noise."Chapter 4 notes · 4:18am Nov 12th, 2013
Once again, I’d like to extend a huge thank-you to my pre-readers, who attempt to stop me from making foolhardy errors. This chapter wouldn’t be where it was if it weren’t for their tireless work, so let’s have a round of applause for Humanist, AnormalUnicornPony, metallusionsismagic, Woonsocket Wrench, and my parents.
I don’t know a whole lot about cooking. Like Dale, I’m hopelessly lost when it comes to making something that doesn’t come out of a box with the instructions printed right on it . . . and I can mess that up, too.
I do know a little bit about being a mechanic, though. One of the things I know is that different mechanics arrange their tools in different ways. One of the drawers in my tool box is for pliers, and ‘plier-like’ objects—generally tools with two handles. My screwdriver drawer, on the other hand, also contains other ‘screwdriver-like’ objects which have one handle.
All my specific brake tools are kept in one drawer . . . along with A/C tools, since they’re kind of like brake tools. And my hammer drawer also contains specialty prybars, since prybars are sort of like hammers, in my mind.
Naturally, this is nothing like how my co-worker arranges his toolbox. Really, though, it doesn’t matter, as long as I can find my tools and he can find his. I imagine chefs are pretty much the same.
As for Twilight's annoyance . . . well, here’s a short list things that are technically fruits that you wouldn’t put on a fruit salad: Eggplant, tomato, zucchini, peppers, okra, corn EDIT: corn kernels , green beans. Broccoli, cauliflower, and globe artichoke are all flowers; Twilight would probably classify them with daisies, dandelions, and roses, because a scientist would classify foods differently than a cook.
Also worth noting: Tomatoes and potatoes are poisonous to horses; however, they’ve appeared in the show, so I’m assuming ponies can eat them (maybe Equestrian nightshade is different than on earth; maybe Equestrian ponies aren’t sensitive to it). Chocolate is also not recommended for horses (although they can eat small amounts without harm). Originally, Apple Cobbler was going to offer Dale a rhubarb pie, but rhubarb is bad for horses, too, so I dropped that.
Still, there are probably other foods that are not good for horses or toxic to horses that I’m overlooking. I can only do so much research on one subject, and since I don’t really have a horse, there’s no harm in mistakenly listing something with may be harmful to a horse . . . however, if my readers do spot a mistake which isn’t something they’ve eaten in canon, let me know and I’ll change it. And to those of you who do own horses: just because I said a horse can eat cheesecake doesn’t make it so.
Filthy Rich’s Barnyard Bargains is show canon; in the comic books it’s implied that he’s trying to open new locations. Before people jump all over me for having a modern distribution system in the backwards land of Equestria, let me remind y’all about the first true multi-national company. They operated a fleet of ships which brought spices to the old world (and later the New World), they had stocks, and they paid dividends to their investors. It was called the Dutch East India Company . . . founded in 1602. Sadly, they went bankrupt a few years after some upstart colonials had a little revolution; by 1800 they were nothing but a memory. Given the rough technological era the ponies presumably inhabit, that company model might be centuries old to them, as it was to Europe by the time of the Napoleonic wars.
Of course, there could be some kind of law that mandated food items be shipped in wooden barrels even when an alternative container was available . . . there were enough of those weird laws in the US.
As a professional auto mechanic, I have to have a license to handle Freon (since it’s an Ozone-depleting chemical). The shop where I work is required by Federal law to have appropriate refrigerant charging and recovery equipment. That having been said . . . Joe Average can walk into an auto parts store and buy as many cans as he wants. No license required.
X-Rays:
We’ve all seen the medical dramas, and know how easily the doctor points to a shadowy spot on an X-Ray and says (in Jamie Hyneman’s voice): “Well, there’s your problem.” In real life, X-Rays aren’t that clear to the neophyte. I looked at a lot of Google Images X-Rays of broken ribs, and couldn’t see a darn thing . . . even with helpful arrows pointing to the location of the problem. As for Dale’s own X-Rays—soft tissue damage doesn’t show very well on them, and while a doctor might be able to interpret from what he’s seeing, Dale hasn’t got a chance.
I thought of various ways to disarm bullets safely with no real tools, and could come up with nothing. Barring a manufacturing defect, modern small-arms shells should survive being immersed in water for weeks, if not months. With a vice a a pair of pliers, it should be possible to pry the bullet out of the case and dump out the powder, but Dale’s got neither. I asked a co-worker who has a suitable supply of small arms if he had any ideas, and he could also come up with no simple way to make them unusable. They could be flattened—either by a hammer or closing them in a door frame—which would make them no longer fit in the chamber of the gun (maybe), but there’s a risk that they might go off. It’s probably a small risk, but it could happen.
