September 12
I didn't sleep all that well, and when I woke up I decided that I wanted to fly, because I was feeling kind of twitchy and eager and unfocused, like a filly on Hearth's Warming, and I didn't have my first class until ten anyway.
It was a little strange to not hear the usual bird-chatter in the morning.
So I looked out the window and it was a nice, clear day outside, and would be perfect for flying. So I went into the bathroom to fill up my camelback and then got dressed back in our room, trying to be quiet so that I wouldn't wake up Peggy. And I had a little snack out of the box of hay.
It had been a lot more convenient to fly right off my balcony, and it felt strange to have to go away from the outside to get to the outside, but I knew that before too long I'd be used to it. And I went down one flight of stairs and then out onto the boardwalk, and I called up the airplane directors.
I made sure to tell Dori that I was back at Kalamazoo College and not my apartment on Grove Street. And she gave me the usual instructions and I thought I'd go to the Nature Center, which meant I had to stay low anyway.
I went off the boardwalk and gained speed flying down the hill and over the quad, and then picked up a little altitude before I crossed the brick road in front of Hoben, just in case there was a car coming. And then I started picking up more altitude as I cut diagonally across the eastern end of the cemetery and the neighborhood where Meghan used to live.
My flight peaked just after I crossed the 131 bus Highway, and then I started to glide down towards the Nature Center.
The deer were out in their usual little prairie, but they were really close to the treeline and I didn't see them as I came in, until I got over the trees and they saw me too, and I scared them off which made me feel bad. I hadn't meant to—I should have stayed higher and curved around towards the river, rather than chase them from breakfast. I wouldn't like it if I was sitting down eating my breakfast and a roc came into the dining hall.
So I landed on the high point of the trail and took a couple of sips of water from my camelback, then pawed at the ground a little bit to get myself in the mood, and galloped down the incline and around the curve at the end, and I did the section of the trail that paralleled the river at a canter.
I slowed to a trot on the upside, and after I'd crested the hill again I didn't gallop because I should have warmed my legs up a little bit before, but I'd just been too eager.
I did a whole lap at an easy trot, which loosened all my muscles up and I galloped down the hill then cantered the rest of the way around, until I was at the very top again, and this time I just took off and aimed myself back towards Kalamazoo College.
This time I decided I was going to try and do a slow climb, rather than climb and descend. So I kept my eyes mostly focused on the bell tower, which I could just see poking up above the trees. It was pretty much all uphill to get to it, and it occurred to me that a pegasus who was really good at gliding could probably launch herself from the top of the bell tower and glide all the way to the Nature Center.
I did a descending turn to land back on the boardwalk, then let myself in and went upstairs to our room, but before I went in I poked my nose in the bathroom to see if anyone was in the shower.
There wasn't, and as long as I didn't dally too much I could have a turn right away, so I went in our room just long enough to grab my shampoo and the nice blue towel I'd gotten from Sunny Haven, and then went back into the bathroom.
It felt kind of strange to be getting undressed in the shower.
I set all my flight gear on the little bench and then turned on the water and once it got nice and warm stepped in and rinsed myself off, and I was just washing my mane when someone came into the bathroom—even if you didn't hear the door open over the noise of the shower, you could feel how the air currents in the room suddenly changed.
When I'd finished and shaken myself off, I had to figure out how to get all my flight gear back to my room and I didn't have my saddlebags to put it in, so I laid out my towel and made it into a makeshift sack.
It was Kat, and she was sitting on the little bench outside, waiting for her turn in the shower. I would have said hello but my mouth was full, but I just nodded at her 'cause sometimes humans nod in greeting.
Peggy was awake when I got back to our room, and she was still in her sleeping clothes but she'd brushed her hair already. And I said that Kat was in the shower right now, if she'd been thinking of taking one.
She said she'd wait until after breakfast, because she didn't have an early class, and she said that she wanted to start the school year off right by going to breakfast in her sleeping clothes the very first day.
So while I finished drying off and brushed my mane and tail, she put on a bra and shoes, and then we went to breakfast together.
