Signal Boosts: Two Stories and Art! · 12:21am Oct 22nd, 2019
Let’s start out with some art, shall we?
AlwaysDressesInStyle was so inspired by The McRib Is Back that he decided to make fanart! And since McDonalds is boring, he instead made art of Clear Skies visiting Carhenge, which is close to Alliance, Nebraska.
And then a couple of stories!
Hazel Mee commented on Gardening With Rose over the weekend thus:
I started writing a comment... just a few rambling paragraphs pondering Nature vs. Nurture, and how a unicorn might be raised to have no problems at all with digging out cesspits. It turned into a short story.
I’ll admit, given the context I went into it expecting a different kind of story than what it actually was; at the same time I couldn’t help but notice Hazel Mee had an OP unicorn do the same thing I had Twilight do in Celestia Sleeps In With a Vengeance . . . no, it wasn’t the pan holder over the horn, for those of you who are wondering.
Secondly, Alaborn wrote a fic for my not-a-contest!
Thematically, this one fits in well with my The Trouble with Unicorns series, although the pony in question isn’t a unicorn.
Don’t forget, y’all, you still have time to enter the not-a-contest!
According to a reputable source, nothing we've seen ponies have requires transistors, so why should ponies failing to use modern tech be restricted to the somewhat mean-spirited "ha ha, they don't have fingers" jokes?
5143452
I skimmed that blog--I really ought to give it a good look later, since I think he got a few facts wrong, but I could be wrong myself. He ignored sound-powered telephones entirely, for one, and also failed to consider the possibility of an electromagnetic induction communication system, as was used by the PRR from the mid 30s . . . but never mind that.
While of course there are ample opportunities to poke fun at a pony for not knowing how a ubiquitous piece of tech on Earth works, the flipside could very well be true in Equestria. “What do you mean you don’t know where the crupper dock goes? Even a foal knows.”
I follow 2 people: You & Estee.
I have a bookshelf for each of you
Some of your stuff is in her bookshelf (Apple Honey’s Ordinary Day, for instance)
& some other folks’ stuff ended up in yours (No Motor Vehicles or Equestrians, for instance)
I’m so CONFUSED (or at least my files are)
5143483
[searches]
[finds Trainphone]
Oh, cool! Thanks!
There's so much neat old tech people (myself included!) often just have no idea about.
5143483
I also really don't like Oliver. He's a bit of a prick and banned me from his super secret Discord server because
I pointed out that the machine from Pinkie Keen was basically an EEG machine and that lacking computers meant pony WWII hadn't happened (or happened differently, given Cheese Sandwich's cartoon resolution party-cannoned Sherman)
5143510
Honestly, if it makes sense thematically, than that’s how you should sort it. Don’t let anybody tell you otherwise.
I have a drawer in my toolbox for ‘things with one handle,’ an assortment of generally screwdriver-like tools (files, punches, etc.) I also have hammers and a lineup punch (it’s sort of like a hammer) in the same drawer.
5143550
That’s basically how the telegraph system works in CSI/OPP, in case you were curious. Not exactly the same, but conceptually similar.
I’m doing my best to highlight it in stories
5143551
It’s hard to justify a Sherman without there being war, although Pinkie’s got a cannon that shoots confections, and some baddies have been stopped by throwing food at them. It’s entirely possible that to an extent in Equestria, wars are fought with projectile pastries.
Also, in a setting like Equestria, there could be other reasons for not having developed electronic computers as we know them (while still having mechanical computers. which we know they do).
5144619
Historically, the IDEA of computers dates back to at least the 19th century
Babbage’s Analytic Engine
Good News It would work
Bad News Babbage spent a fortune trying to make it work, but machining tech wasn’t up to it
The argument against it was always “Who would spend millions of $ to do arithmetic?”
The answer turned out to be “The US armed forces”, because artillery grew so long ranged that targeting became so complex that they decided that having a machine do it faster would be a significant military edge.
So, without a major war, it seems plausible that computers would be delayed
An alternative path might be accounting, especially the tax system
5144617
Ah, thanks. :)
And thank you for that! :)
Though I should probably really read more of your stories. Unfortunately, that's the case for me for a lot of authors. :D
Oh well. Better than having too little to read!