Personal cell phones on a Coast Guard boat:
As noted, the NTSB obtained records from the CG 33118 crewmembers’ personal cell phone service providers and determined that activity was recorded for the coxswain, the boatswain, and the OOD (activity could not be determined for the engineer). The NTSB was troubled to learn that this activity included sending text messages approximately 15 minutes before the collision. The NTSB concludes from these records that CG 33118 crewmembers used their personal cell phones for voice calls and text messaging while under way, distracting them from effectively performing their duties as lookouts.
Based on this accident, along with the Thriller 09 accident in Charleston, South Carolina, the NTSB issued recommendation M-10-2 to the Coast Guard urging it to develop and implement policy to address the use of cell phones and other wireless devices by its crewmembers during vessel operations, as previously noted. The Coast Guard responded positively by issuing a policy restricting crew cell phone use during operation of its vessels to purposes related to those operations.
—from NTSB report MAR1103
This accident report is less than 3 years old; I doubt that the rules have changed much since then. It’s worth noting that distractions due to cell phones cause accidents across all modes of transportation: the Chatsworth, CA railroad accident was likely caused by the engineer texting instead of paying attention to railroad signals.
Dog Tags:
According to Wikipedia, all branches of the US military use dog tags. That having been said, I interviewed a subject who served on a carrier in the first Gulf War; he said that he had them during basic training, but once he was aboard ship, he no longer wore them; instead, he had to carry around an ID card (multipass?).
Obviously, the purpose of a dog tag is to identify a body. Thus, it makes sense that only those who you expected were likely to die and have their bodies recovered needed to wear them (if the ship sank, for example, it’s unlikely that divers would be sent down to find all the bodies and recover their dog tags; it would be presumed that if a particular crewman was not located among the survivors that he or she had died). Therefore, I don’t know if the crew of a small Coast Guard boat would actually wear dog tags or not. However, for the purposes of my story, it works well, so I’m keeping it. If any actual member of the USCG reads this story and corrects me, I will be more than happy to make the appropriate changes in the text.
Quadrupeds tend to have more luck going up stairs then down. I’m not sure why that is, but in my own personal experience I had to rescue a rabbit that had hopped up the the second floor of our house and couldn’t figure out how to get back down the steps. Obviously, we’ve seen in the show that the ponies have no difficulty with stairs . . . but I bet the foals do. I seem to remember reading somewhere that human babies can sometimes crawl up stairs but can’t safely get back down, either.
Featherbrain’s camera:
This is where I’m going to part company with some of my readers, I know. They aren’t the ones who read the blog posts, though, so . . . it’s their loss.
We’ve seen cameras in the show before. They featured in Ponyville Confidential, Green Isn’t Your Color, and The Mysterious Mare Do Well. They were implied in Hurricane Fluttershy (and probably other episodes). They’re also in the comics—again, both shown and implied. They look like old-style SLR or SLR-like cameras mostly (for what it’s worth, I’ve got an old Canon that’s a kind-of knockoff of a Pentax K1000, although it’s a single lens and it’s not a SLR). So why wouldn’t Dale know it the moment he saw it?
The problem is that such a camera wouldn’t be hoof-friendly, and it’s been well-established in canon that ponies have hooves. Even Celestia said so. Now, animation is a world of symbols. When we watch the Simpsons, we know they’re supposed to resemble real people, even though they’re yellow and don’t have the correct number of digits; it’s one of many styles of Western animation.
Even if the ponies developed cameras which looked remarkably like ours, they’d still be unusable to 2/3 of the population. Despite their magnetic hooves, tripping the shutter release would be impossible. You’ve got to have fingers to do that. “Well,” you say, “what if minotaurs developed them, and the ponies just started using them?” Ok, that’s a possibility. But don’t you imagine that at some point it would have occurred to an executive at the Canon camera company (see what I did there?) that she could sell way more units if they were made hoof-friendly? Then it wouldn’t just be dragons and minotaurs and griffons and the occasional unicorn who wanted one; everypony would want a camera.
