February 29 [Leap Day]
February 29
Today is a special day. Because the humans can't control their sun, a year takes a little bit more than an even number of days to happen, so they have to make up for it by adding an extra day every four years, or at least that's what Peggy told me.
They ought to have made it some kind of holiday. Something that only comes around once every four years is pretty special. Instead, it was just a normal Monday.
By the time I got done with my normal flight, most of the stiffness in my wing had worked out. I could still feel a bit of tightness in the muscle that even a hot shower didn't eliminate, but it wasn't too bad. More annoying than anything, especially since there was this one spot where my wing muscle sort of tugged as I extended it.
I tried nibbling at the skin a little bit but that didn't help.
I made myself a waffle for breakfast—their waffle-iron was working again—and poured a little bit of maple syrup on my plate just so I could try it. A lot of the food that they serve tastes off, and I didn't want to ruin my waffle by putting the syrup on it.
I'd made a wise choice. The syrup wasn't very good at all. It had a bit of maple taste to it, but it was too sugary. I went back and got some strawberry slices instead and that was much better.
Sean said that the maple syrup didn't taste very good because it was artificial, and I asked him if that meant it came from artificial trees. I knew that in the springtime ponies tapped little spouts in trees and put a bucket underneath, and then they did something else because the syrup in the buckets was watery and didn't taste like much.
Joe and Christine laughed, and Sean said that there weren't any trees—real or artificial—in making fake maple syrup. Just things that tasted vaguely like maple and lots of sugar.
Humans have lots of fake things. There are fake flowers in the dining hall, and there's a fake lobster that they sometimes put out when they have seafood. I wonder if the disgusting fish sandwich I had at the ski resort was made out of a fake fish?
We had another guest lecturer in climate science class. He was named Doctor Thomas Thompson, and he was in charge of the National Weather Service office in Grand Rapids. They watch the weather and make the predictions, and they give people warnings if bad weather is coming. They're not always right, either.
He told us about all the different types of data they got, and how their computer models worked, and then he said that he was about to ask if anyone had questions but there was something he had to get out of the way first.
Dr. Thompson took a coin out of his pocket and flipped it in the air, then caught it in the palm of his hand. He said that was how they made the forecasts—if it was heads, it would be warmer tomorrow; tails, and it would be colder.
That got a lot of chuckles from the class. The weather forecasters misjudge a lot; they haven't got enough observers in the sky to be completely accurate.
When class was over, he wanted to talk to me a little bit. He said that he'd heard from the professor that I'd brought down a cloud, and my ears fell and I admitted it was true. Crystal Dawn—who had been waiting around to ask him something—showed him a movie she'd taken with her telephone, and he was really interested in that. I thought he'd be mad that I'd taken one.
He gave me a card which had his name and telephone number and computer mail address on it, and said that if I was thinking of doing it again, to give him a call.
I was interested in what kinds of instruments the humans used to measure weather, and wanted to know if it would be possible to get a tour of the National Weather Service office. So we decided to do that in two weekends. He said that he'd come down and get me and we'd hope that the skies weren't clear.
The professor thought it would be fun to go, too, and he said that on Wednesday, he was going to announce it as an optional class field trip, which made me happy. Trips are always fun.
Sartre disagreed with some of Nietzsche's ideas, and he didn't like Descarte's idea of thinking as a way of proving that he existed.
Then there were two kinds of being. Being-in-itself, which was all the stuff that exists but can't think and be aware it exists. Things like rocks and trees and snow. Then there was being-for-itself which is conscious and knows it exists, like me. But he thought that being-in-itself made being-for-itself sick, and I didn't understand why that would be so. I can eat a waffle, which doesn't know it exists, and it doesn't make me sick. And I wasn't sure why he thought that the world outside the body is meaningless; if it was, why would we even want to do anything with it? Why would it have to be there?
A lot of the newer philosophers started by knocking down everything that came before them, though, so maybe after the next class it will make more sense. Perhaps he's coming in at a different angle.
I was starting to get the impression that the newest philosophers were more interested in everything that's bad, not everything that's good.
Maybe they were just so focused on the bad stuff that they didn't see the good stuff. Maybe some people were too. Maybe ponies were just happier than people.
I decided that I wasn't going to let him get me down, and I went outside and played in the snow for a while.
We didn't do anything too interesting in Equestrian class, just finished up the Daring Do book. Meghan and Lisa said that I could come over and watch a Harry Potter movie tonight if I wanted to, but I told her that tonight wouldn't be good; I was going to be over at Aric's house.
So we decided that I could watch the movie Tuesday night instead. There ought to be a class on human movies. There are so many of them that are important, and I don't have enough free time to see them all!
