Mike raised his head back up and looked at Twilight. “Yes something is wrong. The connection to the Internet is down.”
“What does that mean?” Twilight asked.
“It means that this computer is not connected to the system of networks comprising the Internet. It cannot access information from outside sources.” Mike replied.
Mike was in the dumps. He had promised to help Twilight find her way home again, and he saw the Internet as the optimum tool for helping her get whatever answers there were to be gotten.
“What might have caused that?” Twilight asked. “Was it the ice storm? Maybe it caused you to lose the Internet just like you lost power to your house.”
“No.” Mike replied. “The house lost power because tree limbs collapsed on top of power lines somewhere, causing breaks. There are probably even multiple breaks and it may take days to restore service.
“But the Internet service I have is through a satellite service. Instead of wires, I have a Satellite dish outside...”
Of course! Mike's eyes grew round as he suddenly realized the probable cause of his Internet problems.
“The buildup of ice may well have interfered with the signal! Thank you, Twilight. That was a great idea. Come on we need to get outside to see if there's anything we can do to fix it.”
----------------
In a few moments, the two of them had made their way outside. Mike led the way around to the far side of his house, in the opposite direction from the walkway leading towards the garage. They had to tread carefully since the ice from the storm had not as yet melted. The ice covered snow was still as treacherous as it had been the previous day.
Coming around the corner of the house, what they saw was a large parabolic reflector dish. It was mounted on a solid metal pole and positioned up high, almost two meters off the ground. Mike had wanted the extra clearance so he did not hit his head when mowing the lawn.
Ah-ha, so that's the problem. It’s all covered in a layer of ice which is attenuating the signal.
What Mike had ordered when he had installed the satellite internet communications was a 'larger' one hundred and twenty centimeter dish. Such larger dishes were normally used at much more northerly latitudes, but he had figured that the larger dish would capture a stronger signal and work better during inclement weather. That theory had worked out very well during all the rainy days of the previous season. But now, it wasn’t working out so well. Mike saw that there was an awful lot of ice on the satellite dish.
“It's covered in ice.” stated Twilight. “Is that a problem?”
“Yes, it’s quite the problem. The signals from the satellite are being blocked or attenuated by that coating of ice, and they cannot get through.”
“What's a satellite? And you mentioned signals. Does it have something to do with that radio you told me about last night?”
“The astronomical definition of a satellite is a body which orbits another body. The most obvious example is the moon, which orbits our earth.” Mike intended to pause for a few seconds, to allow Twilight time to absorb the information.
“Go on.” she urged almost immediately. Once again he was impressed with how quickly she could absorb new information.
Mike was surprised to observe that Twilight had her own little satellite. She had apparently brought the notebook out with her and it now floated off to the side, the pen busily jotting down the information on satellites.
“For nearly fifty years now, humans have been launching artificial satellites into orbit around the earth. They serve a variety of interests, from observing the weather and performing scientific study of the earth to providing communications.”
Twilight had an intent look upon her face. “Do you mind Mike if I ask you some questions about what you just said. All three of those 'interests' you mentioned just demand further explanation.”
“Sure go ahead.” Mike said as he reached up and tried tapping the satellite dish. He was hoping the vibration would dislodge the ice, but it appeared to be stuck on there, quite firmly.
“Okay. Let’s start with the last one you mentioned, communications. How does an object in orbit help with communications.”
“Well, the radio spectrum is quite crowded.” Seeing that Twilight was about to ask another question, he held up a hand to forestall her. “Radio signals are broadcast at a highly specific frequency. The radio which attempts to receive that signal uses a resonance circuit attached to the antenna in order to select signals of that frequency and only that frequency.”
Twilight's expression lit up with an 'Oh' of sudden comprehension.
Mike continued. “Other users of the radio will tune their broadcasts to a different frequency. And thus every user can keep their signals distinct from the others. Unfortunately, there are many, many users of the radio frequency spectrum. To satisfy the demand, our electronics technology has been pushed to make effective use of higher and ever higher frequencies.
“There is a problem with that however. At the higher frequencies, the radio signals will only travel by 'line of sight', meaning that the two antennas must have an unobstructed straight-line path between them.