Their waffle-maker was broken already, but I still had mine back at the dorm. Mister Salvatore had asked me when we'd packed if I was allowed to have it and I didn't see why not. So I wasn't all that disappointed that it didn't work. And the person who made omelets wasn't there, either, and there was nothing on his table. I hope that he just had the day off.
We sat down with Sean and Christine, and she wasn't very awake. Sean looked a little bit more alert, but maybe that was because he had an empty coffee cup on his plate and was drinking out of a second. She was eating her Fruit Loops and I would have been bouncing off the walls if I had that much sugar for breakfast.
Everyone talked about their class schedules, and I found out that Sean and I had a class together in the afternoon, which was nice. And I told Sean about visiting the Air Force base that controlled the satellites and he thought that was really cool. He asked me if I'd heard about the Space-X rocket that had exploded on the launch pad a couple of weeks ago, and I hadn't. I also hadn't seen the new Star Trek movie that had been in the theaters, and that made him sad. He said that we'd have to find a way to get me to see it, and Christine said that maybe I'd decided that Star Wars was the better franchise after having all summer to think about it. But I told her that wasn't true, I'd just done other stuff and not really thought about it.
I had a little free time after breakfast, so while Peggy was in the shower, I read Amos, which was the vision a shepherd had had two years before an earthquake.
God said that He would punish all the nations around Israel, so I think that Amos had his visions before that happened. And he said how he was going to punish the Israelites for being bad, too, And when he showed Amos visions, Amos said that it was too much, and so God relented a little bit. He didn't have locusts eat the crops or destroy the land with fire.
And then in the end He promised that after they had learned their lesson, He was going to build Jerusalem back up again. I knew from what Pastor Liz had told me that He had, but that must have happened after Amos.
So God had told lots of prophets to warn everyone that if they didn't change their ways, He was going to punish them and nobody had listened to them.
I left for class a little bit early, 'cause I didn't know where the classroom was. Since most of the buildings on campus were built on hillsides, sometimes it wasn't so obvious which floor was which, and I didn't want to be late for my class just because I didn't know where it was. So I went in through the front door and wandered around in the hallway until I'd gotten a sense of how the rooms were numbered, and after that it was really easy to find the room I wanted.
It was already being used by a morning class, so I had to stand around and wait. And pretty soon other people started showing up, too, and started forming a line along the wall. Some people sat down to wait, and I kept looking for people who I was friends with, and finally I saw Lisa, who also ran the spotlight in the theatre.
She was kind of surprised to see me there and asked if I was waiting for the next class and I said I was, and so she asked why I was taking it, and I told her that most of what made clouds work was thermal physics, and an understanding of atmospheric thermodynamics was essential for anypony who wanted to advance beyond being a cloud-pusher or a cloud-puncher.
Lisa said that she'd never thought of it that way.
The room was a little too big for the number of people in the class, and I wasn't sure where the best place to sit would be. Too close, and I'd be straining my neck to see everything on the markerboard, and too far away and I wouldn't be able to see it all. So I just followed Lisa and sat next to her, 'cause she probably knew the best place and it was good to sit close to a friend.
Crystal Dawn was in the class, too, and when she saw me she sat on my other side.
We'd all gotten comfortable in our seats when the professor showed up and he introduced himself as Professor Carnot Brown, and he said that if anybody called him Encyclopedia they'd lose points. I hadn't thought of calling him that, and now I would be sure not to.
He told us what the class was going to be about, and gave everyone a copy of the course syllabus and the books that we'd need—I hadn't gotten them yet, but you weren't expected to have them on the first day anyway. I needed more notebooks, too, and I could get all that at the bookstore before lunch.
Then he had us all introduce ourselves, 'cause he said that was more friendly than him reading off an attendance book. And once we'd done that, he asked who wanted to go down to the lab and set something on fire, and almost everybody raised their hand.
He told us to bring our things with us, 'cause once we'd toured the lab he was going to set us free. And so we went downstairs and to a big room with lots of heavy tables that had strange faucets on them, along with normal sinks. And he showed us where all the safety equipment was, and he said that was the most important thing to know.
