Story Notes: Periwinkle's New Car · 12:25am Oct 28th, 2023
Before I begin, I must thank AlwaysDressesInStyle for not only pre-reading, but also giving me the opportunity to write a story in his 16-verse (Car Wash-verse? Mustangs with Mustangs-verse?)
Periwinkle is a toy-only G4 pegasus.
She was also a G3 earth pony (although back then, she spelled her name "Peri Winkle"), which is why in most of the limited fanart I could find of her, she was an Earth pony.
The Mustang Mach-E, for anybody who doesn't know, is an Electric SUV currently produced by Ford. Understandably, a lot of Mustang purists are upset that it's called a Mustang, since it's shaped more like a Ford Edge (and they could have called it the E-Edge or the Edge-E).
Claiming that it's not a SUV (if Ford does) won't fly; it won Motor Trend's SUV of the Year award the first year of production. That having been said, given the torquiness of electric motors, there's a good chance that it can out-accelerate most production Mustangs.
This isn't the first time that Ford's made a controversial choice with Mustangs, of course; everyone almost got this as a Mustang back in the 80s:
Cooler heads prevailed, and they kept producing the original Mustang for a few more years until they could do a redesign more in keeping with the car's roots.
Anyway, that's enough Mustang history for now.
One perceived disadvantage of electric cars for us humans is charging them. Over the last hundred years or so we've built up a pretty good fueling network, whereas there isn't as good a network for electric cars. A crafty pegasus might not think the same way a human does, though; a car that runs on canned lightning could be recharged by lightning, couldn't it? And a pegasus can get lightning when and where she wants, more or less.
It's an obvious choice.
Pegasus station is a reference to Mobil Gas stations, which traditionally have a pegasus logo.
Rather than just give you a picture of the logo, I'll give you a link to a story of a Mustang going to a pegasus station:
What kind of air terminal attracts lightning best isn't just a question a pegasus might ask. Air terminals, also called spike receptors, are the bit at the very top of a lightning rod where you hope to attract lightning. Since lightning sends out leaders before the actual strike, you want to make any bolt that's headed in the general direction of a structure you want to protect have something the lightning really likes, or else what's the point of having a lightning rod at all? British scientists thought that a ball was the best choice, while American scientists preferred a pointy end. To quote Wikipedia: "As of 2003, the controversy had not been completely resolved. It is difficult to resolve the controversy because proper controlled experiments are nearly impossible. . . "; the article goes on to say that it appears that rounded ends are better.
Of course, pegasi have probably long since settled this with experimentation; build more or less identical clouds at the weather factory and push them out to the test field, repeat the experiment dozens and dozens of times and boom, results. Science!
An interleaved condenser is a type of capacitor (capacitors used to be called condensers, and might still be in some parts of the world) which has plates stacked between each other on opposite legs, much might you might imagine putting an E and a 3 together, or lacing the fingers of both hands. I don't know all that much about electrical circuit design, but I do know that a capacitor can handle a huge amount of current, where a battery can't—the basic theory of her design is to get all the current from the lightning bolt into the condensers/capacitors and then trickle it out into voltage and amperage that can be more easily worked with.
You can be blinded (temporarily or potentially permanently) with an arc flash, including from lightning.
I'm not enough of an electrical engineer to know how to engineer a lightning-catcher, or if it's something that could even be created using current technology. I do know, however, from some internet research, that the Mach-E is offered with either a 70kWh or a 91kWh battery pack (give or take, I found a few other figures but they're all in that range), and I also know that the average lightning bolt, assuming you have lossless conversion of its energy, has 1400kWh of power.
Based on mileage approximations and figuring in some losses (a random percentage that makes it easier to do math in my head :P), Periwinkle can probably get over four thousand miles (6400km) of range per lightning bolt. To put that in perspective, my van needs almost 200 gallons (760 litres) to do the same.
Presuming that she's using DC fast charging (which would be the best way to use lightning out of a Mason jar), it'd take about 40 minutes to recharge, which is also about the same amount of time it takes to have a nice lunch with friends.
Meadowbrook isn't to be confused with the G4 mage who has the same name. Meadowbrook is a G3 pony with a dragonfly and flower cutie mark:
She also has a different colored mane and tail, which isn't common.
As for her car . . .