“As you now know Twilight, the world happens to be round, and with any significant distance separating the two radio antennas, the curvature of the earth gets between them and blocks the signal. Raising the antennas up on a tall mast, elevating them above the curvature of the earth can extend their range. The ultimate range extension is achieved by putting a satellite into geosynchronous orbit, it is at such a great height that we can have the satellite relay the signal from one radio to another radio situated anywhere on nearly half the surface of the world.”
“Okay, I see that now. It makes quite a lot of sense, but what is 'geosynchronous'?”
“That's a term which is applied to a special orbit. Satellites in a geosynchronous orbit take exactly one day to orbit the earth. And considering that the earth takes exactly one day to do a full rotation-”
“Wait,” Twilight interjected. “Your earth rotates?”
Um... Mike’s thoughts ground to a halt; startled by Twilight’s question.
Everybody knows the Earth rotates. Everybody that is, except a pony from a different universe. He thought, realizing that he had made an assumption.
“Yes, Twilight. Our Earth rotates. Currently, the part of the world we are standing on is facing the Sun,” Mike pointed a finger at the cloudy sky above. “And we have daylight. When the earth’s rotation moves us away from the Sun we have night.”
Mike paused to give Twilight time to absorb the information before he continued. “So as I was saying, if a geosynchronous satellite takes exactly one day to orbit the earth and if the earth takes exactly one day to rotate on its axis-”
“The satellite appears to be motionless overhead. That’s amazing. Eee!” Twilight gave a little hop.
Mike was starting to understand Twilight a little better. Any time she got to learn new things and managed to ‘put the facts' together she got excited. It was rather endearing. He couldn't help but smile at her excitement.
“Okay. I get that part about the communications now. What about the weather? Why would you need to observe the weather from a satellite? Don't you just make it however you want it to be?”
“I think you said something last night about how you ponies manage your weather, or at least your seasons. We can't do that here Twilight. Our weather is not controlled. The best we can do is to try to predict it so that people can arrange their lives around its more unpleasant effects.”
Twilight's eyes grew huge, “So that ice storm I got caught in-”
“Was uncontrollable natural weather.” Mike interrupted her. “We knew it was coming and we all took shelter. But the severity of its effects still took everyone by surprise.”
“I see.” She replied. “I'm not familiar with the workings of weather like Rainbow would be, but I think I can understand how a bird’s eye view of the weather and developing storms might be useful for that.”
Rainbow? Is that the name of some organization that controls their weather? Mike wondered.
“I think the satellite provides more than just a view of the clouds.” Mike added, “The satellite can also observe temperature, dust, smoke, fires and even city lights. It also observes these things continuously, so estimates can also be made about such things as wind speed and direction.
“But that's a good introduction to the other satellites I mentioned which are for scientific observation. Those satellites can do things like observe vegetation, with a phenomenal sensitivity to the least little color change. Or observe the ocean's color, or its temperature, or its sea state, or with time-lapse photography the progress of glaciers. The list of observations is nearly unending, and more things to observe are being thought of every year.”
“Oh, well I guess that answers my third question.” Twilight stated happily.
“Would that this problem was as easily solved as I can answer your questions.” Mike sighed in frustration, looking glumly up at the satellite dish again.
“If the ice is such a problem, you must have a means of dealing with it.” Twilight commented.
“There is, this antenna has a special heating element, to melt any snow or ice. Unfortunately, the power failure has disabled that.”
“I thought your generator has restored your power?”
“That's just an emergency generator, capable of supplying enough power for essential services, with just enough extra to be able to enjoy a few amenities. Unfortunately, I did not think to include the deicing heaters for the satellite dish as being part of those essential services.”
“Surely there are alternate solutions.”
“Well─ a flamethrower might work, if I had one. But even if I did have one it might harm the dish. A better option would be to spray a few gallons of anti-freeze on the dish. That's a tried and true method which works very well for deicing aircraft. The problem is, I don't have any anti-freeze on hand, and it would probably poison my lawn.”
“What's 'anty-freeze'?”