Then Meghan asked if I was going to see Zootopia. There had been a preview for it before the Star Wars movie that I saw in the movie theater, and it had looked like it might be interesting. I told her that I hadn't thought about it, and she said that I should see it.
When I got back to our dorm room, Peggy told me that the makers had called, and they said that they'd come up with two ideas. One was to put fasteners on hoof boots; the other was to put metal plates on the board and tie magnets to my hooves.
The magnets would be cheaper, but they weren't sure that they'd hold.
Peggy and I talked it over, and we finally decided to take both options. She could bring her tools along to change what was on the board, and I had enough money to afford it. So she called them back and told them to go ahead with both options so that we could try them out and see what worked the best.
I flew right over to Aric's house after dinner. I thought it would be nice to spend a little bit of time with him before we went to Durach, because I’d missed him all weekend.
Aric was really happy to see me, and he crouched down and hugged me right on the front porch and kissed my muzzle. He asked if we’d had fun and I said that we had and we were going to a better resort next weekend and hopefully I wouldn’t pull a wing muscle again.
He wanted to know where it was, and if I thought massaging it would help. I said it probably would, and so we went up to his room and he massaged my shoulder and then just kept on going and we both completely forgot about Durach.
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Ponies are people :(
They're certainly doing it like a pair of teenagers.
I doubt the magnets would hold. It's easier to remove a magnet by sliding than straight off, anything strong enough to hold is too strong to remove.
Western philosophy basically went from "how can we go back to paradise" to "we can never go back to paradise so here's why everything sucks".
I think Silver's on to something. Never thought about this in this way, but I like the thought. Solshift day. Maybe have Celestia visit for the occasion?
That is an excellent point. I don't know why I never thought of that. Someone call the President!
She's right, Leap Day ought to be a holiday.
Something interesting about weather forecasts: they never give a fifty percent chance for anything, even when that is mathematically the case. That's because viewers of the forecast will not trust the station because they think they are just guessing, so they always make it either 40% or 60%.
Sounds like Silver Glow wouldn't appreciate Gnosticism.
There are classes on human movies, some of my friends are taking one on the works of Spielberg right now.
I'm looking forward to her reaction to Zootopia, although I've realized that the naturalist club scene might at first confuse her and then insult her when it's explained.
+1 for Leap Day Worldwide Holiday
7158087 I get 50% forecasts quite often.
7158239 Huh. Like, 50% chance of rain? I guess my source wasn't as accurate as I thought.
Ugh! Artificial syrup. Tried it a few times, regretting it every time.
Did they skip Kant in philosophy? I don't remember what Silver said about him.
lol, maybe someone should try to picture for Silver Glow where the philosophers life and what the world looked at the time ...
edit: maybe history class would be good to go with philosophy
Ooooh yeah.
I wonder what she would think of the movie Deadpool? She should catch a movie in the theaters at least a few times, unless the only movie she sees in a theater is going to be Rouge One a Star Wars movie.
I think that Silver really needs an introduction to Karl Popper.
TLDR; it's easy to trick yourself into thinking your ideas are true if you only look for proof that you are right. A more reliable method is to look for proof that you are wrong.
How about introducing Silver to "Horse Wife"...... She's aware of the show? That would be the Nth degree of awkward to explain.
7158846
Yay! She's going to find out about racism!
And do nothing about it!
When I was a kid, I insisted that leap day should be a school holiday because (I said) the default was "no school"; having school was an imposition on my free time that should only happen on specified days each year - and we got by perfectly fine without school on February 29th the other three years, so why should school eat up February 29th whenever it comes along?
Nobody could give me a fitting response, but they still made me go to school anyway...
7159033 You can also tell there's a lot of people here that are pissed off at either not liking politics or are very pissed that their extreme far left ideology is being challenged.
Besides, Kalamazoo College would definitely have a few SJW's around since the PDF for their curriculum says they have both a Gender Studies and Critical Theory course.
7158792 I'm a bit jealous your schools are that cheap. I think the problem with our colleges is that they're not publicly funded by taxes, at least not in a large part, and are treated more like corporations. Most everything is paid for by grants and loans with a smaller percentage coming from the state and government. It's not hard at all to get into college, but you have to pay for it a lot or get loans for it. Also, there's a lot of courses that are effectively worthless that people roll into because they're easy. (I heard a teacher once refer to them as "Mickey Mouse courses", because they're so easy that even Mickey Mouse could complete them.)
Biscuit I'm betting you either plan to visit or have already visited the Weather Service Office.
From what I know of your writing philosophy, I wouldn't be surprised at all if you went to see it solely for this story.