Gone in 60 Seconds was a 1974 film in which H.B. Halicki played Mandrian Pace, a car thief. The cars that his group are going for are given code names, and the vehicle which gives him the most trouble is a yellow 1973 Ford Mustang codenamed "Eleanor." A police chase ensues, which is forty minutes long in the movie, and lots of cars are wrecked; the Mustang drives off into the sunset is in no condition to be handed over, so another one has to be located.
I won't even begin to get into the insanity that was the film. H. B. Halicki was also the primary stunt driver, and production on the movie had to be paused while he recovered from hitting a light pole.
Also, Eleanor was actually a 1971 Mustang, made up to look like a '73.
At least they didnt go as far as one design I was considering, feeding the high pressure steam back from the phase change water cooled brake disks, to a storage tank fitted with a pintel valve and a diverging nozzel.
For.. Traffic light Launch assist.
I never did get round to calculating the Moment of Inertia and Precession values for the KERB Rotary engine due to teh skateboard class suspension.
I was a kid, I wanted to see what we couldve had if Bruce Wayne had wanted a simple runabout.
Oh, for ultrafast charge and high capacitance, try Spin Wave electron capacitors, and Batacitor charging on Tales Of The Fantastic Riverboat stories?
5752551
I don't know what any of that beams, but it sounds awesome!
I thank you for liking this 'verse enough to write in it! This is in the Car Wash series. 16 is a similar, but different continuity. There's a time skip so characters are about seven years older in Business Trip/16.
For the benefit of everyone else out there reading this, keep an eye out on Tuesday for the next fix in this (now shared) universe to drop. Meadowbrook makes an appearance, and Periwinkle's Mach-E is... also there. As you can probably guess from the Tuesday release date and the below teaser cover art, it's a Halloween/Nightmare Night fic.
cdn-img.fimfiction.net/story/9rti-1697764750-544141-full
I'll save my thoughts on it for Tuesday. But at the very least, the Mustang II is no longer the most hated pony in the herd.
And I'll leave this here, since you filmed it:
camo.fimfiction.net/uKC-_5dZeGKSBuN8kgSoMIH2bkRTvDES97Y_Ck6GCLE?url=https%3A%2F%2Fimages-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com%2Ff%2F2908cd95-ef02-41e7-a303-eeeb79bd81af%2Fdewa56t-7ba8606d-6964-4d0f-86cd-1a85b4e819d4.gif%3Ftoken%3DeyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOjdlMGQxODg5ODIyNjQzNzNhNWYwZDQxNWVhMGQyNmUwIiwiaXNzIjoidXJuOmFwcDo3ZTBkMTg4OTgyMjY0MzczYTVmMGQ0MTVlYTBkMjZlMCIsIm9iaiI6W1t7InBhdGgiOiJcL2ZcLzI5MDhjZDk1LWVmMDItNDFlNy1hMzAzLWVlZWI3OWJkODFhZlwvZGV3YTU2dC03YmE4NjA2ZC02OTY0LTRkMGYtODZjZC0xYTg1YjRlODE5ZDQuZ2lmIn1dXSwiYXVkIjpbInVybjpzZXJ2aWNlOmZpbGUuZG93bmxvYWQiXX0.3sxg46VXv-OdoXNnAorAvAPR2vx-Mw2Yn3wtNpvZx_o
Sadly, this gas station is no longer a Mobil. Less than two years later, Mobil's now extinct around here entirely. So I'm glad I wrote that and we got the pics taken when we did!
She's also adorable. The good news is, we haven't seen the last of her! I never thought I'd be saying this about my series of self-inserts, but this is now a shared universe with Admiral Biscuit. We've got some other ideas in the piepline.
There's a very, very lengthy discussion on this on the Internet Movie Car Database. We were discussing this during the editing process, because '71 is absolutely correct. But unless you look really closely, it appears to be a '73, which most people who've seen the movie are going to claim the car is. The movie came out in 1974, so they wanted the car to be as up-to-date as possible. It's also cheaper to wreck an older car than a newer one, hence the old Hollywood trick of dressing up an older model to look newer.
