Guide to Astrology/Guide to Astrology.iso/wastro_6/phoebe.doc

Text File | 1995-12-30 | 15KB | 303 lines

                                Phoebe


                                                September 20, 1992


   Introduction:

        Thank you for down-loading Phoebe, a small Windows utility program
    that gives various astrological information related to the moon.
    Phoebe is named after the Greek Goddess of the moon who was also the
    protector of children.  I wrote Phoebe to aid the Vietnamese refugee
    children without parents who are in refugee camps in the Philippines.

        The Center for Aid to Displaced Persons, CADP, is an agency run by
    the Philippine Daughters of Charity of the Catholic church which
    provides shelter, counseling and education to the unaccompanied minors
    in the Philippines First Asylum Camp (PFAC).  If you enjoy Phoebe, I
    beg you to make a donation to CADP (no matter how small).  You may send
    the money directly to CADP or you may send it to Hong Bang, an
    organization in New Orleans that works closely with CADP.  Hong Bang
    will forward any money received for CADP directly with no overhead
    costs of any kind.  Both CADP and Hong Bang are nonprofit
    agencies staffed through volunteers.  Hong Bang is dedicated to
    improving the health, education and social welfare of Vietnamese,
    and has helped volunteers work in the refugee camps.


   Address:

   CADP, Inc.                      CADP, Inc.
   PO Box 4278                     c/o Hong Bang
   Manila 1082, Philippines        2476 Park Place Dr.
                                   Gretna, LA 70053

   Excerpts from CADP's Mission Statement:

          The Care for the most vulnerable groups among refugees

        Un-Accompanied Minor Refugees (UAM): These are youngsters from 3 to
   6 years of age.  They are alone in the camp without the guidance of elder
   siblings or relatives.  Upon assessment, they would be placed, with their
   consent, in foster home care under the guidance of the adults who would
   be recruited, trained and supervised by the professional staff.  In these
   homes they would enjoy guided family relationships among members whose
   roles and functions are clearly described and made known for the whole
   group.  There are assigned adults who act as their counselors to guide
   and defend them in case they get into trouble.

        The UAM enjoy attentive concerns from the staff who coordinate with
   the schools so that all UAM attend formal education, language and
   vocational training.  The adults are aware of the youth's needs for
   affection, privacy and adventure.  They also have greater intakes than
   the ordinary people.  Thus food supplement for breakfast is granted.
   Clothing and footwear are supplied to them periodically upon their
   counselor's requisition.  Group discussions on topics that interest them,
   sports training in soccer, volleyball, basketball, table tennis,
   VoViNam martial arts, are available to the UAM.  Periodically, the UAM
   are sent to the seas for picnics, camping and sport competitions with
   Filipino Youth.  Character training is conducted on these occasions.

        Rehabilitation for the Handicapped Refugees:  UNHCR showed an
   acute interest in the fate of this vulnerable group.  CADP reinforced
   these concerns by accepting to conduct a special rehabilitation program
   for all the handicapped.  They have tutorial classes for the mentally
   slow learners, the braille and sign language training for the blind and
   the deaf-mute individuals.  They also undergo vocational and language
   training on a personal basis.  Physical therapy is available for
   motivated individuals.   The handicapped's families and neighbors are
   included in the reorientation of their attitude towards the impaired
   individuals.  Through the activities, the handicapped refugees learn to
   develop a strong sense of self sufficiency in all their daily activities.


                                CADP's AIMS

        1. CADP uses Advocacy and Clarification as methods by which the
           refugee's legitimate aspirations can be heard and their
           responsibilities as members of a free world can be made known
           to them.

        2. CADP mobilizes people to participate in the management of their
           human and dignified life, as responsible persons and as children
           of God.

        3. CADP searches to fully meet the crucial needs of people who could
           not function normally in society, due to their physical and
           social impediments by a discrimination distribution of resources
           in favor of the most deprived.

        CADP was born with needs of the refugees in the first months of
   their Exodus.  CADP wishes to see the Displaced Persons end their
   marginal life in the country the had opted to stay for the past 17 years.
   CADP pledges to see the last of the asylum seeker off safely, to wherever
   their final destinations may be, providing them compassion as CADP
   walks with them in their painful journey.

