A Pet Project: Zociacl
It’s been awhile since I typed some words around here. Right around the World Cup was the last time, from what I can see. I really didn’t want to like the World Cup, but there’s something about watching it I family that makes it about more than just a game. But I digress - this post has nothing to do with football (fortunately).
This is about a pet project I’ve been kicking around for some time, and finally got around to fleshing it out and making it live.
A Chinese and Western Zodiac calculator.
I’m not a hard-core zodiac horoscope person. I just find the topic interesting. From time to time people would say, “Hey what sign am I?”.
I’d spin up the ol’ internet and look for a good Chinese Zodiac calculator (Western Zodiac is much simpler to calculate). But the calculators were usually either deeply embedded in larger sites that were not dedicated to the topic, or ugly as hell and ridden with ads (and who knows what else).
I really wished to just find a nice-to-look-at calculator that worked.
And one day I realized - hey, I could just make one. I make nice looking websites. I can code enough to set up a Chinese Zodiac calculator that can accurately calculate lunar cycles and your Chinese zodiac animal, without blindly saying, “Oh, you were born in 2026? You’re a horse, of course!” (Which would only be true if you were born on February 17th of 2026 or later).
You know, a simple tool that does one thing, and one thing well - show you your sign! (So you can stop asking people in bars…)
Zodiacl is Born
If you want to know more about the technical side of the new site, you can check it out in my portfolio.
So I was probably about halfway through coding the project when the name dawned on me. Unless a client or project needs otherwise, I code and publish for an English- and Spanish-speaking audience. I deeply favor names that work in both languages; the closer to a perfect cognate (word spelled exactly the same in both languages and with the same meaning) the better. I found that the word zodiacal fits this nicely - same meaning in both languages, spelled exactly the same, and common enough a word.
Dropping the last vowel (which was trendy for branding at one point; I truly don’t strive to be trendy, hip or cool), left me with: zodiacl.
Taking advantage of my geographic location, which allows me to pick up .cl domains, I went ahead and got zodia.cl. Yay to me!
The Calculator Tool
The website actually consists of two separate calculators, which can be selected from the main page: a Chinese Zodiac calculator, and a Western Zodiac calculator. Choosing either one will present you with a brief introduction and a space to enter your birthdate. Pressing the submit button will return, depending on the calculator you selected, your Chinese zodiac animal and element, or your Western zodiac sign (and corresponding element). A really brief description of their personality will appear, and clicking the button below will take you to a new page with your animal/sign and element (shown graphically as the color of the background) and a longer description about your animal/sign and element.
It is a silly and fun project that I wanted to code to see if I could, and maybe for my personal reference and use down the road. It’s free to use, in case anyone is interested!