He said that we could expect to have a lab every Tuesday, and he said that anyone who blew up the lab or broke physics would automatically fail their lab grade. And then someone asked him if he'd been lying about setting something on fire, and he went over to the front desk and opened the strange faucet and I could smell gas coming out almost immediately.
Professor Brown squeezed a little metal tool that spit sparks, and it lit the gas and made a nice little flame, and he adjusted the knob a little bit to make it a different size, then he reached into the desk and got out a brown paper bag and he put it over the flame and pretty soon it started floating away, just like a hot air balloon.
He said that was our first lesson, and tomorrow in lab if everybody was good he would teach us how to make a Cincinnati Fire Kite, as long as we promised to never ever launch one on campus. And then he told us that class was dismissed, and we should go buy our books now.
So I went right to the bookstore, and it was nice because they sorted all the textbooks based on what the class was, so once you found your class you found your book, too. And since I was there, I bought all the rest of my books, too, and I got notebooks for all my classes and new clicky pens.
Since Professor Brown had let us out early, I had plenty of time to go back to my dorm room and drop off my new school supplies before lunch, and I had time to write in my journal, too.
I'd been so excited meeting everyone in the morning that I hadn't really noticed that Joe had never come back, 'cause he'd graduated and moved to Japan, and it was a little bit lonelier without him.
I hadn't remembered to earlier, but I asked if anyone wanted to come see the football game on Friday, and Sean said he didn't know that we had a football team and Christine punched him in the shoulder. She said that they'd been playing for over a hundred years, and Sean asked if they'd won a game yet. I said that they'd won their first game this year, 'cause that's what Cedric had told me.
He said that he hadn't been to a football game since he was in band in high school, so why not. And Peggy thought it would be fun, too, and so all of us decided to go but instead of riding in the bus we'd take Cobalt.
Me and Sean went to math class together, and it was in Dewing. I was hoping that we'd have Professor Sir Doctor Banerjee again, but we didn't. It was a man with really curly dark hair and a beard, and he said that his name was Professor Pampena, and he hoped that we all loved math as much as he did. And he explained to all of us what vector calculus was about and told us how he graded and how important it was for us to show our work especially on tests. And he said that he didn't need to take attendance 'cause he kinda knew everyone in class already either because they'd had a class with him before or he knew them by reputation. I'd never had a class with him before, although I'd seen him around campus, so I guess he just knew me by reputation.
I wondered if he'd had Peggy.
We got out of class a little bit early and that meant that we had the whole afternoon free. And I wanted to fly over to Aric's house but I thought before I did I'd look around campus to see if he was in class, and I'm glad I did, because I saw Winston parked by the theatre building.
I thought about surprising him by waiting in the back, but when I looked in there it was full of boxes and there wasn't enough room for me to fit.
So I got in the front instead, 'cause he never locked Winston, and I stretched out on the seat and after a little while I got kinda bored so I closed my eyes and then I fell asleep and he wound up surprising me instead. Although I bet he was a little bit surprised when he saw me sleeping in Winston.
We drove to his house and I spent the rest of the afternoon helping him unpack Winston. David said that we should all have pizza for dinner and Aric thought that was a good idea, and he ordered some from Papa John's, and I asked if we'd have time to go to Meijer and get birdseed before the pizza was ready. He said that we could make time, so we drove to Meijer and bought one big bag, and got the pizza on the way back.
I hoped that nobody in the dining hall was missing me.
When we were done with dinner, me and Aric went to Fourth Coast to play Durak, and I hadn't forgotten everything over the summer. I told everyone there about how I'd taught the tornado pegasuses to play the game, and then I had to tell about fighting the tornado, too, 'cause everyone wanted to hear about that.
Aric said that I'd gotten busted for stealing a cloud in Indiana, and everyone thought that was really funny. And Keith said he hadn't done anything that exciting over the summer, just worked at a candy shop in Indianapolis. Aric said how come he'd just found out about that now, since he'd been in Lafayette all summer and the towns weren't even an hour apart.
