OoTS Publication Timeline

[brian 333]

Has anyone compiled a timeline of where the main comic was when each of the prequel and side-quest books were completed?

At each point of publication readers had only the information available in the main comic up to that point. It would be nice to help avoid spoilers, preserve the continuity of the art upgrades, and to recreate the learning curve of the original experience if there was a list detailing the page number the comic was on when a book came out.

[Peelee]

Not yet, but it's a trivial thing to do. Let's see, it's 14:47 CST as I write this, aaaaand...


To the PDFs! On the Origin of PCs claims a first printing in October 2005, Start of Darkness May 2007, and Good Deeds Gone Unpunished August 2018. ETA: Forgot Snips, Snails, and Dragon Tales. May 2011. Whoopsie!

Discussion Thread Index has the October 2005 thread span strips 227-239, so let's take say around 230 and work in multiples of 10, because why not. Strip 450 was posted May 9th. 1131 was thrown up the day before August 2018, so we round down to 1130. And strip 790 was posted May 4, 2011, which is as perfect as can be.

So:

On the Origin of PCs was put out roughly around 230.

Star of Darkness was put out roughly around 450.

Snips, Snails, and Dragon Tails was put out roughly around 790

Good Deeds Gone Unpunished was put out roughly around 1130.

14:58 CST. Not too shabby.

[Rogar Demonblud]

Eleven minutes? Did you stop to snack on a dozen sheep or something?

[Peelee]

Eleven minutes? Did you stop to snack on a dozen sheep or something?

The casting times for all those spells in the Formatting subschool really add up.

[Rogar Demonblud]

You didn't take a dip in Draconic Archmage for casting as a Quick Action?

Seriously, I thought Alabama had Daylight Savings? Did y'all change that?

[Peelee]

You didn't take a dip in Draconic Archmage for casting as a Quick Action?

Seriously, I thought Alabama had Daylight Savings? Did y'all change that?

I was pleasantly surprised to find out that Alabama is one of seven states that approved legislation to make Daylight Saving Time permanent, though it requires federal approval and I don't believe we've gotten that yet. Here's hoping, though.

[Fyraltari]

Living in a country that uses daylight saving time, I find it more trouble than it's worth, really.
I'd like to have noon at 12:00, for starters.

[Metastachydium]

Living in a country that uses daylight saving time, I find it more trouble than it's worth, really.
I'd like to have noon at 12:00, for starters.

Well, scientific evidence does suggest that it makes people sad and dysfunctional (and empirical evidence suggests that this scientific evidence may very well be sound).

[Rogar Demonblud]

All I know is that workplace accidents go up each week after the switch. And auto accidents. And probably accidents around the home.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

All I know is that workplace accidents go up each week after the switch. And auto accidents. And probably accidents around the home.

And missed planes. Presumably missed anything-on-a-schedule, but planes we have the statistics for. And other than "because we've been doing it since WWII", there really is no good reason to keep doing it - the energy savings, if there are any, are minimal and certainly don't compensate for all the issues it causes.

Grey Wolf

[Peelee]

All I know is that workplace accidents go up each week after the switch. And auto accidents. And probably accidents around the home.

And missed planes. Presumably missed anything-on-a-schedule, but planes we have the statistics for.

Those are all excellent reasons to make it permanent.

I say optimistically.

[brian 333]

Or eliminate it. An extra hour of sunlight during working hours made sense back when we used sunlight. Now?

Hey, if you need that extra hour of daylight in the evening, get up early! Back when I worked outdoors we'd start work at 6 in summer and at 7 in winter, which negated any 'benefit' of DST.

And thanks for the timeline, Peelee. Where does SS&DT fit in?

[The Pilgrim]

Kids those days. Back in my times we just worked from sunrise to sunset and nobody complained about it.

[hroþila]

The problem is not so much whether we should eliminate DST, but which of the two times to adopt as the permanent one. If the sun sets too early in the summer that's going to mess up my bike rides, and I don't want to live in almost constant darkness in the winter either. Maybe we could somehow alternate between these two times according to the season.

[Peelee]

Or eliminate it. An extra hour of sunlight during working hours made sense back when we used sunlight.

.....people still use sunlight.

Hey, if you need that extra hour of daylight in the evening, get up early! Back when I worked outdoors we'd start work at 6 in summer and at 7 in winter, which negated any 'benefit' of DST.

Hey, if businesses changed working hours away from 9-5, I'd be all up on that. No problems here. Thing is, that's not going to happen, and so I'm going to root for the change that actually has a chance, because it's doing the same thing, even if from the other end.

Kids those days. Back in my times we just worked from sunrise to sunset and nobody complained about it.

I agree, the entire point of advancing society is to make things better than they were.

And thanks for the timeline, Peelee. Where does SS&DT fit in?

Whoops! That one hasn't been released in PDF yet and I forgot about it. I've edited my response above to fix that, but short versios is 720.

[The Pilgrim]

I agree, the entire point of advancing society is to make things better than they were.

Pretty much. Now, thanks to teleworking, people work from surise to sunrise.