                        from The Mission of CADP, Inc. 1975 - 1992
                             Sr. Pascale Le thi Triu, DC
                             Director and Program Coordinator




   Phoebe:

        Phoebe calculates the sunrise and sunset times to within about a
    minute and the moonrise and moonset times to within 15 minutes by using
    successive approximation.  The equations are based on the book
    Astronomical Formulae for Calculators by Jean Meeus published by
    Willmann-Bell.  To calculate these times accurately, Phoebe must use
    the correct local longitude and latitude and the correct difference in
    time from GMT.  Odd values for these numbers will lead Phoebe to
    calculate odd values for the rise and set times.  Phoebe's icon
    is set to resemble the phase of the moon and zodiac information
    is given for the time Phoebe was started.

        The easiest way to set the local parameters is to select
    Location/Select City from the menu and then select the nearest city,
    and use the Adjust Hours and Adjust Minutes option to vary the times to
    agree with the times in a local newspaper.  Check the system time
    (Location/Show System Time) to verify that the difference in hours from
    GMT is correct.  For locations such as Newfoundland that are half-hours
    difference from GMT, set the Adjust Minutes option to 30.  Alternately
    one can use Adjust Hours, Change Longitude, Change Latitudes options to
    set everything correctly.  Your local library should be able to tell
    you the exact Latitude and Longitude for your city.

        Use Recalculate to update the display once the location information
    has been changed.

        Once the location parameters are set, check the sunrise/sunset
    times in an almanac or newspaper.  The Adjust Minutes parameter can be
    used to take care of any small local differences in time caused by
    different altitudes).  Once all of these location parameters are to
    your liking, save them with the Save Changes option and Phoebe will
    write them to a Phoebe.ini file and set itself up correctly the next
    time.

        Most systems default to Eastern time, although there is an obscure
    DOS environment variable TZ to set DOS for other Time-zones.  If this
    variable is set Phoebe will use it.  Phoebe provides enough control to
    correctly set the location information without setting this variable in
    your autoexec.bat file.

        Setting the location information for Phoebe is much easier than
    describing it in writing.  Note that because the moon's period is
    roughly 29.5 days the rising and setting times vary greatly.  Sometimes
    the moon rises and sets in the same day and sometimes the old moon sets
    and then the young moon rises.  There is one day a month where the moon
    rises and does not set until the next day and one day where the moon
    sets but does not rise until the next day.

   Limitations of the Algorithms for the Sun and Moon:

        The routines for the sun and moon are my own.  They are based on
   formulas from Meeus's earlier book, Astronomical Formulae for
   Calculators, but with some speed improvements.  The trade-off is that
   for areas above the arctic circle or very near the International Dateline,
   these routines may diverge.  Phoebe does not accept values for latitude
   and longitude that will cause these routines to diverge.

   The Lunar and Horary Date:

        The Lunar Date is today's date on the Eastern Lunar calendar.  The
    Horary Date is the date on the Chinese calendar given in terms of the
    Heavenly Stems (Colors) and Heavenly Branches (Animals).  The ten
    Heavenly Stems are Purple, Black, Orange, Red, Golden, Green, White
    Yellow, Blue and Silver.  The actual words in Chinese or Vietnamese are
    not the names of colors, but in Chinese Numerology these colors are
    assigned to the stems.  I used the colors instead of the more
    traditional "first stem", "second stem" translation in hopes that the
    translation would be more pleasing.  The names of the Heavenly Branches
    are the names of animals and I followed the Vietnamese style in
    translating them as Rat, Ox, Tiger, Cat, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Goat,
    Monkey, Chicken, Dog and Pig.  The Heavenly Stem and Branch pairs
    rotate through a sixty unit cycle.  Adding the place value for the day,
    month and year, dividing by 8 and using the dividend and remainder to
    generate a character from the I Ching determines whether the day is a
    lucky or unlucky day.