“Um, it's Ethylene glycol, I think. It's a chemical that lowers the freezing point of water. Put some of that on the ice, and it will just turn back into a liquid, melting away. But like I said, I'm worried what it might do to my lawn. And it might even contaminate the groundwater and poison my well.”
“Mike? I'm pretty sure that I can get the ice off for you.” offered Twilight.
“I hope you’re not suggesting the use of force. Any sort of impact would damage the smooth curvature of the dish. And simply trying to pull the ice off by force may warp the dish and ruin its alignment with the satellite.”
“Nothing like that Mike, My magic couldn't get an adequate grip on just the ice anyway, to simply pull it off like you suggested. No, it was something you said about that anty-freeze, how it could turn ice into water. I was thinking that I could just liquefy the ice.”
“You mean you can heat it up so it melts. That would work, just don't burn the equipment.”
“I could do that too, but I was thinking of a different spell. It's a variation of the stone liquefaction spell used by unicorn stonemasons. This spell will cause the ice to liquefy without heating it. As soon as the spells effects are removed, the ice becomes solid again.”
“That certainly sounds like it could work.” stated Mike, “Though why would your stonemasons need to liquefy stone?” he asked curiously.
“They create molds and pour liquefied pieces of stone into them, creating a single large piece of intricately cast stone. You should see the beautiful objects they can create just by carefully positioning the mold between each pour of different types and colors of stone.”
“And all of this is done without heating the material to its melting point?”
“No heat is used whatsoever. Instead the physical properties of the stone is altered so that it behaves like a liquid; though it’s not quite right to say that the stone actually becomes a liquid. It's a special spell that makes the crystals dimensionally amorphous, while at the same time giving them the freedom to slip past each other. The history of its development is quite fascinating reading. You see, just making the crystals dimensionally amorphous was not enough; the stone would just sit there like a big soft blob of rubber or stretchy taffy. It wasn’t until they added the spell components to allow the rock's crystals to unbind from each other that it would flow like a liquid.
And just the crystal unbinding spell alone was not sufficient either, that spell caused the rock to crumble and flow like coarse sand. The result of such a pour was a kind of weak sandstone with the inclusion of air pockets between the grains. Actually, the crystal unbinding spell was from an earlier, alternate attempt to discover how to liquefy stone.”
Mike listened with interest to Twilight's long explanation about liquid rock. It's only fair; she listens to me when I go on and on. Besides, it’s interesting.
“So let me guess, this magic should work on ice because ice is also composed of crystals.”
“Yes.” Twilight smiled at his perspicacity. But then she corrected herself, “Well no, not the original spell. That one is specific to rock. But I think I can modify it to be specific to ice crystals.”
“I'm all for this if you can get it to work Twilight. But maybe you should test it out on something safe before you put my satellite dish at risk. I wouldn't want its crystal structure to become unbound.”
“Oh yes, of course. That makes sense.” Twilight looked embarrassed.
Wait? She was thinking of trying it directly on my dish?
Twilight continued. “I'll try it first on some of this ice here on the ground.”
Feeling cautious, Mike moved to stand somewhat behind Twilight.
She seemed irked at his lack of confidence, throwing him a brief moue.
Twilight stood still for a few seconds before her horn lit up with its characteristic rosy glow. A patch of ice-capped snow in front of her, perhaps twenty centimeters across, glowed briefly and instantly slumped down, falling like it was a sudden burst of rain, soaking the ground below.
Almost instantly Twilight ceased her magic and the layer of liquid-ice upon the exposed grass was motionless, solid ice once again. It had all happened so quickly that the surface of the ice displayed ripples and waves from the agitation of having splashed down to the ground.
Mike walked up to the patch, to have a closer look. He tapped at it with his boot.
Yep. That's ice alright. It's pretty obvious that there was no heat involved. If that was melt-water it would still be liquid right now. Also the grass appears not to have been affected.
Mike looked at Twilight. She had a satisfied grin on her face, as if she was saying 'You didn't believe me did you?', but of course Twilight would never say such a thing.
“All right, I'm now convinced. Twilight. Could you please remove the ice from this satellite dish?”