Malcolm told us about going to Pennsic Border War, and at first I thought that was bad but he said that it was a play-war, like the sparring I'd seen at Val Day, only bigger. Seth had spent the summer rock climbing, and Kenneth had toured castles in England and Scotland, and Alex had gone sailing a lot. So it sounded like everyone had had lots of fun.
When we were done playing, Aric offered people a ride home, but everyone agreed it was a nice night out and they could walk, so me and him got back in Winston and I told him that I'd gotten to fly airplane simulators on my vacation and then asked if I could drive and he said no. But after he stopped at the corner of Academy and Dartmouth, he said that I could sit on his lap and steer the rest of the way home.
I kept my head off to the side so that I wouldn't block his view, 'cause he had to know what to do with the pedals. And he drove kinda slow, but I didn't mind.
When we got into the driveway he turned off Winston and then kissed me on the head and said that I'd done a good job.
It was a little weird at first, 'cause we'd been apart for most of the summer, so we kind of had to work to remember what we each liked, and we were also both kinda fighting to get in our favorite positions which didn't work out all that well, and finally he let me pin him down and be on top, and afterwards I lay on his chest and put my head down right under his chin, and he ran his hands through my mane and scratched behind my ears.
Ah, a man after my high school chemistry teacher's heart.
Seriously. My high school chemistry teacher was something of a pyromaniac. I could swear we had a demonstration of burning magnesium at least once every six weeks.
Sheesh, a thermodynamics class taught by someone named Carnot?
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Alkaline metals are pedestrian.
NI^3 and Thermite are the most fun.
https://verpa.wordpress.com/2010/02/25/nitrogen-triiodide-just-dont/
If his name isn't Leroy Brown, there's no reason to call him Encyclopedia.
550,000 words? Fuck I've already read Fallout Equestria and Project Horizons. I don't think I could stomach another long fic...
7723173
Lifehack for if the ground slope along your foundation has been worn down by overflowing gutters.
You could check the local municipal compost centers and see if they have free filler dirt, OR...
Collect ash from the fireplace or firepit. Piss in it to neutralize the alkaline and mix in some used coffee grounds to improve the smell and further lower the pH. There you go. Nice filler material and general-purpose fertilizer without having to wait on organic waste sitting for months to decompose.
Skoodilypooping and a scratch behind the ear? What manner of debauchery is this?!
7722946 I found it! You can see it at the Grand Galloping Gala. http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/mlp/images/8/87/Observatory_tower_S1E26.png/revision/latest?cb=20131009031227
Still, Silver Glow might not know about it. She doesn't care for astronomy.
7723245
Nice!
There's a good chance she's not aware of it, and it could very well be a one-off; one of those things that the palace has but nopony else does.
Thermodynamics and vector calculus? Sounds a lot like my semester right now
Man. I dropped off 160 chapters ago 'cause I got busy with school. Now I'm intimidated to start up again, even if it's just a few chapters at a time when I have the time, because what I really want to do is to read it all in one go to get caught up, but I can't even attempt that until I graduate. It sucks, because I liked having the chance to read and participate in the conversation about the latest chapter going on in the comments. I know I'm gonna want to read the comments on each chapter as I go through it, so that's even more to go through before (and if) I get caught up before this story ends. Now, every time it updates, I feel this tension pulling me back, but I don't yet have the time to dedicate to it. On the upside, I think I finally understand my opinion on daily updates: They're great if you're not too busy; otherwise, they suck nearly, if not just as much as sparse updates.
7723246
Nikola Tesla himself was born during a severe lightning storm. Clearly, the ionic disturbance granted him mental super powers.
derpicdn.net/img/2013/8/26/411400/large.jpeg
7723019 Kalamazoo got lucky. The storm I'm talking about (which struck in June of last year) died out just before reaching the east portion of Michigan, so if that storm had held on longer, you'd have been hit again. That or it missed; I don't remember which. I didn't look for too many details because I was too busy taking care of the local damage.