There are so many little details that are easy to miss if someone doesn't do something like that personally, including sights and activities and all the little experiences one can find on the journey there and back.
Speaking of nasty weather....*is looking at the NWS radar pages
There's some nasty looking severe thunderstorms heading towards the Kalamazoo area right now. Golf ball hail, 60mph winds, the works. That's nothing compared to what's going to turn up in Oklahoma tomorrow if the forecast is any where near accurate... o.o
7159544
Like the Joe's Donut Shop just down the road from Mount Hood and kinda' near some kind of big equestrian place. The whole area is on the slopes of a large, very fertile valley. Equestria is in Oregon!
7159978
Shhh! If the Canterlot Elite flock to Oregon, real-estate prices will absolutely skyrocket!
7159174 e e cummings
It will be interesting to see Silver's opinion of Zootopia if she goes and sees it.
7158651
7159437
you also need the dexterity and the money to make the tools, it's several extra steps and considering that a significant amount of the population has that dexterity, i'd expect unicorns to take a lot of the precise manufacturing work.
Edit: i'll be putting in a decent amount of shop time tomorrow for a mechanical design class. When i'm in the shop, I'll try to put myself in the earth pony mindset and see how I think it would go. update tomorrow.
How does Equestria set the length of the year? Their sun rotates around the earth, so it can't be length of a rotation around the sun. And it can't be passage of seasons, because they control that as well, so how do the decide how many days should be in a year?
7160449 I'm definitely going to have to read up more about the Sikh religion. (Personally never heard of it and the U.S. has the same amount of Sikh citizens as Canada, maybe less.) I thought it would be more difficult for such a tiny minority (1%) would have been elected a couple seats in Canadian parliament. And from the couple other links I visited, it seems like they're not discriminated against in India, but are still a tiny minority at 1% minority for still being twenty million people. I think it would have more to do with having over a billion people in India than anything. Links I visited seem like Canada is really fond of the religion.
Which part was this and systematic oppression were we talking about again? I'm a bit confused where part of that discussion went.
Violence in the U.S. is weird in what way? I don't admit it happens, especially to unarmed people too, but I think it may be blown out of proportion in the media.
As for someone like Sargon, he does consider himself a left-wing liberal (not on the politically correct part), believes that a little bit of socialism is a good thing for a country, and that the alt-right are like social justice warriors, except they're right wing instead of left. He did do some livestreams with some people on the alt-right with a youtuber called Millennial Woes. Millennial Woes seems like one who's a part of the alt-right. Good luck with watching those streams both of them were on, they're between 4 to 6 hours long. I haven't watched those all the way through.
If you're concerned about YouTube algorithms or sites pigeon holing you, there is a blog post here that's a 1:1 transcription of his video, "A Honest Look at the Alt Right" and comes with links and citations for everything. Just going through it, it does read like an insight into an upcoming Nazi-style regime. And I can tell you for certain I don't agree that shit at all. The only thing closest is I believe is that Nationalism can be a good thing to bring people in a country together and not be segregated by race or anything.
Sargon did claim that anarchy would still be capitalistic, since in an anarchic world, bartering would still be a commercially viable way of earning things you need. Not sure the exact wording, but it was buried in a video of his a long while back. He also did do a review of Rules For Radicals by Chomsky a long while back, but I don't know if he called Chomsky a liberal or not. Looking him up, Chomsky is definitely a right wing person, but his book seems like something that any activist would use to change a political or ruling system.
7159473
...and it will take at most until the next student get-together for somepony to tell her best clawed friend all about it. There's always one. "But Redtail, you can't tell anyone, it's a state secret!" She probably has an eye on a stallion and now he won't slip her grasp, so to speak.
Have some hunting griffon.
pre05.deviantart.net/486d/th/pre/i/2011/093/7/3/fantastical_fantasy_by_doodleby-d3d5ww6.jpg
And a bookmark for Silver's journal.
orig03.deviantart.net/2c44/f/2010/112/a/2/silver_glow_bookmark_i_by_styx_leagon.jpg
It would make sense for the leap day to be a holiday, but I'm afraid the US seems to be morally opposed to holidays.
7157956
Cute, furry, happy-go-lucky quadrupedal people.
7157975
Depends on the type of magnet and how they're arranged. There's a type of magnet setup that can't be separated if they're one way; rotate them a hundred and eighty degrees, and they come right apart. There are also different ways to set up magnets to get eddy fields (IIRC) which is how the brakes on a lot of roller coasters work.
A set of locating pins would keep the magnets from sliding on the steel plates; that might be the simple answer.