In answer to Mike's request, Twilight spread her wings and took to the air. Within seconds she had raised herself up to the level of the upper rim of the dish, nearly three meters off the ground. Her horn shone brightly and liquid-ice started sheeting off of the dish. A few sweeps of her horn and the whole dish was clean. Nevertheless, she maintained this action for nearly half a minute, allowing the majority of droplets to run down and off the dish. It may have been liquid-ice but it clung to the dish with a surface tension like that of water.
A considerable pile of icy gravel had piled up underneath the dish. Apparently, as the droplets of liquid-ice fell and departed the immediate zone of Twilight's magic, they instantly became solid ice again.
Twilight landed lightly with a careful flap of her wings. She folded them tightly up against her sides.
I just can't get enough of that. The way she can fly. She looks so graceful up there, what a gorgeous sight.
“Well I think that should do it. I couldn't see any more ice on it.” Twilight stated.
“I think that will do very nicely Twilight. Come on let's get back inside.” Mike turned away and started walking cautiously back towards the house.
“Oh Mike.”
“Yes?”
“I was thinking. This is a kind of radio antenna, right?”
“Yes it is.”
“Well, I did not see anything remotely like this on your truck. And you have a radio in there.”
“It's a special kind of antenna, Twilight, and it's not intended for the type of signals associated with ordinary radios such as I have in my truck.”
“What' so different about the signals?” she asked.
“Well for one thing, this dish was designed to work with signals having an extremely high frequency, we call them microwaves. They have a frequency in the range of twelve to eighteen gigahertz. Whereas radio in the truck works with signals having frequencies in the range of one-half to one-and-a-half megahertz.”
Twilight again, displayed her phenomenal ability to calculate. “You said last night that these electromagnetic waves moved at the speed of light, if so, then that makes the wavelength for this antenna something like a quarter hoof long, or even shorter. And the signals your truck's radio receives have a wavelength of up to five hundred celestials. I guess those are pretty different from each other.”
They had made their way to the back door and were coming in to the kitchen now.
“Just so. Different antenna designs are required and they have different intended uses as well. This parabolic dish has two unique characteristics that are required if it is to communicate with the satellite. First it is like a telescope in that it only focuses on signals coming from a small patch of the sky. I think its beam width has an angular resolution of less than two degrees. Second this dish is like a reflecting telescope, gathering a large quantity of the weak radio signals over its entire surface and focusing them all together onto a small area where the actual antenna resides.”
“You compared that dish with telescopes, but I know of no telescopes that look even remotely like it.”
“Why? What do your telescopes look like?” Mike asked.
“They are long tubes, with lenses at each end. An objective lens at one end, that's always a big expensive lens, and a focusing lens at the other end of the tube, where you look through it.”
“That's what we call a refracting telescope. It works by the refraction of light through a lens, just as you say. But there is another kind of telescope that we have. It’s called a reflecting telescope.”
“A reflecting telescope? And what, it has mirrors?”
“The optical kind does use mirrors. A mirror, shaped to a parabolic curve will function exactly like your objective lens does. And a mirror totally avoids the problem of chromatic aberrations. You know, I think I have a book which describes how to make your own telescope...”
They both preceded downstairs, Twilight's pen furiously scribbling notes.
----------------
Upon re-entering his office, Mike went to fetch the telescope making book from the shelf where he had put it.
Here we go, 'Standard Handbook For Telescope Making, by Neale E. Howard'. Yep. That's the one.
“Here you go Twilight.” he said as he handed the book to Twilight. Her eyes fairly glowed with pleasure. “Almost everything you wanted to know about making your own reflecting telescope.”
As a rosy glow enveloped the book, pulling it from his grasp, Mike thoughts reflected on how indescribable the sensation of magic felt. As the book came alive and lifted out of his fingers, his fingertips felt simultaneously both cooler and warmer, and yet neither.
Mike soon sat himself down in front of his computer as he worked to re-initialize the satellite link. After a moment he was rewarded by a fully functional network map.
Twilight had resumed her position at his side, ready to learn again. Apparently she had figured out the meaning of the network map because she asked “The red 'X' is gone. Is everything working now?”
