January 20
There's a storm coming. I can feel it. The sky is clear now, but it won't be for too long. The barometric pressure is dropping.
The human weatherpeople can feel it, too. The professor mentioned it at the beginning of class, and said that he wished that we were going to the National Weather Service in Grand Rapids today, because if we had, we could see how they prepared for a lake-effect storm. They had a big responsibility, because people can't control the weather so they have to tell everyone what to expect so that they can get ready, and they aren't always right.
Then we moved on to talking about different types of snow. There are lots of different kinds, and how it appears when it lands on the ground depends on a lot of factors. A lot of ponies don’t know that sometimes snow is made up of individual crystals, and sometimes they’re all bunched together, depending on the atmospheric conditions.
We always like to start off the year with big flakes, and then follow that with a heavy snow to blanket and insulate the ground. It helps out animals who burrow in the ground—as strange as it seems, snow is a very good insulator. It's because it has a lot of air in it, since the legs on the flakes keep them a little bit apart. But if you make them too big they insulate really well at first, until new snow falls on them and squishes them down into slush or ice, and if you're really careless you can wind up drowning animals in their burrows.
Humans can't control what kind of snow falls, of course, although it turns out they can make it at ground level. There are places called ski resorts which make their own snow when there isn't enough falling from the sky, and it's something that I'd like to see some day.
All they're lacking is a way to get it all up to the sky, and then they'd be all set. We've got similar devices to start snowstorms and to put snow in clouds, if we need to. All precipitation needs an ice nucleus in order to start forming (although the dewpoint is really important, too). Maybe they could figure out how to put their snow machines up on clouds, or hang them from balloons or airplanes.
Like everyone else, I kept on looking out the window for the snow, but it wasn't supposed to start until tomorrow.
By the time class was over, the sky was almost completely overcast, and the temperature had dropped a little bit. I thought about grabbing a cloud and bringing it to the professor’s office, but I think I’ll wait. I’d rather have one that the whole class can enjoy, and it’ll be easier if it’s a bit colder out. Plus I'm not sure about cutting a cloud out of a sky full of them. It might be easier to get one that's on its own. I don't know how well Earth clouds stick together.
I learned that Wednesdays are called ‘hump day.’ I thought that had something to do with camels, but it doesn’t. People view the first half of the week as a hill to be climbed, and the second half as the downside of that hill; therefore, the ‘hump’ of the week is Wednesday.
I guess that makes sense; their calendars start on Sunday and end on Saturday, which means that a weekend is both the beginning of the week and the end of the week. They keep their weeks pretty close to the lunar cycles, but not their months, which have an arbitrary number of days in them. It's kind of confusing because not all months have the same number of days.
Before Equestrian class started, I overheard one of the students mention that there had been a Democratic presidential debate on Sunday, and I'd missed it, because I was flying. I'd meant to keep up with them . . . so much for that. Maybe there will be something about it in the student newspaper. Or I could ask around, and see what people thought.
For once, class kind of crawled by a bit. The teacher thinks it's important every now and then to have tests, and I don't get to take them (I would have had a perfect score).
It was a two-part test, and it took up all of the class. She gave them a portion of Clover the Clever's speech to the Second Unity Council and had them translate it into English, and after that they had to translate a passage from The Last Unicorn into Equestrian.
I'll have to read the book. Humans have had limited knowledge of unicorns and pegasi for thousands of years, despite never having seen one before we arrived. I don't understand how that could be; we had no concept of humans until fairly recently. There are minotaurs in Equestria which are kind of similar, but not really. And I've heard that there are monkeys which are like small furry humans with tails, but I'd never seen one.
Of course, most of the stuff they knew was wrong. Except that you can catch a unicorn with a golden bridle. That probably works; a lot of unicorns are greedy and like shiny things.
Before I went to dinner, I went to the library to see if they had the book. My badge can also be used as a library card (which is something humans have; we don't need cards to prove who we are).
There were so many books! The library has three floors, and all of them have shelf upon shelf of books. They were not organized in any system which I could fathom, so I had to turn to a library page—who is a librarian's apprentice—to help me. Their system was so complicated that they had a computer that just kept track of what books they had and where they were. It said that the book was PZ4.B3657, which is a silly way to keep track of books. Who can remember that?
This is what happens when accountants get their hooves on a well-organized system. It becomes unworkable, and pretty soon you need librarians and their apprentices to find just one book.
I didn't have time to read all of it before dinner, but I started it.