(Oh, and some websites you might find interesting, if you didn't already know about them:
http://www.douglas-self.com/MUSEUM/museum.htm
https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/obsolete-technology.html)
5144707
I feel the same way . . . I’ve got plenty of backlog, but at least that means when I want something to read, I’ve already got a story or an author.
I didn’t, thank you!
5144695
Yes, I don’t deny that. WWII certainly gave a boost to computer technology, not only with the artillery targeting programs, but also with deciphering ENIGMA messages (and probably other stuff, too). But, as you mention, the idea came about in peacetime, and almost certainly would have turned into our modern computers eventually, although possibly with decades delay if not for the war.
Or even other peacetime missions, such as the Moon landings, or more complex aircraft or even a desire for better weather forecasts or who knows what else . . . anything where there would be an advantage to doing lots of calculations quicker than a human or a team of humans could do them, I’d imagine.
5152899
I remember that a lot of the early pioneers of computers thought of Astronomy for calculating planetary orbits, etc. But, they didn't think that there would ever be a MASS market for computers, because there just aren't that many observatories
I also remember
Computers were so expensive, smaller companies wouldn't buy them, they'd just buy time on another company's computer
When the Internet got started, the idea was that it would maintain computer connections in the event of a nuclear war
This is why Al Gore started his BS about "I created the Internet" He was chairman of the Senate Armed Forces Committee & said "Hey, this is a good idea", got behind it & pushed. Yeah, it probably wouldn't exist without him but, IMO, it's like FDR saying "Hey, I backed the Manhattan Project, I invented the atom bomb"
Department of Irony
In the event of a nuclear war, the Internet would be among the first services lost, due to EMPs
The first high level computer language was Fortran 57 for science & engineering
COBOL 58 was the first business oriented language
BASIC was developed in the 60s at colleges for people who found them too complex
(or so I recall from my computer classes, 35+ ago (Don't seem possible that it was so long))
5152895
:)
You're quite welcome!
5152970
Wasn’t that commonplace up into the 70s? I know when my dad was in college, they were still scheduling time on the mainframe for people, and I’ve seen computer punch cards from back in the day . . . like, had access to a bunch of them but I don’t remember the exact context.
Huh, I didn’t think that Gore was that old.
Although it’s possible a smaller internet with a few connected mainframes might not be, depending on how vulnerable parts of the network were to EMPs . . . but I’m not exactly sure of that.
The last computer class I took was in the 90s, which is also quite some time ago. Insane how time flies as you get older.
5157027
No idea if it's true but I've read:
If airplanes had developed as fast as computers, we'd have the starship Enterprise
If locomotives had developed as fast as computers, we'd have the Tardis
(according to Railroad Tycoon, that was 1804)
I do know that every computer that I've ever bought has had more storage memory than the combined total of every computer that I've ever owned. My latest cell phone has about 2x the memory of the first desk top computer that I bought (used) in 1991 or 92 -and it's NOT Top-Of-The-Line, just a cheap Obama Phone.
The first monitor that I ever owned? I can't set my current monitor as low as its maximum magnification
5157051
I’ve heard those things, too, but I don’t think they’re true.
It’s an apples and oranges comparison. To a point, computers can be minituarized, made cheaper in bulk, and so forth. A lot of the improvements are on the production end, whereas trains and airplanes collide pretty quickly with physics, at least in terms of making them faster or bigger. Supersonic passenger aircraft weren’t commercially viable, which is why there aren’t any anymore. And the cost of infrastructure to support faster trains is simply too high for most governments/private entities.
5157065
The claim DID say "if"
"If" can be a mighty big word, sometimes.
As you pointed out, there are very good reasons that airplanes & locomotives didn't progress as fast as computers
5157213
Yeah, it’s not a bad word, and there are certainly a lot of possibilities that can hide in that ‘if’, but there are also obviously physical limitations and economic limitations and understandings of the universe and natural laws that kinda make that ‘if’ the realm of fiction rather than possibility.
But, nothing wrong with that; lots of writers live in that world.