That gets me thinking, though... How long ago was that storm you mentioned? I remember we had a similar storm back in 2003, except it was far more devastating because that one had hail as well. Could that have been the same storm?
In any case, there's a good lesson to be learned from all this: never let a Catholic priest pray for rain.
I'm wondering how they're going to deal with lab safety and a pegasus, really. I'm more familiar with chem/biology, and usually those require fine dexterity and things like gloves.
7723138
it's one of the classic tune to local radio station for instructions. i'm not quite in a nuclear fireball area, just a every one evacuates and gets potassium iodide area.
I grew up in the sticks. We had deer in the area. They come and eat your vegetable garden the day before it's due to be harvested. They are fairly bold -outside of hunting season. After opening day you won't see them again until spring. They are smarter than you think.
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Looks to be the same order as Rock-Paper-Scissors.
Wing beats Hoof; Horn beats Wing; Hoof beats Horn.
That joke is Twilight Approved!
7723419
Well Silver (and probably most Pegasus) doesn't believe that middle one.
7723336
I wonder how flammable Silver's feathers are? That might be an issue. She'd probably need bigger than average goggles as well.
7723519
LOL
Undoubtedly her prejudice would get in the way of that. But despite having the high ground in every single encounter, I've no doubt most battles between them were won by unicorns.
Logically and tactically, Unicorns are much like the Green Lantern Corps--if they can imagine it happening, it most likely will.
Pegasi would have the natural advantage of height. But precision bombing becomes less precise the higher you go, and they would need to be as high as possible to stay out of the range of battlemage unicorns. Don't forget the lesson to be had from Starlight Glimmer: unicorns CAN fly, too! She had to have found the spell that let her do that from somewhere--most likely recorded from the time of the tribes fighting one another, as there'd be no other logical reason for there being such. A single powerful unicorn obviously would be able to wipe out scores of pegasi before their eventual numbers could be brought to bear to overwhelm the battlemage.
Day One: Waffle maker already broken. Proof that god hates me. Celestia is never this cruel.
7723194 Hey now, could be worse. At least this is a light SoL fic... Try reading Background Pony or Austraeoh with its numerous sequels.
7723622 Yer I think I'll pass XD
7723625 The Austraeoh series surpasses PH for length if I'm not mistaken (I might be, but they were close last I checked)
Look like Silver once again manage to get all the best teacher.
And vector calculus!
Vector Calculus? I need this to Grad? Im just gonna Curl up and Div.
Depends on what your major is. Every major has 1 or 2 courses that should be called Ball Breaker. Their real purpose is to encourage people to drop out. When I was in college (1970s), Computer Programming majors had to take Assembly Language programming despite the fact that nobody used it anymore.
As to "How hard is calculus?" It was invented by Isaac Newton and HE got it wrong!
Oh god, the mathematics is back.
Add Horror tag, plz.
7723909
Knowing Assembly Language is actually incredibly important. Nopony uses it directly but it's still at the heart of every computer program today. It's also good to leanr how things work, and get a feel for how people used to do it in order to fully appreciate the power of modern day computing, and the privilege afforded by higher level languages.
Calculate is incredibly hard. Most mathematics courses are intense (and this is coming from a Computer Science major).
On the comment of courses designed to make you drop: [insert first year management]
Those guys despise first years.
7723606
That is the most realistic facet of this story, unfortunately.
Seems like a good start to the school year!
Silver, everyone on campus knows who you are.
There's a pony in your car, what do.
The calendar says Summer starts June 21 (Summer Solstice, time of Summer Sun Celebration) and ends September 21 (Autumn Equinox, the Running of the Leaves) but here in the USA Summer is considered to run from Memorial Day (last Monday in May) to Labor Day (1st Monday in September). All of June is considered Summer & all of September is considered Autumn.
IMO, in Equestria if there is no ceremony then the seasons don't change. Don't forget, in Equestria magic works. Sure, most of the snow just melts , most of the leaves just fall, etc. You start a fire, most of the wood just burns. But no match, no fire & IMO no ceremony no season change. Read Frazer's The Golden Bough, about religion & folklore.