Sean asked me when I wanted to come over and watch Star Trek. I should do that. I don't want to be a bad friend. Christine hit him in the shoulder when he asked, but I could tell she wasn't being serious. She also asked him if he was going to show me the movies, or the TV series. He said that we'd just have to wait and see; it was going to be a surprise.
7037438 Nobody is forcing you to read this. If you don't like it, stop doing that.
Phew, she got the innocent definition.
Wow. That's racist.
7037404 Can't quite tell if you're saying automatics or manuals are better, but in my experience you have to accelerate very slowly and shift early to exceed an automatic in fuel mileage these days. Honestly though the accelerate slowly is where you get good fuel mileage anyway. Cars in general get the best efficiency at about 45mph when they aren't accelerating and just sticking to that speed the whole way.
Annoying I guess, but it makes sense from an engineering perspective.
Blame the Romans.
Considering her attitude towards Unicorns I doubt she'll enjoy it.
She answered her own question. The computer!
One person's organization is another pony's chaos. I'd like to ask her how she thinks we should categorize the many thousands of books an average college library has.
Any answer other than the TV Series is wrong. Unless we're talking Wrath of Khan. Then he maybe gets a pass.
Isn't this the town where Dale lives?
In this case this is probably true, but from my experience of Spanish class. native speakers are (stupidly enough) at a disadvantage on tests. Mostly due to differences in dialect from say Spain and Argentina, and so on... but still most ESL students in my high school didn't do well in 'spanish class'
Not exactly a huge plus sign in the whole language classes category in the school system
7037404
No. Standard Transmissions are disappearing because we're breeding lazy, unskilled babies. If you can't handle a stick and clutch pedal, you can't drive. Period.
Living here in the North, it's no exaggeration to say a proper clutch can save your life. If the US Military had any sense, they'd send all their Humvee drivers to train in the Twin Cities in January. Once you get "the feel" for controlling inertia and torque, there's nothing to make you feel so alive as tearing down the interstate in a near whiteout with the windows half down, the icy wind tearing at your cheeks and the stereo blasting Der Walküre or William Tell or Katyusha or the Light Cavalry Overture as you drift around corners for fun.
No.
These code can feel very annoying, but they are more an informatic thing than something to bother with. Should the book have a Dewey number to find it easily?
To use in a story of my own or not... Hmmmmm...
Well, that is the most absolutely racist/speciesist statement I've ever heard in my entire okay, yeah, that's a fair statement. Not my fault gold is such a shiny and tempting object.
Well was a great chapter up till there. You had to go and remind me I still have a tax return to finish...
In all seriousness another great chapter. I'm still waiting for the day she brings a cloud into class. Though better make sure she doesn't pull it past the physics department. Don't want to give the faculty there too many aneurisms.
7037538
But still probably true of at least most of the Nobles in Canterlot
Are you referring to the actual reported weather in Kalamazoo as you're writing these diary entries?
7037595 True... But still!
Meh, makes her more realistic even if it does make me want to give her the evil eye.
7037571 Except now you can have the best of both worlds. Automatics that now give better gas mileage and ease of use and paddle shifters than get you into the gear you want.
Their library is using the Library of Congress classification system? Is that normal now? Last time I was in school everyone was still using Dewey Decimal
7037615
Those faux-hybrids that let you change gears by pushing the lever up and down? No. They're just as bad as automatics.
The clutch is the most important part.
7037571
Drop the elitist attitude. That sort of talk makes Rainbow Dash's ego seem like Fluttershy's by comparison. Many driver's ed classes don't even cover manual transmissions anymore, so it's not their fault. I see many people drive just fine in vehicles that don't even offer manual as an option.
In an automatic, shifting to neutral works, too. Granted, not many people know that. I didn't learn it in driver's ed-- I learned it from my grandfather.
7037630
True, but it takes much longer to switch an automatic to neutral than it does to let up on the gas and push down on the clutch. A second and a half is an eternity.
You keep teasing us with hints of Silver Glow bringing a cloud into weather science class, but ...it just keeps not-happening!
As for the discussion regarding automatic vs manual transmission, I drive a manual in a compact SUV, but the only reason is that I drive through mountain passes occasionally, and I prefer the way it feels on an icy road or while descending a hill. An automatic transmission has good points too. Match the tool to the job at hand, I say.
This is actually the last in a long line of comments that make me finally ask--is Silver's casual dislike for unicorns intentional? Because what was a few off-hoof comments is becoming sort of kinda-racist pattern. It's not egregious so much as it is on the level of the guy who thinks that racist jokes are funny enough to tell in mixed company. Would he treat his fellow man poorly? Honestly, probably not, he wouldn't hurt or cheat someone of another race per se, but at the same time... It's awkward.
