Well...it made sense at one point...

I think maybe he meant 14 deg of "initial" advance and I should have corrected that but just did a cut/paste. So when your engine is at idle with the vacuum disconnected from the distributor and plugged, this is where you set the initial timing. As you begin to accelerate, the vacuum advances the timing until the mechanical part takes over and the vacuum from the manifold or carb port dies off.

Somebody way smarter than me can explain it better but here's a pretty good web page if you need some light reading:

http://www.angelfire.com/on/geebjen/timing.txt

I didn't get to install it yet but I have Friday off so I'll do it then for sure and report my findings.