Considering pony ergonomics, I’d think that the most practical camera could be either harness mounted (like we’ve seen in the show) or hoof-held (for pegasi); the viewfinder would be on the top so they could look down and see what they were taking a picture of, and the shutter-release cable would be mouth-activated, as would the film-advance lever (doable with a single cable). Probably focus would be accomplished by an extended lever off the lens—easily moved with hooves—and F-stop and shutter speed would be a bit more complicated, but that’s not something that usually adjusted on the fly. As far as I know, on many early cameras those weren’t adjustable anyway. Back when I was working as a photographer, I don’t recall playing with those settings too much in the field. Granted, I was no Ansel Adams or Photo Finish. . . .
This probably won’t be the first time that I re-design technology as seen in the show to be more sensible for a pony to actually use. I kind of hate to do it . . . but from a realism standpoint, I feel obligated to.
a hungry bear to a potential meal
I used to Dungeon Master a lot. Back in college, I was playing with a girl who was the most perfect kender ever . . . anyhow, the group somehow stumbled onto the lair of a dire bear (which is kinda the Ursa Minor of the D&D world). I described the whole situation, and Ried asked “What kind of look is it giving me?” Before I could answer, Annamarie—bless her kender-esque heart—said “It’s trying to decide whether you’re a kibble or a bit.”
The back of a horse is a non-sensitive spot, despite the thoughts of some writers. If it was super-sensitive, it’d probably be a very poor idea to put a saddle on a horse’s back.
Your description of the camera reminded me of my grandfathers old Rolleiflex DLR camera.
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a0/Rolleiflex_camera.jpg
It had a waist level view finder, just like in the story.
You can get old mechanical lever actuated cameras that would be far easier for a non accurate entity to use than the close machined button designs normally used to. I have had one that had a heavy lever for film forwarding, one that had a half inch long bar in the focus ring, and Olympus cameras had a screw in cable that worked similar to a brake cable, but by pushing, which again can be found with squeezing and other variations.
If anything the cameras Ive had could be austed not ust by ponies, but by people who were severely lacking in most any form of limbs. After all, youve got head motion and lips.
I apologise if I offend anyone, Ive only been round some more severely disabled a little.
I also recently found out that the methods I was trying to find out about analysing data for information in order to start woring out a translation method, is very old. Its the basis for the Lempel Ziff compression algorithm. This however works on one letter at a time, and so is called context free. I havent worked out yet if teh more advanced versions, Lempel Ziff Huffman, or the complex neural net and small memory models of the 7zip method could work on totally unknown information.
Would be typical of humanity though. Our first contact with an alien civilisation, and we cant talk to them because some patent troll demands payment for the fundamental code stub just because its used for a new operation even though its within a week of expiring.
Well the dire bear would more likely be going to tear you limb from limb for invading its home, rather than eating you. Unless you have a half competent druid.
Great chapter.This fic is so great, and so is quality. I really want another update as soon as possible :D
Colt please, Hudson Bay Company. At one point in time they owned half of Canada... Seriously, half the land of Canada. It's still around "The Bay" or "HBC" may be a shadow of its former self (even compared to 10 years ago) but it's still around selling stuff.
Here, Have a wikipedia
That really is a lot of information. I had to jump out around where it started with the dog tags.
As for what and whatnot a horse can eat. I don't have a horse, nor do I know what they eat other than the assumed hay and grass. So whatever food you have in there I'll enjoy the chapter no less.
As for chocolate, I haven't been able to confirm this but, I've heard that it is actually poisonous to humans as well. Just we have much higher tolerance to it.
Just something I though you would find interesting.
Edit:
Found confirmation. See the bonus facts: Linky
It's actually a chemical called Theobromine that is responsible for chocolates toxicity.
The back of a horse may not be sensitive, but what about a pegasus? After all, wings should be fairly sensitive, including their base right? Actually, HERE. I mean, what other references would a person use instead of birds. Id imagine bats would be more sensitive and bugs are so very far from being similar. And with both feathers and hair being an evolution of scales combined with that larger number of nerves within the skin on/around the wings it makes sense to me. So whats to say that this sensitivity can't be shared amongst the rest of the races at a lesser magnitude? Now, enough of my prattling, I have prompted god to kill enough cat-girls for today.
Regardless, I greatly enjoy your story and the lengths you go to for accuracy. I hope I have granted more perspective for you rather than just seeming ostentatious.
~FOR SCIENCE!
I live about 8 miles from where that rail accident occurred, and local media was a fair bit more certain on the texting being the cause.
btw, your fic is hella fun to read. (do people even say "hella"?)
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That was one of the cameras I had in mind when I considered the viewfinder. One of my buddies in college fixed a similar camera by soldering a short section of new, hand-filed brass teeth on one of the gears for the film feed mechanism.