7037538 It's not racism if it's true.
7037622 My school still follows the Dewey Decimal, but I can't speak for any other college/university. I wouldn't be surprised, though.
Don't even get me started; fucking hate the Library of Congress catalog system, makes it impossible to find anything! The Dewey Decimal System works just fine, and it's a lot easier to find shit. Don't know why even big University libraries can't use that. Though, to be fair, they do have a lot more to organize. Doesn't help the fact when you find a bunch of books related to the subject your looking for, but the subject your actually looking for is on the next fucking floor!
Yikes, went off on a tangent there.
The thing I've always found funny about libraries is that, even as they've modernized and expanded their bases, I've yet to see one that organized their DVDs well. At my university's library for example, they just have numbers which are assigned (and I quote from the librarian's assistant) "in the order we acquired them". So you have "Citizen Kane" right between "Best of the Three Stooges" and "Disney's Aladdin". Good luck finding anything specific there.
Just checked. That is the correct International Standard Book Number (ISBN) for 'The Last Unicorn' by Peter S. Beagle
I want to see fan art of a unicorn (maybe Rarity) being lured in by a golden bridle on a fishing pole. I checked, there's nothing even remotely related out there, so this is your chance artists!
I also have not read The Last Unicorn.
7037571
Ponify EVERYTHING
The bridle is the part that slides onto the equine face, right?
7037940
visual.merriam-webster.com/images/sports-games/equestrian-sports/riding/bridle.jpg
I'm surprised you didn't have her contrast this with her own date system.
7037647 True, which is why I drive extra-slowly in such conditions-- stretch that second and a half into two or three seconds. It's what one should do anyways. I also try to avoid the main roads to reduce the likelihood of sudden traffic light changes.
What I'm trying to say is that manuals and automatics each have their own advantages and disadvantages. I do wish my driver's ed course had covered manual transmissions, though. It would've really expanded my options the last time I went shopping for a vehicle. I had my dream car right in front of me at a price I could afford, but I had to pass it up partially due to it being a stick shift! (There were other, more significant reasons, of course, but they're not relevant to this discussion)
7037420 Pfft, lol. We all got a few stories like that. My friends and I got threatened with detentions for Bullshit, but what got me and some friends actually reprimanded was we were trying to organize a Dungeons and Dragons game during lunch. Not playing the game, organizing the campaign and drawing up characters. The teacher didn't like us having lots of 'distracting' books and hammered us with some BS about carrying 'offensive material.' One of my friends got suspended for 'gambling' by playing poker in home room, and yes, he was playing for money. My class mates weren't very bright. One tried to print out instructions on how to grow pot then when he got busted he ditched school on his razor scooter. Another tried to torrent all of Dragonball GT using the school server... and when he got busted all of the school computers worked like 900% faster. x3
Ah, memories.
Wow. Racist.
Silver Glow racist af
7037712
MAKE EQUESTRIA GREAT AGAIN
I'm surprised she didn't take the test just for the heck of it.
I wonder what Silver's reaction will be when she finds out that the golden bridle was how Bellerophon caught Pegasus...
7037595 I think you mean...
I'm starting to wonder if Silver's ever actually spoken to any unicorns. Her mental image of them seems to be a collection of stereotypes with no actual data gathered from direct interaction.
As for the library organization, at that scale, it's not like you can just sort the things alphabetically. I don't think Silver grasps the sheer magnitude that system is meant to handle.
In any case, you're doing a great job of portraying Silver as an actual person rather than some flawless paragon of all that is good and right.
I saw Sienna today! I couldn't tell if Silver Glow was inside (or why she'd be all the way over in Delaware), but I got excited.
7037465 You got that right. Debate and discussion but not pony related.
7028155
It's good to hear not all college students are perpetuating that stereotype.
When I read through the chapter, I had no idea what Euchre was. I did know it was a game of some type and was just going to assume it was something like Rook.
After reading a bit on the wiki of it... I still don't really understand it. Playing card games and I don't really get along.
7040310
Hoo boy.
Well, you're right, I don't. But dude, you could be friggin' knighty or Alexstrazsa and your back-and-forth there would still be embarrassing. Pull it together. For the children, Alondro. For the children.
Yay I spy friendly Alondro comments
7037561
Damn Romans, messing everything up.
Dewey Decimal system with more numbers after the decimal, and fiction alphabetized by author.
As a matter of fact, it is.
7037562
Yeah, she actually wouldn't have gotten a hundred percent on the test. She just thinks she would have.
7037575
True story, I used to think it did. I couldn't figure out what camels had to do with Wednesday.