    References:
      Astronomical Formulae for Calculators by Jean Meeus. (*)
      Astronomical Algorithms by Jean Meeus. (*)
      Astronomical Algorithms C Software Toolbox by Jeffrey Sax. (*)
      Calendar Conversions by Way of the Julian Day Number by O L Harvey. (*)
      An Anthology of the I Ching by Sherril and Chu.
      The I Ching by Sam Reiffer.

      A special thank you to Willmann-Bell for granting permission for
      their software routines to be redistributed and being so patient
      and helpful in locating reference books on something so obscure
      as calculations of dates on the Chinese calendar.

      (*) Available from Willmann-Bell, Inc.
                         PO Box 35025
                         Richmond, VA  23235
                         Phone: [phone]



   DOS Time-zone:

        Phoebe relies on the DOS system time to calculate the times of
   the rise and set of the sun and the moon.  Usually DOS will report
   Eastern Standard Time (EST) or Eastern Daylight Time when the
   time-zone is requested.  To correct this difference, an environment
   variable TZ can be set in the autoexec.bat file.

   For example,

   SET  TZ=CST6CDT

   will set the time-zone to Central Standard Time, 6 hours difference
   from GMT and Central Daylight Time in the summer.  Someone in
   Indiana (Indiana has no daylight savings time.) may use

   SET  TZ = CST6

   which sets the time-zone information to Central Standard Time, 6
   hours difference from GMT, no daylight savings time in the summer.

   Someone in California might set the time-zone variable by:

   SET  TZ = PST8PDT

   The syntax for this command is,

   SET  TZ = zzz[+/-]d[d][lll]

   where zzz is the three letter abbreviation for standard time,
   [+/-]d[d] is a one or two digit number, optionally signed that
   gives the time difference for standard time from GMT.  Time-zones
   West of GMT are positive and time-zones East of GMT are negative.
   This number should range between -12 and 12 for correct results.
   [lll] is the optional designation for daylight savings time or
   summer time.  If [lll] is present, DOS will use daylight savings
   time in computing the time.  If this string is not present DOS
   assumes TZ = EST5EDT as the default string.  It is not necessary
   to go to the trouble to set this variable to use Phoebe.

   Daylight Savings Time:

        One set of bug fixes in 2.5 allows Phoebe to correctly handle
   daylight savings time in all cases and all routines.  Daylight savings
   time can be disabled by setting the environment variable TZ as described
   above.

   Rising and Setting Times for Planets:

        Version 2.5 of Phoebe now includes many new features and some bug
   fixes over the first version.  Phoebe now comes with two small files
   Phoebe.ndx and Phoebe.dat that allow Phoebe to calculate the rising and
   setting times for all the planets.  These files should be in the same
   directory as Phoebe.exe, although they can be located in the Windows
   directory or any directory in the DOS path and Phoebe will find them.

   Local Seasons, Sound and Updates:

        Phoebe will also calculate the beginning and duration of the local
   seasons, and use the Windows 3.1 sound support functions if available.
   Phoebe will now automatically update itself every half-hour, this feature
   as well as the sound support can be shut off.


   Other Improvements and Bug Fixes:

        Phoebe now includes 128 cities in its listing.  The algorithms used
   for calculating the lunar date have been improved.  Jean Meeus's new Book
   Astronomical Algorithms was invaluable in debugging and fixing these
   problems.  The icons for Phoebe were redesigned and improved.

   Distribution:

        This program may be freely distributed without cost, provided
   that it is not changed in any way.  The current version is 2.50
   Bug reports and comments and suggestions can be sent to Anthony Nguyen
   in care of Hong Bang.


   Closing Notes:

        I hope you enjoy Phoebe.  I hope that some kindhearted people
   enjoy it enough to help CADP care for the poor, lonely children
   in the camps.  Everyday the situation grows worse for the refugees and
   for children with no parents in the camps the situation is becoming
   unbearable.  CADP helps them to endure by providing them with
   counselling, education, recreation and shelter.  I pray to God that
   this program in some way helps the volunteers in CADP to continue
   their good work.  Working as a volunteer for CADP was one of the
   most fulfilling experiences of my life, and it breaks my heart to
   see the conditions of the refugees in the camps today. Good-bye
   and may God Bless you.



                                                Yours truly,


                                                Anthony Nguyen
                                                Vestal, NY