The discussion in question: https://imcdb.org/vehicle_4972-Ford-Mustang-63D-1971.html
Speaking of dressing up an older model to look like a newer one for destruction purposes, here's another example (coincidentally, also a Mustang). Scroll down to the pics of the car exploding and take a close look - the car that blows up is a '65 (or '66) Mustang dressed up like a '76 Mustang II, with the bumpers painted over, the roof partially painted black to imitate the vinyl roof on the II, etc.
https://imcdb.org/vehicle_9122-Ford-Mustang-II-1976.html
The remains of the blown up 'Stang, used again in a later episode as a scrap car, showing some of the modifications:
https://imcdb.org/vehicle_1055016-Ford-Mustang-1965.html
Meanwhile, Hyundai EV (four images)
Is that the same Elanor that Legal Eagle did a video on a while back?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X61bdecrOiw
Intellectual property is a blight on the world. And I don't say that just as a linux nerd.
Haven't read the story, but the title instantly makes me think of the classic Pixar short Mike's New Car. Even though I'm sure it was the furthest thing from your mind when writing this and your fic has no plot overlap (beyond over-enthusiasm leading to the car's end). Seeing that slapstick laugh riot at the end of the Monsters, Inc. VHS was always so much fun.
Huh. Nobody else mentioned 1.61 gigawatts yet.
I'm also picturing jars of lighting labeled like cans of gasoline were a century ago.
I would be very skeptical about getting precise KwH numbers from any source, scientific or internet. The numbers vary widely even in a brief glance, from MIT saying about a 1/4 of a KwH to the aformentioned 1.4 GwH from various other sources. All I really know about electrical power is some engineer somewhere spends an inordinate amount of time making sure no two models of laptop from different or the same manufacturer can use the same power supplies.
A capacitor is indeed known as "kondensaattori" in Finnish (you can probably guess what that means!).
5752551
I don't know if that would be practical on a car, but they did use some steam recapture on steam locomotives (and ships). The PRR's T-1s did use it for speed; they were a 4-4-4-4 duplex, and suffered from excessive wheel slip 'cause while low wheel to rail friction is ideal for trains when it comes to efficiency, it's not so great when you're hole-shotting them.
5752590
Minty's, with the magic genie lamp?
We had the same thing happen with Exxon stations shortly after the Valdez had its little oopsie up in Alaska.
There are now a few of them here and there in Michigan, but very few.
Filmmakers do lots of things to save money.
Troma used the literal exact same car stunt shot in two of their movies (IIRC, it was Toxic Avenger and Tromeo & Juliet).
5752591
I really want one of those now.
5752597
I haven't seen that video, but I suspect it is. IIRC, Halicki ultimately lost the case recently, but I'm not sure what the actual final verdict she can clam is (i.e., she might have a claim against a 71 or 73 Mustang painted that way and called Eleanor, but not against a 71 or 73 Mustang painted that way, or any other Mustang called Eleanor.
It's got its pros and cons, and I'm not going to pretend to know where the line should be drawn.
5752605
Well, I don't want to spoil the ending, but I will say it's been years since I watched Mike's New Car and I wasn't inspired by it.
5752612
Someone did on the story itself
Packed in wooden boxes, of course, because that's how you store glass jars.
She probably would label them by lightning bolt, too. I would imagine with masking tape and sharpie, that's the most practical way to do it.
5752635
Yeah, that was what I found. Peak voltages and amperages seemed to be pretty well-established, I assume there's a reason why the kWh number is difficult to get (IIRC, I converted from joules), and I'd guess that the reason is because lightning is very fast and likes to explode things.
I feel like it's the same idea behind nobody knowing if there's a F-6 tornado. Science says there might be, but currently a tornado's ranking on the F-scale is based on ground destruction, and 'complete destruction' is hard to differentiate from 'even more complete destruction.'
Yeah, I wonder why that is. Probably a scam by Big Charger.
5752638
I can!
Oh just a note, capacitors will bleed charge slowly over time even if they aren't connected to anything. So if you don't use up the charge in the jar fast enough, it will disappear.
5752740
Sure, earth capacitors will, but will lightning in a literal Mason jar?
(Well, I suppose some might leak out around the lid if she didn't screw it on tight enough. . . )
5752591
What the actual heck
There’s no technology I know of that currently allows lightning strikes to be channeled into anything useful. For one, they’re highly unpredictable. Secondly, the incredibly high currents and voltages create conditions that we can only try to work around.
