Story Notes: Unity 2 (part 2) · 11:46pm April 16th
If you got here without reading the previous blog post or Unity 2 you're gonna be confused. Just scroll through for the pony pics, or maybe skim it in the hopes of finding a useful horse fact.
Chapter 4
Crazy Eddie is based on the Futurama robot named Malfunctioning Eddie, who makes deals so crazy he explodes. He was likely inspired by the Crazy Eddie electronics chain in the Northeast. There have been two revivals of the name; the original version not only had crazy low prices, but also engaged in just about every kind of business fraud you can imagine and maybe a couple you've never thought of.
Sgt. Reckless was a horse who served in Korea. She was field promoted several times and won several award, including two Purple Hearts for being wounded in combat. She was notorious for eating several non-food items, including poker chips, and she enjoyed beer, enough so that she got free beer as part of her retirement after she'd served her tour of duty. Horses do have self-driving capability, and there are some who are trained to do so.
Studebaker did make wagons before they branched out into automobile production. They're not the only automaker who did.
'guggle to zatch' is a reference to one of James Thurber's novels. I think it's The 13 Clocks, but I don't remember exactly.
Chapter 5
A Horse Pocket is a reference to a Viva La Dirt League video (YouTube link), which plays on the way adventurers in fantasy games can make their horses appear/disappear at will. Sort of like a horse Hammerspace.
A Desert Eagle is a semi-auto pistol that can chamber a .50 caliber round, and is famously used in a scene in the movie Snatch. I think I found a ponified version of that scene somewhere, but I don't remember where and that's probably for the best.
Technically KitKat and Buttercup aren't a thing yet, but this story's riddled with continuity errors.
The Mythbusters did prove in a zombie segment that an axe was a better melee weapon than a gun, and they've also demonstrated that at close range a knife is better than a gun . . . although of course the gun's advantage is that you can engage enemies from far beyond arm's length. A well-balanced adventuring party would have character(s) who are good with both range weapons and in close-in combat.
Chapter 6
In case you read the story late and missed the double layer of jokes in the opening paragraphs of this chapter--or you read it on time and never looked back at chapter titles--when published Chapter 6 was titled "Leave blank for auto-named chapter." After the two Interludes were published it was re-named "Chapter 6: The Labyrinth of Logic Gates."
While it doesn't come up in this chapter (or any other), now's a good point to mention the trap-maintenance ponies. As I recall, they were mentioned in Fernin's Whip and Wing, a Daring Do/Indiana Jones crossover.
I do know how to read wiring diagrams, although mechanic wiring diagrams don't include logic gates and all that; the computing parts of the system are just grey boxes. Probably most of the time it wouldn't be useful to know exactly what was going on inside the box, but I can think of a few diagnoses where it would have been really helpful to know.
Always wear your safety gear when you're riding your motorcycle!
Good traps don't need maintenance! (But I don't let that get in the way of enjoying a good adventure story; I loved Whip and Wing.)
The closest things to dungeon traps IRL that I've ever come across, are the ones left behind by Spanish gold miners in the American Southwest. They are all pretty clever, and a couple of designs are self-resetting, IIRC. Almost all made from stone and dirt, because wood and rope doesn't last very long. (Also IIFC) Someone was killed by one some 300 years after it had been set!
To be fair, it's one of your April 1st stories. Even if they did read it, they're probably still confused.
Should maybe be usually don’t, on account of here’s a wiring diagram for a Toyota Land Cruiser that does show the logic gates inside the (solid state) Light Retainer Relay
img.fitzmorrispr.net/Light%20Auto%20Turn%20Off.png
It turns the lights off if you open the driver’s door after turning off the engine, but only once. If you turn the headlight switch on after engine off and door open they’ll just stay on
5777110
I suppose some of that depends on how long they've been left sitting on their own.
Huh.
There was a Uncle Scrooge comic, probably by Barks, in which Scrooge, Donald, and the nephews were in search of the lost Aztec/Incan gold mines, and on their journey they set off a number of traps left behind by the Spanish. I'd assumed that was just creative liberty on Barks' part, but you're telling me there was a chance?
5777117
That is a good point. Heck, I'm still confused and I wrote it
5777297
Huh, that's interesting. I had no idea that such drawings were available at least sometimes in the aftermarket.
Official GM drawings sometimes show if the circuit is grounded inside the control unit (i.e., if the PCM ground-side controls a component), but we rarely get anything more than that.
I suppose it's still not super-helpful to me, since I can't read that kind of diagram, but if I was provided them more often, I'd figure out how.
My van has a similar type of logic circuity, but it keeps the lights on with a timer if you shut off the engine with the headlights on. If you cycle the headlight switch, they go out immediately, and if you open the door before turning off the headlights, they won't stay on. It's probably a more complex system, since on my van the headlights are computer-controlled.
5777853
Yes, I have a book about them... Somewhere. I will see if I can dig it out.
5777869
That'd be really interesting! Let me know if you find the book, or even if you can just remember the title
5778208
Will do! I searched around a bit yesterday, but my place is stuffed with books, so it might take a little while.