7158007
Which is a dumb outlook, if you ask Silver Glow.
7158025
I think Silver's on to something. Never thought about this in this way, but I like the thought. Solshift day. Maybe have Celestia visit for the occasion?
I'm in favor. It shouldn't even be a normal 'day' of the week. Just its own special bonus day.
7158035
I haven't got any political capital with the guy. He probably wouldn't listen if I called him.
7158087
I took a class on science fiction short stories. That was a lot of fun. Never took any movie classes, but some were offered.
Or she might think that it sounds like a fun idea and ask her friends if they want to go to one with her.
7158285
Lately, my weather app has been completely wrong most of the time. I think it's trolling me.
7158313
The sugarfree artificial syrup is even worse. I drank a whole bottle once to win a bet. I won the bet, but it came at a terrible, terrible cost.
Yes, and I don't know where it happened. But I screwed that up somehow; I think that they spent too many weeks on the Greek philosophers.
7158451
It would have helped. An introductory philosophy class is going to assume that you know the basics--like if you say that WWII influenced Sartre's thinking, you'd assume that the class knows what WWII was. Silver Glow is not so lucky; she doesn't have a very good grasp on Earth history.
7158471
That's a good question. It's probably hit or miss on superhero movies; a lot of the amazement factor is from the powers, and given what ponies can do, a lot of the powers aren't going to be that impressive to them. Plus I feel that Deadpool has a lot of pop culture references that would go right over her head--but I haven't seen it, so I can't state that as a fact.
7158561
That's a good bit of philosophy.
Silver has trouble wrapping her head around the idea that philosophers might not all be right.
7158607
The show does not exist in this universe. I've never felt that I could write a good, serious story and then bring up MLP:FiM, unless that was a major premise of the story right from the very beginning. It can probably be done, but I'm not good enough to do it.
7159113
That strikes me as a perfectly logical argument. Although I suspect you got out of school a day earlier than you would have had there not been a leap day in there, so that's a bonus.
7159344
They probably do; I don't know. K offered things for pretty much anyone, and I did what I wanted to do, and didn't do things that I wasn't interested in. Changing the world for the better would have been nice, but I don't know how to go about it, so I settled for designing lights for various shows and writing a novel for a senior project. (which I'll be uploading once the general fiction of FimFic goes live)
7159544
If I did, it would be for this story. Unfortunately, I probably won't have time to actually visit. However--I do know where it is, and I have been by it somewhat recently.
One of the reasons most of my earthside stories are set in or near Michigan. I've been to, or near, just about every place mentioned thus far. LIkewise in CSI/OPP; the only place I haven't made it to (yet) is North Fox Island, because having both the free time and being able to rent a boat that can make it there has been problematic.
In fact, funny you should bring that up; there's a Koegel Vienna (sausage) billboard on the S-curve in Grand Rapids that says "Serve the Curve." That detail almost made it into today's chapter.
7159900
It went just north of me, when it got over to the east side of Michigan. I saw lots of distant lightning, but nothing much happened here.
7160863
Two options: one is that they had a natural system until it broke somehow. In that case, they'd probably try to replicate it as much as they could. They'd probably smooth out some of the normal variations; a year would be an exact number of days, and if they could round their calendar up or down a couple of days to make all the weeks work out right, they probably would, over time.
The other option is that it was never a natural system, and it was created to have a specific number of days in a year, weeks in a season, etc.
I think that their months would be one full lunation, and they'd probably have three moons/season, almost regardless of what system they used.
7161139
It could be involuntary, in which case it wouldn't matter if the griffon knows. In my stage combat class, our instructor was demonstrating knife disarms, and he had me hold the knife, after he'd showed us how they worked (so I knew how he was going to get the knife out of my hands). That knowledge didn't help me; as soon as he got his hand on my wrist, it was all over, and the next thing I knew, the knife was bouncing off a wall ten feet away. I should mention that I outweigh this guy by about a hundred pounds, and since I'm an auto mechanic by trade, I've got a pretty strong grip.
Awesome!
Also awesome!
7164474
Unless they're patriotic.
7172595
What if someone in this universe started producing a cartoon based on Equestria's heroes, though?
Zootopia. Man, that was such a good movie. Came out of nowhere, and ended up on my top 10 movie list, something I had not expected at all. I thought it was going to be good, like Big Hero 6—it was good, but not top 10 good. Nope. Stormed its way into my favorites. I'm glad it did.
There's something that's been bothering me for a while now, but it's nothing major. Silver's intense dislike of sweets.
From a "Ponies are sentient horses" perspective, it makes sense yes, but Equestria has Pinkie Pie. Sugar everywhere, same with the entirety of the Cakes' household.
