I'm often asked about the astrological base behind the predictions program for 2015 which works using the date and time of birth of each person, the truth is that it isn't simple or easy to explain, basically it was developed using a chinese astrology tool called Lo Pan, which it's often translated as divination plate, the one I made is this:

In short, the rounded part represents Heaven, and the remaining part represents the Earth and everything contained in it, including ourselves.

This chinese divination plates date back thousands of years, and there are countless versions, but the mechanism and the idea is always the same, the one I made is based on this model of the early Han Dynasty (200 years BC):

Then, to calculate a prediction according to the Chinese Horoscope, for the Year of the Wood Goat (2015) for example, the procedure is as follows:

1. On the rounded disk representing Heaven, i.e. the sky, we use some kind of tokens to represent the main celestial bodies:
   
   • Sun
   • Moon
   • Jupiter
   • Venus
   • Mars
   • Saturn
   • And others we think appropriate

   You have to put them in the position they occupy at the time of the prediction, that's why on the disk appear drawn the major stars, to place the tokens in their proper position, so we get an schematic representation of the sky, also we can rotate the Heaven disk over the Earth plate to see how the position of the sky and its stars changes in relation to Earth as time passes.

2. In the area representing the Earth there are two sections:
   
   • Blue: represents the person the prediction deals with.
   • Red: symbolizes the environment around the person, as understood by Feng Shui.

   So, in the blue area we represent the signs and energies of the person according to his/her date and time of birth, this way we can compare these data with those represented for the sky at the time of the prediction, even watching the evolution hour by hour by rotating the Heaven's disk.

3. Once we have represented the sky at a particular time (mid June 2015 for example), and the data of the person, it's a matter of just see how they relate to each other and hence deduce the prediction, this is the hardest part, since there are many different ways of doing it according to different authors and astrologers... then, which one you follow?

My approach was just a simple see by myself, so I patiently wrote down all the things that were happening around me for many months (and a few years), as well as around other people I know; for this I used this type of calendars with a blank space for each day, for example this page is from January this year:

Then, little by little I was comparing what happened in the skies with things happening over the Earth, just trying to see what works and what don't at an astrological level, and somewhat I got a kind of algorithm that seemed to make sense and work somewhat, of course it's very far from perfect, and I have the will to improve it when I have time for it; you can even send me any comments or suggestions regarding it.

Anyway, I don't think I've invented anything new, in fact everything I tried came from ancient chinese texts, I just used a computer to see easily what made sense and what not according to my data, it wasn't so different from any little research experiment done in some universities.

So far, the best way to know if these custom predictions for the Wood Goat year work or not, is just to have a look at the predictions for the past years, and see for yourself if the results make sense or not, if they did in the past, maybe they will do in the future.

However, my conclusion after this research is that astrological influences are very subtle when it comes to predictions like this, and often the same astronomical configuration may result in very different forms in practice, then, these programs are not intended to predict the future as if you see a movie, but rather just to offer an outline of general trends.