Even management has challenges. You can’t just bolt a lightning rod into other equipment; part of what a lightning rod does is act as the local concentration of opposing charge for the strike. That charge needs to come from somewhere, and the earth is the only source large enough. This is why lightning rods run straight into the earth.
A tesla coil is a portable lightning generator and we need a mad scientist pegasi pony who builds them. Tesla’s largest coils were primarily limited by his connections to the ground - even with multiple thick metal rods going down dozens of meters into the earth!
5752859
I think that's why nobody's tried, 'cause they're so unpredictable. They could maybe be channeled, if there were some pretty robust electronics or other out-of-the-box thinking (i.e., dump it into a giant resistor grid in a pool of water and use the resultant steam to spin a turbine).
I don't know much about ground-based lightning rods (besides that they have to be grounded), but I know a few things about aircraft lightning-proofing . . . and at least one case where it didn't work, 'cause while the helicopter was rated to take negative lightning hits, it didn't stand a chance against positive lightning.
Which, incidentally, is my view on how lightning-proof pegasi are: they can take a hit from negative lightning, but positive lightning kills them.
I could see that being a thing that Periwinkle builds. Much to the chagrin of her landlord.
"What's that in your living room?"
"Just my Tesla coil."
"Doesn't that shoot out electricity?"
"Yeah, how else am I supposed to experiment when it's not raining?"
5752981
I have some great video of the tesla coil I built a few years ago, somewhere. I got to about 18” on arcs.
I fear for anyone living near Periwinkle. My tesla coil put out so much radio-frequency noise when running that my television would spontaneously turn itself off. I would also get shocks off nearby metal.
5752981
> dump it into a giant resistor grid in a pool of water and use the resultant steam to spin a turbine
But see, that’s just it. You can’t do that. Lightning wants to go where it will discharge the most current, and a high resistance path (the resistors) is exactly opposite of that case. You won’t get enough charge accumulation at the end of the path of the resistors to attract a strike.
Lightning should be thought of as the earth and atmosphere getting charges out of balance and needing to bring them back into balance in a rapid fashion. That has to be by a low resistance path, or else you literally don’t get the lightning.
I wrote papers in my physics seminar on lightning, I could go on about this. One of the more interesting bits is that science still can’t quite explain fully how a lightning discharge starts. The model you’ve heard of charge imbalance is simplified. At the level of gas molecules and voltage needed to start forming a plasma, there are problems. The useful models for our other science say it shouldn’t work. One of the theories I investigated was that high-energy particles ejected by the sun acts as “seeds” that break through the voltage barrier and kick start the process.
The evidence is still inconclusive.
Thanks for writing, story and blog post both!
(I'm behind on your work, sorry -- this one actually got bumped up in the queue due to, I'd thought, the story notes post link at the end of the story not working, though it was by the time I got to it, at least.)
I do note that pegasus-bottled lightning, unless I'm much mistaken, appears to have a very high usable energy density, in terms of both mass and volume, relative to basically anything modern Earth has at anything like that ease of utilization.
5752723
If you're talking about multiple expansion engines, I don't think any of the T1s were ever fitted for that? Multiple expansion steam locomotives did exist, but weren't particularly common, as far as I know.
But yeah, the T1s were noted for wheelslip issues, though exactly why they were particularly noted for it is, as I understand it, debated.
5752981
"Which, incidentally, is my view on how lightning-proof pegasi are: they can take a hit from negative lightning, but positive lightning kills them."
I'm confused. Having googled it just now, wouldn't the only inherent difference be the direction of the current? Apparently positive lighting needs to have higher voltages and currents, but if that was it it'd be more a limit on the voltage and/or current they could take, not positive vs. negative inherently. Or am I misunderstanding something? I've not exactly done a lot of research on this.
5752985
I hadn't even though of the RF interference. Heh, Periwinkle's probably gonna get a strongly-worded letter from the FCC.
Could you trick it with a fast-moving switch? Like, it's a really attractive target and once the bolt hits, all of a sudden now it's going into something else?
(I'll be honest, I don't know much about lightning)
While I don't know if that's true or not, IIRC precipitation needs something to nucleate around, so it might not be a stretch to imagine that lightning does, too. If so, I could imagine it forming around a few particles and when enough of them get close enough together . . . kinda like a nuclear bomb works, where you reach a tipping point and then everything is feeding into everything.