7037608
No. I probably could, but I think they had just as a mild a winter as we did.
7037622
My college library did, and it frustrated me to no end. Since I hated finding stuff in the card catalogue, I'd memorized where all the stuff was I cared about. Then I got to college, and all the numbers are different. Fiction and non-fiction was mixed in an entirely non-intuitive system. I hated it.
7037579
Do it.
7037595
Yeah, I should probably do mine, too. But it's not due for another month. . . .
7037781
Agree 100%. There may be merits to the LoC method--probably are, actually--but I'm used to Dewey Decimal; I had most of the bits of it I cared about memorized in the 80s, and it works well enough for your average bear.
7037793
Yeah, all this new media is giving them fits, I'm sure. The local library sorts them by genre and then alphabetized by title; TV series are in a separate section, and non-fiction DVDs are classified in the Dewey Decimal system.
7037816
Of course it is. I looked it up.
7037892
I am in favor of this.
7037909
You should. It's very good. It's funny and sad and serious all at the same time.
7037964
Should have. Maybe later.
7038469
Besides Twilight Sparkle, what student takes tests for the fun of it?
7038504
She'll put her hooves over her ears and say 'la la la I'm not listening.'
7039063
We got to work on a Sienna today! No pegasuses inside, though.
But I did have a nice talk with the owner of the van about Vincent Van Gogh and whether or not the library should have Lego playtime for adults.
7040132
It's basically Bridge lite. You play with 9-A. You take tricks by trump or by high card; you have to follow suite if you can, and you and your partner have to take at least three tricks to win. You can score 1, 2, or 4 points on a hand, and first team to 10 wins. That's the gist of it.
7037538 7037701 7037712 7038125 7038376 7038554
Don't think of it as racism; think of it as tribalism.
The problem with using the term 'racism' as it involves ponies is that the connotations of the word are that it's bad, and that it's unfair (I'm oversimplifying a lot, but it's a subject that's worth a blog post, and I haven't done it yet because unless I'm very careful, I'm going to have a livelier comment section than I got by mentioning Marx )
The thing is, where all humans are basically the same regardless of race, ponies are not. Pegasi can fly. Unicorns can cast magic with their horns. Earth ponies are good at growing stuff. Even in Our Town, the ponies weren't so equal that the other tribes could fly, or pegasi could not. So for that reason along, there are bound to be differences between the tribes, and different outlooks between them. A pegasus' view of the world is going to be much different than a grounded pony's. That's a fact.
Now, we know from the HWE episode that the three tribes are 'unified,' at least as much as you can 'unify' three actually different types of pony. Everypony does his or her part, and the world works. And we know, or at least the show would have us believe, this has been working for a long time. We also know that we have towns like Ponyville which have all three tribes living together, working together, and so on.
Now, of all the three tribes, the pegasi could be the most isolated. Given what we've seen in show canon, it's possible that a pegasus could be raised without ever setting her hooves on the ground, and that means that she probably wouldn't have to interact with any of the other tribes. If they lived in a particularly isolated place (imagine a cloud city over the ocean), they might not even have ever seen a non-pegasus pony.
This is not the case with Silver Glow, but I just wanted to put that out there.
Rather than have me prattle on forever, I'm going to take a different tack. Michigan has two great colleges; the University of Michigan, and
Michigan Agricultural CollegeMichigan State. Naturally, both of them are rivals, and people constantly rib each other for their college choice. Harmless little digs that really don't mean anything.To add a third
tribecollege in the mix, there's Ohio State. Both MSU and U of M fans agree that OSU sucks.*What I'm getting at, is that Silver Glow doesn't actually hate Unicorns. She makes fun of them when she can, but it's in good sport.
I realize that this isn't the perfect analogy, and also that sometimes rabid college fans do really dumb stuff, but in general we get along. I happen to live in a town that is reasonably close to both Ann Arbor and MSU, and as such, there are a large number of fans for both universities in town. Decals for both universities adorn the cars we work on, and customers come in wearing logo-ed gear all the time.
While I love getting in little digs at all the Michigan Ag folks, I don't think less of them for having attended that school, or for being in favor of it. Furthermore, I recognize that academically, there are things it's better at. My former girlfriend who's a veterinarian attended MSU, and nobody in my family (3 generations of U of M graduates) held it against her. For vet school, MSU is better. That's a fact.
So the tl:dr version is that you should think of the three tribes as three colleges that have a weird, three-way rivalry going on.
____________________________________________________________________
(*we're still bitter because we lost the war for Toledo to those slick-talking Ohioans [seriously; look at the shape of Michigan's southern border])