Onto the Pony Planet--Chapter 13 notes · 7:40pm Apr 29th, 2014
A huge thanks to my pre-readers: Humanist, AnormalUnicornPony, metallusionsismagic, Woonsocket Wrench, and my parents.
Van Hoof’s Law: This is a pun off of Leon Van Hove, a Belgian physicist. To the best of my knowledge, there are no magical laws that have his name; there is, however, a singularity that does. According to Wikipedia, “the wavevectors at which Van Hove singularities occur are often referred to as critical points of the Brillouin zone.” I don't know what that means, and the math that follows doesn't clarify matters for me. I'm sure some of my readers understand it, and I hope they got a chuckle.
In the show, some staircases, like the one at Sugarcube corner, have banisters. 
Others, like the one in the treebury, do not.
Also worth noting is that sometimes handrails are drawn, other times they aren't. For obvious reasons, handrails aren't much use to a quadruped, but a banister would be. My personal headcanon is that the ponies don't have building codes, and a homeowner puts in a banister if she wants one.
Family legend says that my grandmother's sunroom was built around her grand piano. That's probably not true—the legs come off pianos, after all—but it makes for a good story. With the style of construction the ponies seem to favor, removing a wall to put a desk into a house—or a cake into a train—would be a solution they'd think of.
The white powder in the outhouse is lime (specifically, calcium hypochlorite), which is used to change the pH in the pit, which kills the odor-causing bacteria. Another option is to pour a gallon of water with yeast mixed in every week or so; that makes the decomposition process go faster. A well-designed, well-cared-for outhouse should have little to no smell.
Sharpbeak, son of Swiftwing is a reference to World of Warcraft. I've never played WoW.
Both Diamond Mint and Starlight (AKA 'pink cheerleader pony') are seen around Ponyville from time to time. 
Diamond Mint
Starlight
It would make sense for a house constructed with family in mind to have that extra safety feature.
2061278
Totally agree. It's possible that the library doesn't have one because what's now Twilight's room was a storeroom, or the library might have been previously occupied by a pegasus. Pegasi homes probably don't have railings.
I love that first picture and RD's face in it. Such swag, much wall breaking. wOw!
...
...
I'll show myself out...
2061534 Don't forget to visit the food table on the way out. They put so much effort into keeping it stocked, it'd be a shame to let that effort go to waste... Plus imagine all the food in the back they're going to have to throw out.
As for you mister, what's the logic behind having the minotaurs being that much bigger? I mean wider, sure but I don't think they'd be noticeably taller, even with the horns.
P.S. not really annoyed but I am curious on your thought process for it.
Or, you know, they coulda just teleported the table in
Huh. I barely remember that. From the Hinterlands if I remember correctly. That was sooooooooo long ago.
And why such an obscure reference from a game you never actually played, hmmmmmmm?
2062137 Because introductions are first impressions. And first impressions in the political world are everything.
2061795
From Biscuits science blog (at the bottom of his user page), there is a height chart listing the height of a mare as four feet, and from the show, it looks like a minotaur is at least twice (maybe 2.5x) as high as a pony, making a minotaur between 8 and 10 feet tall.
2061413
They've been supportive of all the crazy things I've done thus far in life; plus I'm old enough I don't really care what people think.
2061921
Odd Twilight didn't think of that in the MMMMMMystery on the Friendship Express episode. Besides Rarity's fainting couch, have we seen inanimate objects be teleported?
2062137
I was looking for a griffon name (I'm bad at coming up with names), and that one turned up on a google search. I'm sure some of my readers have played WoW and got the reference.
2062891
Well, since we're on a Warcraft shtick, I suggest Sky'ree for a very notable/powerful gryphon should you choose to include more.