[Fyraltari]

The problem is not so much whether we should eliminate DST, but which of the two times to adopt as the permanent one. If the sun sets too early in the summer that's going to mess up my bike rides, and I don't want to live in almost constant darkness in the winter either. Maybe we could somehow alternate between these two times according to the season.

Or maybe we just pick the timeline which brings us closest (with respect to the geographical and political factors that make timezones a mess) to having midnight in the middle of the night and noon in the middle of the day everyday.

[Peelee]

Or maybe we just pick the timeline which brings us closest (with respect to the geographical and political factors that make timezones a mess) to having midnight in the middle of the night and noon in the middle of the day everyday.

That seems needlessly arbitrary.

[littlebum2002]

Or maybe we just pick the timeline which brings us closest (with respect to the geographical and political factors that make timezones a mess) to having midnight in the middle of the night and noon in the middle of the day everyday.

I think we should use the opportunity to rethink our entire system of time. WHy does a day start in the middle of the night? 1AM isn't the morning, it's still nighttime. "Midnight" should be renamed "Endnight" and should be moved to 7AM. 7:01AM becomes 12:01AM, the first minute of a new day, and set where the sunrise is around that time.

Also, we should have 10 hours in a day, each of which is composed of 100 minutes and each of those is composed of 100 seconds. A New Second will be 14% shorter than our current seconds, but who cares? You would work for 2 New Hours a day (equivalent to about 6.5 current hours, but the 8 hour work day is too long anyway)

[Rogar Demonblud]

You're being sarcastic, but I actually wrote up a sci-fi setting where they used a second as the base unit of time measurement and just added metric labels as needed. A kilosecond was the rough equivalent to an hour, a megasecond a week, etc. It took the players a session or so to get into the groove, but after that they had no trouble. It even became a running joke among us to ask for a dekasecond instead of a moment.

[Metastachydium]

You're being sarcastic, but I actually wrote up a sci-fi setting where they used a second as the base unit of time measurement and just added metric labels as needed. A kilosecond was the rough equivalent to an hour, a megasecond a week, etc. It took the players a session or so to get into the groove, but after that they had no trouble. It even became a running joke among us to ask for a dekasecond instead of a moment.

If it were the base unit, it would not be called ”a second”, though, simply because it would not be secondary to anything.

[Peelee]

If it were the base unit, it would not be called ”a second”, though, simply because it would not be secondary to anything.

It was named the "second" after renowned scientist Dr. Jane Second, Jr.

[hroþila]

I think we should use the opportunity to rethink our entire system of time. WHy does a day start in the middle of the night? 1AM isn't the morning, it's still nighttime. "Midnight" should be renamed "Endnight" and should be moved to 7AM. 7:01AM becomes 12:01AM, the first minute of a new day, and set where the sunrise is around that time.

I like that you're basically reintroducing the classical and medieval time system.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

I like that you're basically reintroducing the classical and medieval time system.

It doesn't go far enough. Let's go back to good old roman timekeeping. Every day can start at sunrise, and then there are 12 hours until sundown. Yes, each day the length of the hour (and the minute) is variable, unless you are on the equator, but you can keep track of the time with a stick and a few lines!

Grey Wolf

[Peelee]

It doesn't go far enough. Let's go back to good old roman timekeeping. Every day can start at sunrise, and then there are 12 hours until sundown. Yes, each day the length of the hour (and the minute) is variable, unless you are on the equator, but you can keep track of the time with a stick and a few lines!

Grey Wolf

Roman? Babylonian or bust, I say!

I speak, of course, of their mathematic system and numerals. We can totally move to a decimal system for timekeeping.

[dancrilis]

Daylight saving time is great - it is like some Chaotic Neutral God had a say in how the world was constructed, it gets even better when you have to work based on the hours of a different nation who apply it on different dates then your own nation.

If anything we should expand it maybe have a system where we take the last digit of a year divide by three and round down to see how many times a shift occurs on a given year - it would be great everyone gets a bit of what they want with this plan.

12:01AM

That however is just annoying.

[Peelee]

Daylight saving time is great - it is like some Chaotic Neutral God had a say in how the world was constructed, it gets even better when you have to work based on the hours of a different nation who apply it on different dates then your own nation.

If anything we should expand it maybe have a system where we take the last digit of a year divide by three and round down to see how many times a shift occurs on a given year - it would be great everyone gets a bit of what they want with this plan.

Imean, we do get an extra day per year, except when the year is divisible by 100 (except when the year is divisible by 400).

[Schroeswald]

Imean, we do get an extra day per year, except when the year is divisible by 100 (except when the year is divisible by 400).

And we still are off a day every 10,000 years.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Imean, we do get an extra day per year, except when the year is divisible by 100 (except when the year is divisible by 400).

Or unless you use a microsoft product, who inherited a dodgy leap year formula from a previous product for backwards compatibility, and thus, given its widespread use, you might as well assume that 1900 wasn't a leap year.

Also, this:


Grey Wolf

[Rogar Demonblud]

Like I said, just convert everything using a second as the base, and just ignore those pesky days and seasons and such. We can call the new system Stellar Date or some such.