I have to imagine it's incredibly hard to study, since lightning is unpredictable, happens high up in the atmosphere, and can't be replicated in the lab (yet).
Aside from the silliness of the story and the fact that this almost certainly wouldn't work with Earth physics, it's fun to imagine.
And also fun to imagine that there's at least one university that got a pegasus for their lightning studies program, and she's got a free-ride scholarship so long as she occasionally knocks lightning out of clouds in a lab setting where the scientists can study it closer.
5753081
No worries! Yeah, the link didn't work 'cause I forgot to put it in until someone reminded me in the comments. Oops.
Oh yeah. Insanely so; if she figures out a way to make those jars safe for humans she could make a fortune turning the battery industry on its head. No matter how they're charged. . . .
I might have gotten the terminology wrong; I thought that a lot of steam locomotives used high pressure steam for one set of cylinders and then lower pressure steam for the second set.
If I were to hazard a guess, it'd be that they had too much power to the wheels.
As I understand it, positive lighting has to have the higher voltage and amperage in order to exist. So yes, it's a limit to how much voltage/amperage a pegasus can take on a hit, and negative lightning can't get that powerful, while positive lightning always is.
I'm not an expert, though; just barely beyond Wikipedia smart when it comes to lightning. 5752987 knows a lot more than I do and can maybe explain better why positive lightning has a higher voltage and amperage.
5753452
> And also fun to imagine that there's at least one university that got a pegasus for their lightning studies program, and she's got a free-ride scholarship so long as she occasionally knocks lightning out of clouds in a lab setting where the scientists can study it closer.
There are a few universities world-wide that can induce lightning strikes. The main one I’m familiar with is the University of Florida’s Lightning Research Group: http://www.lightning.ece.ufl.edu/
That group (and most I’ve heard about) use the rocket-and-wire method. When weather conditions look favorable, they fire rockets into clouds with long trailing wires. That gives a fairly long lasting (until the rocket comes down!) conductive path for a lightning strike.
If you want indoor lightning… well, that’s what tesla coils, van degraff and marx generators can do. The only limit is really how big the devices are. To get actual lighting, you literally need something as tall as clouds. Otherwise it discharges to the nearest nearby ground.
5753455
"
"
:)
"No worries! Yeah, the link didn't work 'cause I forgot to put it in until someone reminded me in the comments. Oops."
Ah, thanks and thanks. :)
"Oh yeah. Insanely so; if she figures out a way to make those jars safe for humans she could make a fortune turning the battery industry on its head. No matter how they're charged. . . ."
Well, how are they unsafe for humans? In use, or just in charging? Because if it's the latter, that might be less convenient for the human customers, but it's even more of an opportunity for pegasi running or supplying lightning jar swap stations.
"I might have gotten the terminology wrong; I thought that a lot of steam locomotives used high pressure steam for one set of cylinders and then lower pressure steam for the second set."
That's multiple expansion (double expansion, in that case), aye, but no, it was as far as I know not very common in locomotives.
...Except I'm apparently wrong, reading the Wikipedia page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compound_locomotive
Interesting, thanks!
(Though the T1s, from some checking just now, do indeed appear to have only ever been single expansion.)
"If I were to hazard a guess, it'd be that they had too much power to the wheels."
Well, yes, that is true, on that level. :D
The debate is about just why they seemed particularly prone to that.
"As I understand it, positive lighting has to have the higher voltage and amperage in order to exist. So yes, it's a limit to how much voltage/amperage a pegasus can take on a hit, and negative lightning can't get that powerful, while positive lightning always is."
Ah, okay, thanks.
And I'd assume, from my own admittedly non-expert understanding, that it's the current that's the issue, as usual (My understanding is that voltage is only a concern due to driving current, and that technically it'd be perfectly safe to have even a megavolt potentially across one's body if that voltage source is sufficiently current-limited. Higher voltages are more dangerous because they can drive higher currents through a given resistance, whether that resistance is insulation, protective gear, an air gap, or someone's body -- but IIRC, the highest voltage the human body alone will sufficiently resist is only about 32 volts, so for anything above that, at least in terms of direct shock hazards rather than arc flash or the like, the exact number is just important for how much protection is needed, and the level of danger if there isn't enough protection is determined by the current limit (both the amperage and how long that amperage would be delivered). Though there's some complexity from various parts of the human body, once current gets through the skin, not being equally conductive or equally vulnerable; current that crosses the heart, for instance, can be a lot more dangerous than the same current crossing from one finger to another on the same hand, because it takes a lot less to throw off a heart's rhythm than to start directly causing internal burns. Though, again, not an expert here, and my general policy is to just not touch or get within arc range of live conductors at all.).
