Right as school got out the next day, Twilight had foregone her usual trips to the library and found herself in the basement listening to the acoustics of more of her classic footage. Another clip loaded up as she got ready to trim some stuff down, record some other introduction, and add some music. Snacking on her peanut butter crackers and apple, Twilight found herself ruminating about yet the next segment, where she answered a question about wireless Internet for Rainbow Dash. Much as Dashie was into sports and the more extreme things in life, the world of computer literacy was not something to fascinate her, relegating it to the eggheads of the world. With her rainbow-colored hair and cyan skin, she was all for playing games and sports such as basketball, baseball, soccer, lacrosse, and even the occasional cross-country run. Not one to understand the fundamentals of computer coding, word processing, or applications of certain other programs, her failure to fulfill her computer literacy requirements with the rest of the class was among the very few things that mortified her. Many times, she would insist that she either have someone do computer-related assignments for her to such a point where she ran the risk of being held accountable for academic dishonesty, an often expellable offense. Twilight, being the egghead in the school along with the other Twilight, would have run the highest risk of being charged with handling Dashie's assignments, which were either simple essays or computer-aided drawing and painting assignments. Reflecting on the way Dashie started warming up to her intellect after she showed her how to properly use an e-mail client, Twilight went on about how her next segment was based in communications.
"Wireless Internet," she started. "Getting on the Internet was one thing when I was a little bitty pinkie, having to make sure that the phone line was clear for as long as you needed so you can download that ever-so-hot song on the Boomster. Now, here's another one about communications technologies."
"Here on Twilight Time, we get tons of questions that pound us for answers, and today's question comes from @20percentcoolr. She writes:"
Dear Twilight,
What is this Wi-Fi thing that everybody seems to have? And how does this work?
"@20percentcoolr, you bring up a very simple question. For the underinitiated, Wi-fi is short for 'Wireless Fidelity,' and is a name used to describe wireless local area networking technologies. We connect our phones and laptops to wireless networks with these technologies to receive resources such as access to the Internet or access to the school printers. Pursuant to IEEE 802.11, the driving force behind this is simply radio waves with frequencies usually anywhere from 2400 to 5000 megahertz, frequencies much higher than what analog TV, radio, and even cordless phones broadcast with. Even right now, I have my modem connected to a Wi-Fi router to provide Internet access to everyone in my house.
The only big drawbacks with Wi-Fi, naturally, include security, speed, and reliability. Seeing that we're dealing with radio waves, the network can be compromised by all sorts of interference from walls and pine trees to microwaves in use. Second, not only can routers be very unpredictable in their uptime, but data and information on an unsecured network can be much more easily compromised. Third, as opposed to a wired connection that can give you 100 megabits per second, sometimes you can only get a wireless network connection as fast as only 54, which can sometimes be a pain if you're into power usage. But, at any rate, the fact that we have these technologies means that we don't have to be stuck in one place to stay on the Internet, let alone on a workgroup."
Unbeknownst to her, a buzz on what was otherwise a silent phone came through, notifying her that someone was interested in what she had to say. Twilight made note of it right on the camera as it was rolling.
"Oh, and there's something coming in now from sugar_coat, who says:"
Dear Twilight,
This is some good stuff. Too bad I have to steal it for my presentation tomorrow.
Twilight cracked open a bottle of water to steady her heat as she watched through the next few minutes of footage, laughing at some of the jokes, puns, and mistakes along the way.
"Oh, Sugarcoat," remarked Twilight, "I will never forget when the teacher busted you for plagiarism. Honestly, I didn't think people actually watched my show."