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A lot of the old cameras had a remote shutter release (my Canon did) for when you were taking long exposures and the camera was tripod mounted. Nowadays, that's usually done with the delay feature, but non-electronic cameras didn't have that option.
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If they had a druid, he was 1/4 competent at best.
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That's true, but the Dutch East India Company predates them by half a century or so. Of course, since they're still in business and the V.O.C. isn't, we can see who got the last laugh. Seems to me like Canadian Pacific used to own all sorts of stuff up in Canada, too.
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Not that it's particularly relevant, but I have found one source that says it's okay to feed your horse small amounts of marijuana as a treat, while another source says it's toxic. My ex-girlfriend who was a vet had to treat a dog that ate a tin of marijuana brownies (the dog survived).
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I honestly don't know. From skimming the article, I suspect that bird feathers are sensitive to movement (such as some kinds of hair on humans and other mammals), and perhaps not so much to pressure. I don't know anyone who has a pet bird, so I can't say whether or not they'd like having their backs scratched. Pressure is a different sensation than movement, too--that could be a factor. It's hard to say.
We've seen pegasi wearing saddlebags much like their ground-bound cousins (although I noticed in some of the episodes, the saddlebags interfered with the wings, which apparently doesn't bother the animators). There's also the fact that both Celestia and Luna have chariots pulled by pegasi or bat ponies, and RD and Fluttershy have pulled wagons before.
My thought would be that the feathers on the wings would have to be very sensitive, in order to fly well (at least for a real-life bird), where the feathers on the back wouldn't need to be. After all, there's not a whole lot a bird can do with the shape of its body in flight, as far as I know. I suppose I could ask my vet consultant for opinions; she might be more accurate than wild guesses anyway . . .
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NTSB rarely ever says anything for certain, unless it's scientifically provable. The bridge fell down because the gusset plates weren't strong enough to carry the dead load of the bridge is provable; human performance (or lack of) is not always provable after the fact. Nevertheless, the volume of text messages the engineer sent and the fact that he ran through a red signal and a switch that was sent against him without making any attempt to stop the train strongly suggests that he was distracted by texting . . . but from the NTSB's point of view, he could have sent his last text message, been about to hit the brakes, and then suffered a seizure. As unlikely a chain of events as that seems, there was a train that ran through an open drawbridge because the engineer died of a heart attack.
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heh, well, the Los Angeles Daily News, the LA Times, et al are far less rigorous on their findings...
I'm really looking forward to seeing Dale explain the taser.
I keep envisioning it like this:
after some thought,
D draws a simple bow and arrow, pantomimes firing it, makes a sound for the firing.
D pantomimes turning the bow on its side, and hooking the string over an invisible hook, then working an invisible trigger, again making the firing sound. some attempt at drawing the described crossbow might be made, maybe twilight grabs a book on weapons and points out an illustration.
Dale illustrates two tiny crossbows, and adds in the long wires.
(possible side explanation involving comparisons to explain the wires are metal, eg, tree and table are wood, ponies and humans are flesh&blood, fork and spoon and wire are metal)
Dale draws a lightning bolt between the wires, pantomimes firing at Lyra's flank,
and lyra realizes Kate didn't use magic. ..
or something like that. can't wait to see how you do it
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Yes, happy Pinkie is correct. This fic is awesome. I'm desperately hoping for more chapters as soon as possible. It's easy to wait when you forget about a really good story like yours because the updates come slow, but then once it updates, the itch is there again :P now I'll have to wait a while for another chapter.
1503890 You got to remember Dale thinks they're a super future sci-fi race.
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oh, I remember, but I get the feeling he'd explain it that way, because he knows they know some rhings about older weapons, and that's about the only thing he has to build on, when he is inevitably asked what it is.
also, I can't help but feel he's starting to doubt that thought
For what it's worth, there's an old tool called (what else?) a kinetic bullet-puller. When I was still a working gunsmith, I used one.
Here's a youtube video on how to use one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAvLAsyTVC0
I was expecting to read here that you tried to pet a bird.
Technically, it's not impossible or overly difficult if they're a pet bird, but it was still a cute thought.
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No, and now I'm wondering why I didn't. There's a pet shop reasonably close to my weekend job.
I don't know if you will see this comment but I thought you might be interested to hear that I have a very old Kodak box-camera that belonged to my great-grandfather (circa early 1900s) If you want I could message you a picture later on.
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Of course I will; I see all comments.
Oh, yes, I am very interested.