Do Pegasi have a lower tolerance for sugar in your headcanon?
7204251 we don't actually know how much sugar is in a pinkie cake.
It could be rather little.
Also, as a Brit, lots of USA food tastes weird, due to not so much the absolute sweetness, but the use of corn sugars.
Remember that theory about Meghan being a furry?
A holiday for leap-days sounds good. That reminds me about what heard on the radio of the break-room at work on Leap-Day:
¡Births and weddings are lower on Leap-Days!
That is crazy because it Leap-Day is the perfect day to induce labor and get married. Evidently, most people are conformists. They end up screwing their children in the process:
In cases where all things are equal, things like being born on Leap-Day can be the deciding factor. This advantage leads to Leap-Day-Babies making thousands of dollars more yearly.
Since the ponies control their world, I imagine that the year and day are planned. The day might be longer so that ponies can sleep in everyday and still get up early. The year might be 360 days long because it is an highly composite number or 420 days long because it is the least common multiple of all natural numbers up to 7. Since Equestria and Earth are in contact and we want to sleep in every day and still get up early, perhaps 2 Equestrian Days for every 3 Earthen Days (36-hour-long days).
Leap years should totally be a holiday. If anything, it'll help even out the number of working days for accountants. :T
Thinking "Does he mean message? Massage a ski resort? What?"
OH!
... oh. O . O
7172797
That's an interesting thought. On one hand, we have an American urge to try and not offend other cultures, and I could see the project being nixed on that standpoint along; on the other hand, Amish Mafia was a thing, so some TV execs don't give a damn who they offend with their 'documentary.' And it also raises the same points as have been brought up about Halloween costumes--what would humans consider offensive to the ponies and what isn't; and what to the ponies consider offensive to the ponies and what don't they?
Like, if they did actually have a show--and let's say it's live action, not animated--would the ponies be offended by Gusty playing Rarity? Give her some fur-dye, a wig, and tape on a new cutie mark, and presto! Or would they see that as an honor? What about prosthetics? Would they be mad if you couldn't find the right kind of pony to play the role, so you stuck a fake horn on an earth pony and called it good enough? I mean, you can't get away with having a white person in blackface anymore, but is that the kind of thing that would bother the ponies?
7179111
Yeah, I'm really glad I took the time to watch it for research. It's on my Christmas list, too, and if I don't get it I'm just going to buy it for myself.
7204251
It's not so much an intense dislike of sweets in general, but the amount of sugar that Americans tend to add to everything. Like, it's a crazy amount, and if it's not something that she's used to. Heck, if you read the ingredient label for Honey Smacks, there's more sugar than wheat in them. Think about that.
images.kglobalservices.com/www.kelloggs.com/en_us/productitemnutrition/product_4508675/kicproductimage-114115_114115-08442_3800039103.gif
7217280
Agreed. It might be sweet to the ponies but not to humans.
Yeah, we do that, too. Lots and lots of corn syrup.
lionelllc.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/cargillcornsyruptank.jpg
You can get it by the carload!
7279355
Who says it was a theory? Christine pretty much presented it as fact.
7422277
How, out of curiosity?
Yes, Equestria would have a planned number of days. Even if it didn't when Celestia took over, she's had a thousand years to get it to a normal schedule, and I'd assume that they'd come up with a nice schedule that had all even months, even weeks, and no extra days or hours or anything else to worry about.
I'd assume 360, since that works out so nicely, and I'd guess that the lunar cycles are also a nice, even division of that.
As for the length of their day, I'd have to guess that she varies it for the seasons, but it obviously wouldn't have to be the same 24 hour cycle we have; it could be a much longer or much shorter day. For convenience, I've assumed that it was pretty close, but why not have a fic where crossing between worlds really messes up circadian rhythms?
7709175
Leap years should totally be a holiday. If anything, it'll help even out the number of working days for accountants. :T
That's a problem with DST as well. I've worked overnight shifts where I got an hour of overtime or lost an hour of pay . . . but you have to watch carefully, because the people writing paychecks don't always remember (or they say they don't).
Honestly, it is probably the corn syrup that is getting to Silver. It's why i prefer to eat in Mexico when i can, shit tastes better.
8007280
Oh man, one thing that America is great at is taking someone else's cuisine and mangling it beyond all recognition.
8011639 If there ain't corn innit, it ain't Amerrikan! Raawr!
Except, you know, for all the things that actually taste good.
8026401
Yeah, it's got to have corn in it to be real.
The Television tells you what tastes good, not your tastebuds.
Nowadays there actuallly are clubs for that... not sure about classes though.