I'd say that's probably one of the biggest differences on Earth. The seasons just change with no ceremony except they DON'T change. That's just weird & WRONG! . I daresay an Earth Pony farming town is more in tune with the seasons than Silver's home but I'd make a small bet they do something.
7723562 Before I saw that episode showing Starlight Glimmer levitating herself, I'd imagined something slightly different... A pair of Pegasus ponies in a harness, carrying a battle mage unicorn between them, doing a strafing run over an enemy position!
Of course, I can still cling to my dream of heavily armed Earth pony and Unicorn paratroopers, dropping from Pegasus-pulled wagons, behind enemy lines.
Who the enemy might be though, I haven't a clue. <They all went away.)
7724271 But for the period when the three tribes were all fighting one another, having a battlemage carried into the conflict by a couple of pegasi when they're fighting pegasi would be more than a little ironic--not to mention risky for the battlemage
But, yeah, I could certainly see them using the tactics behind your idea after unification against external threats like griffons, dragons, etc. Which is probably a good reason why the self-levitation spell eventually would fall out of common use as the unicorns no longer needed to provide their own vertical transportation. Only the most powerful unicorns would have been capable of self-levitating when going into a war--but after unification, less skilled unicorns would also be able to be deployed using your idea, thus vastly increasing the numbers of unicorns the enemy would be facing.
7723336 basically don't do stupid shit and know what's dangerous. I can pull some engineering lab safety sheets if you want.
7723251 i had those exact classes last quarter.
My school gas ascent amount of this. My favorite is a series of 3 structures with 2 building numbers. The first floor connects to the second floor of the others by walkways. And it has a floor 0.
What's silver's course load this quarter? I've had both thermo and vector calc so feel free to pm me if you need something explained.
And what's with this leave early on the first day stuff. I never get that.
7723625 you'll pass on Silver Glow's Journal?
You don't know what you're missing...
7723783
Not sure if Silver Glow is a Junior or a Senior but for me Vector Calculus was a Freshman and Sophomore course but also lucky for me I can choose Standard Calculus over them.
Sounds pretty heavy, Doc Brown.
I feel like breaking physics should be an automatic win. Taking things apart is the best way to learn how they work.
Well, it's a good thing Pinkie's not there then. She'd probably be busy casually breaking physics behind his back as he said that.
...then she'd probably look very nervous, put everything back, and whistle nervously when he turned around.
At first, I read that as "Professor Carrot Brown". In any case, I'd never call him Encyclopedia because that would be an insult. Encyclopedia Brown sucks. Many of the conclusions the character makes in the books either make no sense or are completely wrong-- something I could tell even as a kid.
Does he have anything about being called "Doc Brown" instead?
Um... he does know that one of his students is a magical pony, right?
7723120 That's nothing: how about a professor who fires off guns in the classroom? Apparently, the University of Nottingham once had a chemistry professor who would occasionally bring an old musket to class to demonstrate the workings of black powder and the molecular strength of the target material. They've got a video or two about him on their YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/periodicvideos
You'll have to find the specific video yourself, though. I'm not sorting through all the videos for that. Besides, you'll probably learn a few interesting things in the meantime.
I missed Christine and her Fruit Loops.
....
And punching Sean in the shoulder.
7723120
Really, what fun is a lab if you can't set something on fire?
7723164
People named Carnot are good at thermodynamics.
7723173
One of my favorite Mythbusters moments was when the build team was playing with them, and dropped a huge chunk in a bathtub, making a satisfying amount of smoke . . . and then suddenly Cari goes "Oh, wait, poison gas" and closes the window of the room they're observing from.
7723177
7723203
This strikes me as something that the ponies would do. Probably if you buy fertilizer from an earth pony you know it will work and you don't really want to know exactly what's in it.
7723217
Just the best debauchery, that's all.
derpicdn.net/img/2015/4/24/881250/thumb.png
7723251
I would be very cautious taking anything Silver Glow says about either subject as gospel: I don't know a damn thing about either. I'm watching MIT lecture videos to get up to speed, but I can't promise I won't make mistakes.
