0

It's 1A74 in 12-base. Going through the above calculation in base-12 is easy:

1A74 - 1000 = A74
A74 - A00 = 74
74 - 70 = 4
4 - 4 = 0

10-base 0.34 would be... slightly over 12-base 0.4 which would be an exact 1/3.
Base-12 0.2 is 1/6, 0.3 is 1/4, 0.4 is 1/3 and 0.6 is 1/2.

I won't bother calculating Pi. :P
I'm not even sure why I did this, but you didn't even think your examples through. Base 12 will have problems with numbers that are easy in base 10 (like 10, 100, 1000) and with dividing by 5, but base 10 has problems with numbers that are easy in base 12 (like 12, 144, 1728) and with dividing by 3, 4 or 6.

Title: Re: Missing Time
Post by: Helmaroc on March 17, 2008, 06:12:00 am
No wonder Fenrir left, this much...nubmers...would scare anyone out of their wits.
Title: Re: Missing Time
Post by: Kagus on March 17, 2008, 07:31:00 am
Show someone how proficient you are with binary numbers by counting to four on one hand, using the binary system.


Only someone who's done this will know what I'm talking about.

Title: Re: Missing Time
Post by: Kashyyk on March 18, 2008, 11:41:00 am
quote:
Only someone who's done this will know what I'm talking about.

 :D
Title: Re: Missing Time
Post by: Alfador on March 19, 2008, 11:39:00 am
quote:
Originally posted by Kagus:
<STRONG>Show someone how proficient you are with binary numbers by counting to four on one hand, using the binary system.


Only someone who's done this will know what I'm talking about.</STRONG>


Yeah, I got in trouble in elementary school for binary counting to 132 in front of a teacher. That was actually how I found out that hand gestures can make people angry. My mom didn't punish me because I had no idea what it was, then she taught me so I would know not to do it again. Now I avoid counting to 132 at people unless I intend to be rude to them.  :D

Title: Re: Missing Time
Post by: n9103 on March 19, 2008, 05:32:00 pm
lol, double birds.... best way to avoid offense when binary counting is to have them flat on a surface/parallel with the ground... then it's usually no more offensive than people who point at things with their middle fingers (and yes, there are people so uptight even that's offensive)