2061795
Besides that the minotaur furniture (from the minotaur embassy, remember) might be overly opulent, my own personal scaling experiments suggest that a minotaur would be one Twilight Sparkle taller than Dale.
fc02.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2013/236/c/6/mlp__fim_size_comparison_chart_by_joetheimpaler-d6jidrc.png
As you've seen in previous blog posts, I have an action figure 'Dale' which I use for scaling purposes, along with my brushable Lyra. Well, I also have a brushable Princess Celestia--in the same scale--and Dale's head is about even with the top of her ears. From the chart, we can see that Iron Will is about 3/4 of a pony taller than Princess Celestia; thus, their beds would be that much bigger than human beds.
It's also worth noting that--as seen in episodes--pony beds are unnecessarily long. That's fairly consistent--not only in normal houses, but in RD's cloudhouse, and in the hospital.
2062738
About 2 3/4 ponies tall
2062924
I'll keep that in mind
2062891 Huh... I can't remember if Twilight ever teleported herself while carrying paper or her saddle bags... That's actually interesting to think about.
2062990
I'm 90% sure she's teleported while carrying or wearing objects, but I don't recall objects ever being teleported without a pony--the only exception being Rarity's fainting couch (and she could have pulled it with TK; we don't know how far away it was before it appeared). Obviously, there is a way to send letters by dragonfire, but that might not work on desks.
2063010
Trixie in Magic Duel was able to conjure and disappear a pair of scissors to cut off the mustache that Twilight gave her. Twilight was able to do the same thing with some parasprites.
2062891
In Ticket Master, Twilight teleported herself and Spike in a panic and both came out of it slightly singed. If it can singe a dragon, then it seems that teleportation can heat up what is being teleported somewhat; this would be something that one really doesn't want to happen to a carefully crafted cake.
It is also possible that teleportation can jolt the object being teleported slightly; which leads to the idea of an item too fragile to be teleported (e.g. the cake, a crystal goblet).
As a third alternative, it may be that the cake was simply too heavy to be accurately teleported (I have no idea how much of a difference, if any, that would make to teleportation).
2063029
Glad I only said 90% sure!
One could debate whether the scissors used to cut the magically applied moustache counted, although I personally am willing to believe that ponies can teleport inanimate objects. I personally think it's so labor-intensive it's easier to move them in a mundane manner, but we already know that Twilight (and Alicorn Amuleted Trixie) have power to spare, so while an ordinary unicorn might not, they'd have no trouble.
I suppose it's also reasonable to assume that there are ponies with cutie marks that relate to teleporting objects, and they can do it efficiently.
2063065
Which is part of my reason for assuming that Dale and Kate would not arrive in Equestira unharmend from an accidental world-hopping teleport.
My personal headcaon is that it's more difficult for a unicorn to teleport an object other than herself--pay attention to the group teleport in Dragon Quest, for example--and, as you say, the risk of damaging the cake may have been too high to chance it.
I also think--especially based on the Winter Wrap-Up episode--that Ponyvillians may be somewhat biased against unicorn magic.
2063065
Is her spell related to the teleporters from Red Vs Blue?
I've tried moving a modern piano before, and I have to say that building a room around a grand piano is more believable.
I'm only half-joking. I could swear they're filled with dark matter, or the strings are made of lead.
2063010
My headcanon is that Rarity is buff with her magic, which is built from her precision. I also think that they can store things with their magic to conjure later, like signing a contact with a summoning beast (this idea is used a lot with fantasy worlds like WoW). Spike can store things with his fire, as well as Discord's living in his own pocket dimension.
2615674
While there are certainly plenty of instances in the show of ponies having their own portable pocket realities where they can keep things (Pinkie especially), I prefer just ignoring that as another example of 'cartoon physics.'
I personally don't think that Rarity's very strong with her magic (blame It's a Dangerous Business for that), she's very precise. She'd have to be, to be a seamstress. I also think that she's physically quite strong, probably second- or third-strongest of the mane 6 (she's surely got RD beat in endurance; less sure about overall strength). I think she usually tries to hide that, though, since it's not fashionable.
It seems that the pic for Starlight expired over time... do you have any other visual references for Starlight? All I'm getting on the wiki now is Glimmer.
4639159
She's now called Lucky Star. I put another image in the latest chapter notes; I'll try to remember to fix this one, too.