7723266
A couple of chapters a day and maybe a binge on the weekend would catch you up, eventually. But I know that feel; I got behind on the comments due to real life, and I've been trying to catch back up for most of November.
That's one thing that I think is ultimately going to be a deterrent to readers who haven't been keeping up--the intimidating chapter count and word count. Part of the reason I haven't started a couple of stories that I'm interested in, to be honest.
A couple of weeks ago, I was hanging out with a couple of other authors at the bar, and ROBCakeran (My Little Dashie) said he'd started reading it but had stopped about a dozen chapters in and was curious how many chapters he was behind and I just started laughing.
7723267
Probably being born in a storm would be seen as an auspicious sign for pegasi.
7723323
The one I'm thinking of was in 2001. IIRC, that was the same storm that flooded a whole neighborhood near 9th St. There was a firetruck that was trying to help pump out the neighborhood, but since the water was mailbox-deep, I don't know how much luck it was having.
7723336
Tells you how long it's been since I took a lab, because I didn't think of that at all.
Final verdict is Equestrian safety glasses, a lab coat, and a sparkly scrunchie.
7723363
Oh, here's a fun fact. If you remember the days of radios with analog tuning dials (or if you've seen one), check this out:
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4e/CONELRAD_car_radio.jpg/1920px-CONELRAD_car_radio.jpg
The little triangles are the civil defense stations (CONELRAD), and for years they were marked on AM radios, both at home and in the car.
7723388
Deer are complete bastards, and that's a fact. As I recall, there's some evidence that deer have changed the hours that they're active as a result of their only real predators now being humans.
7723530
Probably not exceptionally flammable. According to this, they're less flammable than other bedding materials.
7723419
I'm less convinced of this. It really depends on the tactics used, though.
Most of the powerful spells we've seen have come from exceptional unicorns, and a lot of the rest don't seem to be able to do all that much that would be terribly useful in a fight. Now, presumably in a time of war there would be more motivation to learn good defensive and offensive spells, and you can't really discount the effectiveness of telekinetically thrown things, which is something that most unicorns could probably figure out how to do. But I think that the unicorns would largely retreat to cities to fight, where the pegasi are mobile, could cut off food supplies, set up storms upwind of the unicorn fortification and then just let them go, and even bombard the fort with rocks that were carried on a cloud, or fires that were carried on a cloud. Plus they would always have weather conditions in their favor--send in a dense fog before an attack, etc. Any could could contain a regiment of pegasi, or nothing at all, and unicorns would probably have no way to know as the clouds drifted in.
That's not to say that a couple of powerful unicorns couldn't singlehoofedly take out an entire army all on their own, because they probably could. But I think that if the pegasi are fighting against a fortified city, they'd win eventually.
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I'm thinking that the game has different rules, possibly along the lines of Morra or Cham Cham Cham, where it isn't a game where something beats something else, but more of a points-scoring game. I just haven't figured out how you'd score the points.
7723606
"Dear humanity: Please fix your Celestia-damned waffle makers."
7723728
Virtually all the teachers at K were the best teachers. I only had two that I didn't like: one, a guest professor, was really terrible; the other was just boring. He had the same monotone as the teacher in Ferris Bueller's Day Off. He was good, though; I'll give him that. One of the students in class once asked him how you did something mathematical, and he proceeded to write a chalkboard-long equation explaining it.
7723783
Vector calculus actually looks like fun, so far. I don't understand it very well, but I get the concepts so far.
7723909
I had one of those classes in English. The professor dumped a hundred-page reading assignment on us the first day.
7723931
7723935
I go back and forth on things like that. In my line of work (auto repair), a lot of guys don't know the fundamental principles behind how the engine actually works, and if you're not designing one from scratch, you really don't have to. I mean, we all know the basics, but things like exactly how an ignition coil on a computer-controlled car actually makes a spark is something most guys don't actually know, and I'm not sure it matters, since we're not building cars, we're fixing them.
I think that kind of knowledge does benefit you, but most people don't actually need it in their day-by-day lives.