“I think so Twilight. Here why don't you do the honors?” Mike let go of the mouse.
As if there had not been the slightest interruption to their earlier session, Twilight's magic took control of the mouse to click an item in the bookmarks sidebar of the web-browser. This time a web page came up and it was - 'Schlock Mercenary'.
Mike did a face-palm. Not the most brilliant example of the world-wide-web in action.
“I don't understand Mike; this reminds me of one of Spikes comic books. Is there some special meaning to the content?”
“You’re right Twilight, it is a form of comic, and no, it has no special meaning beyond me finding it to be occasionally humorous. Try a few different ones, try several in fact.”
In quick order Mike saw his Bank's web page, Slashdot, the Makerbot store, a Windows help site and several other web sites flash by.
“Okay Twilight, that's enough. What you have been seeing are the offerings of just a few of literally millions of other computers out there on the Internet.
“As I said before, the Internet is a global system of networks, spanning the entire world, allowing computers to interconnect with each other. I say 'allow' because as useful as the Internet is, being connected to it is not mandatory and sometimes even detrimental. You saw that this computer was unable to connect to the Internet for a while.
“I'm not sure I understand yet, but why would something so supposedly useful also be detrimental?” she asked.
“Don't worry about that for now. We'll get to that in a later session.
“The Internet started coming into existence through the efforts of scientists. They and their laboratories were separated from each other; sometimes they were located in separate cities. They started devising various ways and means of sending letters and data to each other over existing voice communication networks. Being scientists, who regularly engaged in widespread collaborative endeavors, they rapidly evolved and adhered to a standard protocol for their inter-computer communications.
“The Internet, as it was known then, grew rather slowly. Competing protocols even, sprang up for specialized use in the corporate world. There were even a few primitive message sharing protocols developed by computer enthusiasts among the mass population. BBS's I think they were called.”
“That's a strange name. BBS.” Twilight commented.
“It's an acronym. It stands for Bulletin Board Service. It acted as a central message board where people could post messages. And others would visit that BBS to read the posted messages. For a while it had some popularity among the general population.
“However, everything changed when a scientist by the name of 'Tim Berners-Lee' invented something called the World-wide-web. The Internet, up till then the domain of scientists and higher institutions of learning, suddenly exploded in popularity. Everybody who had a computer had to get connected to the Internet. And everybody who did not have a computer had to get one and connect it to the Internet.”
Twilight's pen wiggled and jiggled, faithfully writing down copious details in the notebook. Mike idly noted that she had already filled a third of the notebook.
I'd better see about buying her a few more of those. She’ll be crying foul by the end of the day.
“What was so special about this 'World wide web'.” she asked.
“It implemented an existing concept called hyper-text, but found a way to apply it universally across all the computers connected to the internet.”
“Hyper-text?” she asked eagerly.
“Hypertext is a very simple but powerful concept that extends the concept of a document. The hyper part of the name describes a document which can branch and reveal additional detail according to the reader's direction.
“Certain sections of document act as triggers or links, opening up other documents to provide additional information. All you need to do is click your mouse pointer on the link and the computer will instantly display the linked document.”
Mike saw Twilight's pen slowing down, a puzzled frown was upon her face.
He tried a different approach. “Think of it as footnote in a book that you are reading. By following the footnote, you might find yourself reading another book to get more insight in the authors thinking.”
Twilight spoke up. “Arrgh! Sometimes footnotes make me want to shave my mane. Do you know how often I send requests to the Canterlot Library to find a copy of a referenced book? It always takes several days and it's all so aggravating!”
Despite her comment, Twilight was smiling again, showing that she had caught on to the idea of hyper-text. Her pen was driving furiously through the notebook again.
“So imagine the utility of having your hyper-text document linking to any other document on any other computer in the world, in a giant web of inter-connected information. I suppose that’s the reason it’s called the 'World-wide-web'.”
Twilight nodded for Mike to continue, she was still smiling.
“To accomplish this, that scientist devised a type of program called a web browser. Basically at heart it’s a hypertext document reader, but with the capability to access and navigate its way through the Internet in order to fulfill those links.”
