Hi all,
When I was writing my early stories, I puffed myself up with pride that I had invented a system of bells that fit with Penny's description. I have been patting myself metaphorically ever since.
Penny, as you are all aware, is doing her Great Edit, tidying up stuff and so on.
I decided that I too would do my own great edit, and I cannot express how much gratitude I have for Kimmie who has read every word again and again.
However, Penny noticed a discrepancy that we had somehow overlooked. This means I had to change the words in my #4. Writing-wise, this was basically trivial.
However, I have spent nearly all my spare time of this last week recalculating and changing nearly all the times that were shown in the charts for the 'Times and Bells'. This job was WAY more complicated than I had imagined.
I have now done this and so both #4 and the 'Times and Bells' have been updated.
I apologise for my initial misinterpretation of Penny's words.
Should any of you have actually printed out those charts, then I'm afraid they shall require reprinting now.
Sorry
Joolz.
Comments
Not really your fault
I should have spotted the discrepancy much earlier, before we decided to read the same paragraph two different ways.
My fault entirely, since the said paragraph wasn't exactly clear about what I thought I had described. You've all been there: you think you have got over what you need to say and then later discover that you have not. mea culpa.
I have, during the Great Edit process, cleared up that little problem but forgot to mention it to Jools - and she didn't spot it when she reviewed the edited chapter. That just goes to show, as I have said before, you will never ever find every typo, misnaming or sloppy description in any work. They are still there, even that book what King James commissioned.
As for the bigger blunders, well, I have yet to deal with most of those. I hope Jools can keep up.
Penny
New Errors
"...even that book what King James commissioned."
New printings in the old days sometimes introduced new errors. For example, there was the Adultery Bible: "Thou shalt commit adultery." Someone was punished pretty harshly.
-- Daphne Xu
No I'm Spartacus!
I confess, I confess! I went back in time, hacked Penny 's computer and made it all happen.
*sigh*
Things happen, ladies, and frankly the problem does not ring any bells for me ^_^
Bell's
I have read SEE all the way 3 times and still have no clue. My brain calls them hours
Nobody's Fault
Julia Phillips: It was my fault.
Penny Lane: My fault entirely.
Come, now. These things will happen: if not one thing then another. It's nobody's fault that something of the sort happens, and this just happened to be it.
-- Daphne Xu
Time keeping in Palarand
If people actually lived with a complex time keeping system as the Palarandi bells-- especially when one adds in low literacy rate, complex writing and numbering systems, it is a wonder the king didn't have a dedicated office just to ensure accuracy with a staff strength larger than the palace guard. The reported SNAFUs and the occasional FUBARs could have kept Penny busy writing comedy skits every other chapter.
Thanks for the correction.
Bells
I have always read them as time since noon and the morning bells as arbitrary, i never bothered to understand the system more than that
Not the Bells!
So I wrote that careful (but not, as it turned out, careful enough) description of the bell system in #23 for nothing?
(A description which is now fixed, by the way.)
Penny
It wasn't for nothing, its
It wasn't for nothing, its the seasonal changes I couldn't wrap my head around, the 1/20th of a day part was easy, but its an effect of being used to the 24hr clock, and using artificial means (an alarm clock app) to signify the start of the day, as opposed to the sun, when the day is described as starting with variable time till noon, and night goes until dawn, as opposed to midnight, the bell code is fine, that I mostly understood, even if I wouldn't be able to usefully decode it IRL, as is frequently pointed out in SEE and WMD, the bell system is complicated, an impressive feat of mechanical ability turning it into a clock, but never the less complicated, not so much so that it'd be impossible to become familiar with it, but it is harder to go from hours to bells than the other way around would be, at the same token that's part of the point
Let me rephrase that
Being accustomed to the 24hr system where all hours are exactly the same length and there is an exact half day division before numbers repeat, without other things going on to indicate relative time, I have a hard time meaningfully understanding the bell system, after all there could be as many as 13 day or night bell periods on a given day, but always 20 total, and an obvious effect of this is the fact that people adjust their sleep patterns according to the season rather drastically, which with zoning and industrialization will cause problems with work scheduling, and the small adjustments to some of the bell periods make it impossible to get an accurate measure of speed, and the fact that the smallest recorded divisions are 1/4 bell before using sand droppers doesn't help matters. Going back to sleep cycles, DST is bad enough and Paralandi use a few different sleep cycles throughout the year, and some use a different set of sleep cycles to boot, it would be hell for business owners and employers, let alone the service industry