Dragaera

while cursing amazon re the non-release of _TLoCB_

Wed Aug 6 12:32:35 PDT 2003


On Wed, 6 Aug 2003, Alexx S Kay wrote:

> ...
>   Hours have 60 minutes (FH 256).  Hours and minutes are apparently
> identical to their Terran counterparts, and were presumably established by
> the original Terran colonists (see below).

I see no evidence for equating Dragaeran and Terran minutes and hours.
It seems unlikely to me that they could be equivalent.  Of course it's
possible that the ratio of days is exactly 30/24, but 29/24 is as likely,
as is (29.1)/24.  But in either of the latter cases, I would anticipate
the minute being changed so that there would be an even number of hours.
As long as the second stayed the same, I don't think the physicists would
care.

In John M. Ford's great _Growing Up Weightless_, which is set on the moon,
the lunar society uses 25 hour days with the final hour being 12.5 minutes
long.  Obviously such an arrangement isn't possible without computers - so
pre-Orb, there must have been some accomodation in the non-exact case.


>   There are 17 months in the year, of 17 days each (PG 59).  Both days and
> months are named after the Houses.

Does the Cycle favor the Dzur on the day of the Dzur in the month of the
Dzur?  I imagine the empire's stock market must oscillate a lot...

Do bastards get an edge on two days etc.?