“But nowadays, a web browser is now so much more than just a fancy document reader. It can also display photographs, play music, show movies and even play games.”
“Play games?” Twilight asked. “Why would that be needed?”
“The computer, and by extension the web-browser is now so versatile that it has become an entertainment center. If something is fun to do, somebody has found a way to put it on the Web.”
“Web?” Twilight asked. “Oh, I suppose that's short for the ‘World wide web’?”
“That's right. Now this particular program we are using, called 'FireFox', is such a web browser.”
Twilight's was listening avidly to Mike, her pen working her notepad. She began to frown. “But not every document has links to every other document. Sooner or later you will exhaust your search. How do you find a document in the first place?”
“That's a very good question. And I think you will like the answer. In the beginning, people had to manually keep track of other sites on the Web. Word of mouth, published lists and such, it was very tedious.
“Soon some bright entrepreneur created a program to automatically seek out every web site, every document and search them for every branch of every link that it could find. It recorded everything that it found. This was called a search engine. Then they allowed anyone to ask questions of that search engine.”
“Questions?” Twilight sounded intrigued.
“Why don't we try it out? You see that green 'plus' symbol up on top there? Click it and open up a new tab. Most web browsers provide tabs. You use them as a simple handle to help you manage multiple open documents.”
Twilight clicked on the indicated control, and a mostly empty screen was displayed. She tried clicking the original tab and her last page was displayed again. Then she returned to the new tab. She was a quick learner.
“Is there a limit to how many tabs I can have open?”
“I really don't know Twilight. Probably when you have so many that you start to lose track of which is which. First they fill up the width of the window, and then they start getting narrower to make room for more.
“Now back to your question. You will notice that the new tab is not a totally blank display.”
“It has a long rectangle with the word 'google' in it.” she replied.
“That's because new pages are by default set up with a link to a search engine. The word 'google' you see there is the name of the company whose search engine will be handling our requests. Type a question into that box.”
“This area?” Twilight asked, moving the mouse onto the input field.
“That's right.” Mike confirmed. He watched as Twilight slowly made use of the unfamiliar keyboard for the very first time. She typed in the words 'How do I get home?” and nothing happened.
“You need to indicate that your input is complete.” Mike stated. “Either by hitting the enter key, there, or by clicking on that box which contains the label 'search'.”
“Okay.” She clicked on the search box.
After Twilight had submitted her question a page was returned listing what google thought were suitable hits for her query.
Alright. Now we're making progress. Thought Mike.
“Take a look at this...” Mike directed her attention to a line at the top of the page which gave the search statistics. “It found 'About three hundred and twenty million results' for you in about a third of a second.”
To say that Twilight was stunned was an understatement. The pupils of her eyes constricted and her jaw dropped. Even her ears sagged a bit.
Mike tried to get Twilight's attention. “Twilight... Twilight...”
Mike waved his hand in front of her face in an attempt to wake her up. “Twilight!”
“Wah! Oh Mike. You startled me.”
“You were sort of out of it for a while. I was starting to think that I broke you.” he said with a humorous smile.
“Ah, maybe you did. I just cannot believe that. Three hundred and twenty million results...”
“Well, ahem, about that. Your request was rather vague, so the quality of what was returned will surely be disappointing. However, examining the results will still be informative.”
“My request was vague? In what way?”
“You must understand that is just a computer program, a machine. It is unable to comprehend your question. All it can do is decompose your sentence into phrases and perform exhaustive searches for any matching patterns in the index files.”
“I think I understand Mike. It does not understand what I meant by 'getting home', it does not know who 'I' am or where my 'home' is.” she smiled sadly at me, “It was a poor question wasn't it.”
“Now I didn't say 'poor', I said it was rather 'vague'.”
“Same thing.” she said sadly. Her ears drooping.
“No it is not.” Mike corrected her. “After all I'm still tutoring you through your first query ever, on a system you know nothing about. This is not a test and you did not do 'poorly'.”
Twilight smiled her appreciation at his kind words and perked up noticeably.