"I'm not an expert, though; just barely beyond Wikipedia smart when it comes to lightning. ibanix knows a lot more than I do and can maybe explain better why positive lightning has a higher voltage and amperage."
And thanks!
5753465
I'd say in use, too; they're off-the-shelf Mason jars made to whatever standard is good enough for home canning, and they've got lids that Periwinkle made herself with no quality control except 'it didn't explode when the lightning went in.' That could be worked on in a final product, but for now every part of her system is dangerous to humans and non-pegasi.
Because if it's the latter, that might be less convenient for the human customers, but it's even more of an opportunity for pegasi running or supplying lightning jar swap stations.
As I understand it, this is the case. I think a static shock can be 50.000 volts but there's virtually no amps in it, so it's painful but can't do anything (and doesn't have any potential to do anything). And while it's not the exact same thing, some linemen working on high-tension power lines do so from a helicopter which is bonded to the line, which causes all the voltage to also charge the helicopter and the people in it. Not a problem so long as they don't touch anything that would let the potential current flow (if they did, it would be instantly fatal for everyone).
Yeah, and I think that higher voltages also make it easier for it to make the jump. There's a lot of potential energy in a car battery (the diesel truck I just worked on said that the glow plugs should pull a minimum of 160 amps when they're activated), but I can touch both battery terminals with my bare hands even if they're wet and not have a problem. Could probably do the same if my hands were coated in salt water . . . and yet if I licked a nine-volt battery, I'd get a tingle . . . so there might be a distance factor in there, too, I don't know. It's a field of study that I don't know much about, I just know what stuff on a car can put out dangerous voltage/amperage and what can't.
5753605
"I'd say in use, too; they're off-the-shelf Mason jars made to whatever standard is good enough for home canning, and they've got lids that Periwinkle made herself with no quality control except 'it didn't explode when the lightning went in.' That could be worked on in a final product, but for now every part of her system is dangerous to humans and non-pegasi."
Ah, makes sense; thanks.
"As I understand it, this is the case."
Ah, thanks.
"I think a static shock can be 50.000 volts but there's virtually no amps in it, so it's painful but can't do anything (and doesn't have any potential to do anything)."
Now that you mention it, I think I may have heard something like that at some point too.
"And while it's not the exact same thing, some linemen working on high-tension power lines do so from a helicopter which is bonded to the line, which causes all the voltage to also charge the helicopter and the people in it. Not a problem so long as they don't touch anything that would let the potential current flow (if they did, it would be instantly fatal for everyone)."
Yep. Voltage is a potential difference, always relative to something.
"Yeah, and I think that higher voltages also make it easier for it to make the jump."
Right. The actual mechanics of whether something will or won't arc are, as I understanding, pretty complex, taking into account a variety of different qualities of the air (or other gas) and the shapes of the things involved, but a rule of thumb I've heard is that one inch of air gap will provide safe clearance for 7500 VDC or 2500 VAC. (My guess is that the reason a given AC voltage needs three times the gap as the same DC voltage is that the DC voltage is just the DC voltage but the AC voltage is the root mean square voltage, not the peak voltage. There might also be some effect from induction with AC voltage.)
"There's a lot of potential energy in a car battery (the diesel truck I just worked on said that the glow plugs should pull a minimum of 160 amps when they're activated), but I can touch both battery terminals with my bare hands even if they're wet and not have a problem. Could probably do the same if my hands were coated in salt water . . . and yet if I licked a nine-volt battery, I'd get a tingle . . . so there might be a distance factor in there, too, I don't know."
Huh. Yeah, I don't know why that might be.
"It's a field of study that I don't know much about, I just know what stuff on a car can put out dangerous voltage/amperage and what can't."
Which is the really important part in your line of work, of course. :)