LivingKiosk · Display 32

Almanac

The sun and moon for one place. Sunrise, sunset, how long the day is and whether that is more or less than yesterday, the twilights either side, and the moon drawn at its actual phase. Everything is computed from first principles on the machine it runs on — there is no API, no key, and nothing upstream that can disappear.

What it does

It works offline

Positions come from published series for the sun and moon, and rise and set times are found by scanning and bisecting. No network, ever — on a plane, in a basement, or after the internet goes away.

It handles the poles

Above the Arctic circle it says the sun does not set today, or does not rise, rather than printing a nonsense time. The two days a year the clocks change are handled too.

It tells you the thing you wanted

Not just the times but the difference: two minutes and ten seconds shorter than yesterday. Around a solstice it will honestly say the day is the same as yesterday, because it is.

Build your URL

Where

LatitudeLongitude

North and east are positive. That is 36.68 N, 121.66 W.

Call it

Timezone

Ground

Neither follows your system theme — a wall has its own light.

Clock

Show

Dimoff

Live preview

16:9, running for real. It restarts when you change something.

Your kiosk URL

/?lat=36.6767&lon=-121.6564Open it →

Nothing is stored — the URL is the whole configuration. Pin the place at the container level instead with ALMANAC_LAT, ALMANAC_LON, ALMANAC_PLACE and ALMANAC_TZ.

Every parameter

Parameter	Values	Default	Notes
`lat`, `lon`	degrees, north and east positive	server default	Both or neither — a latitude with no longitude is a typo, and half of a pair would move the display into the ocean.
`place`	any text	the coordinates	What to call it. Without one, the coordinates are shown, because a place name that is now a lie is worse than none.
`tz`	an IANA zone	server default	Decides what “today” means. An unknown zone is ignored rather than throwing.
`theme`	`dawn` · `night`	`dawn`	Neither follows the system colour scheme.
`clock`	`24` · `12`	`24`	Twelve-hour times are wider; the layout accounts for it.
`band`	`on` · `off`	`on`	The twilight band across the day.
`moon`	`on` · `off`	`on`	The moon and its phase.
`at`	an ISO instant	now	Pins the moment, for screenshots and tests. The page does not reload out of it.