“Now let us continue. You have page full of hypertext links to other documents that relate in some fashion to your query. Try some of them out.” Mike indicated an item which read 'BASTILLE // Get Home ( Official Video -Tour 2011 )'.
The Google page was replaced by a YouTube video which started playing immediately. A clear solo voice began singing.
How am I gonna get myself back home...
Ay-ay, Ay-ay, Ay-ay...
Mike reached out a hand to the keyboard and paused the playback.
Figures. A strange song I've never heard before by a group that I've never heard of before. There must be a million of those.
Twilight looked at him in astonishment. “It was singing, and playing a movie...”
“I mentioned before, that a web-browser can play music and show movies. That link took you to a particular music-video which was found on a site that specializes in collecting videos. It has literally millions of videos. That site is called 'YouTube', and you will probably see a lot of it in the future.
“Did you notice however, that the song’s lyrics were about 'getting myself back home'?”
“Why, come to think of it, it did! I was so astonished by what I heard and saw that I did not even notice that.”
“Well, even though a song is not what you were hoping for, you can at least admit that it was 'relevant' to your question. The lyrics did after all contain almost the exact same words that you used.”
Twilight nodded her head, a thoughtful frown upon her face. Mike noted that her pen which had been still, briefly wrote out something in large bold characters.
“Now, let's just leave this music-video. You see that left-facing arrow at the upper left... It allows you to back-track along the link you just used...” Mike quickly introduced Twilight the forward and back buttons on the web pages.
I'll let her figure out for herself that the forward-back feature does not support branching histories.
“Did you notice Twilight, that the color of the link has changed?”
Twilight gasped in sudden realization. “It's showing that I have already clicked on that link.”
“That's right. Let's try the next one. It even contains the exact wording of your question, 'How do I get home'.”
After a second's reading, Twilight snorted. “Well, it seems that I am not the only one who has asked that exact question. But I don't think our situations are at all comparable.”
“Cheer up Twilight. When you think about how fast and comprehensive the search engine can be, it's an invaluable tool. With a little practice you will soon develop better skills at formulating a query.
“If a particular query proves fruitless, you can try rephrasing it, or use synonyms or alternate expressions for the same concept. The narrower the subject of your query, the more likely it will be successful.
“And sometimes a query is naturally unambiguous and works very well. For example, try typing in 'Vegetarian recipes'.”
“What? Why do we need to see Vegetarian recipes?”
“I’m sorry to change the topic so suddenly Twilight. But I suddenly realized that we are pressed for time. We need to leave soon in order to get our shopping done.”
“Shopping? I thought we were going to do some research. In fact I'm quite eager to get started. This Internet and Web thing is quite exciting.” Twilight appeared somewhat bewildered by Mike’s suggestion.
“I'm sorry Twilight. The urgency is due to the fact that Christmas is in two days. Soon, if not already, the malls and stores will soon be so crowded that finding a place to park will be a serious problem. And it’s urgent that we do our shopping today and preferably this morning. Our food supplies are inadequate.”
“Is this kris-mas some kind of disaster? Like a storm or a stampede?”
Stampede! I like that. Mike was amused by Twilight's question. With the way they crush the malls at this time of year that's not too far off the mark.
Smiling, Mike replied to her question. “No, it’s nothing bad like that. Christmas is a very significant holiday. Businesses will be closed for several days. Tomorrow is Christmas Eve. The following day is Christmas Day and the day after that is Boxing Day. We need to ensure we are self-sufficient for those three days.
“All the stores and most restaurants will be closed and I for one would feed badly if I went out and attempted to patronize any restaurant which did stay open. It would be as if I expected the chefs and waitresses to work for me when they should be at home enjoying the holiday with their families.”
“Oh. I see.” said Twilight. “And I'm an extra mouth to feed, and you just threw out most of your food on my account.” Her ears drooped.
“Hey don't worry about that Twilight. In fact I'm looking forward to being able to spend this Christmas with somebody, or should I say somepony.” Mike grinned at her.
“Really? You want me to share this kris-mas with you?”
“Absolutely. Christmas is known as the 'season of giving', and it would please me greatly to have you join me this Christmas.”
“Thank you Mike. I think I would like that.”
“I'm honored that you can join me. So let’s plan out the next few days. Try that query on 'Vegetarian recipes', if only to make sure we don't spend the next few days listening to each other’s stomach's growling.”
“Planning! I like to plan and organize.” Twilight said excitedly even as she typed in the query.
“Wow. This query has over a million results.” Several clicks later, “and they all seem to be for vegetarian recipes.” she exclaimed excitedly.
“Well, when you think about it, those two words left very little room for ambiguity. Say Twilight?”
“Yes?” she replied.
“These are all good recipes; however it is traditional to have a feast for Christmas. How about we see if the query 'Vegetarian Christmas recipes' can find something more appropriate?”
“Okay.” Twilight started typing in ‘vegetarian kris mas recipes'.
“Hold it Twilight! It's spelled 'c', 'h', 'r', 'i', 's', 't' not 'k', 'r', 'i', 's', and it's all one word.” Mike corrected.
“You sure? You've been pronouncing it like 'kris'-with-a-'K'.” she asked.
“Trust me Twilight, I'm sure. When you spell it with a 'K' it's not really Christmas.”
Twilight obediently entered the correct query.
“Ohh! That 'Golden-glazed carrot, mushroom and hazelnut tart' looks so delicious!”, Twilight clicked on the link. “Oh and it even uses maple syrup!” Twilight stood up from her seated position, betraying her excitement.
“Well then I think we have to try that one. But we'll need to choose a few more recipes for our other meals.”
“Yes of course. This will be interesting.”
Both of them began an eager discussion of the various recipes they found, planning out their meals for the next few days and making a list of whatever groceries they found they would need to purchase.
----------------
It was nearly noon when Mike and Twilight finally brought their planning to a conclusion and climbed into the truck.
“Tell me about this Christmas.” Twilight asked as they drove into town.
Mike thought about it carefully before answering her question. “Christmas is several things. To most people Christmas is just a big holiday we have at this time of year, a festival where public events and displays are staged. And private citizens also put up elaborate decorations on their homes. And have numerous gatherings and celebrations. It's a time to party.
“On a more intimate level, Christmas is a time for families to gather together and strengthen their bonds. To celebrate family ties, love, togetherness and reconciliation when such is needful. People are more inclined to engage in thoughts of love, peace and joy. They indulge their children with gifts and holiday activities such as putting up a Christmas tree and decorating it. There will usually be a feast and an exchange of gifts with friends, family and loved ones. The children especially look forward to that last item.”
“But what about you?” Twilight asked.
“To me, Christmas holds its original and deepest meaning. It is a remembrance of when God sent his Son to live among us. In a very real way, Christmas is actually his birthday. But instead of the birthday child receiving gifts, the child is God's gift to us. That event happened over two thousand years ago and it still echoes through the world, even to this day.”
“That's amazing. Um, what was his name? If I'm allowed to ask.”
“His name was Jesus. And we came to call him the Christ, which means the anointed one. It's from that name that we get the word Christmas.”
Twilight had another question. “You did not mention anything about celebrations and feasts when you described its personal significance.”
“Well just because I attribute a solemn significance to the holiday where most others do not, does not mean that I don't celebrate it. Everything I mentioned earlier about families and parties is still valid.”
“I did not see any decorations in your home.”
Mike sighed. “I live alone Twilight. I don't have any family to share this holiday with. So I don't bother.”
“I'm so sorry, I didn't know.” Twilight attempted to apologize.
“That's okay Twilight. I'm quite used to it. But that's what makes this Christmas different. This year I have a friend that I invited to share it with.”
“Mike! You're expecting too much of me. I don't know anything about your Christmas. I'm not even human, I'm a pony.”
“Your arguments are irrelevant. All that is truly needed is a willingness to enjoy each other’s companionship. Perhaps we can allow ourselves to share in some holiday experiences. We could try baking cookies, setting up and decorating a tree, listening to good music, even read a book. Little things. Simple things.”
Twilight considered his words. Eventually she broke the silence. “You mentioned cookies?”