//------------------------------// // Tutorial // Story: Software // by loopertooper //------------------------------// The morning has the electric breeze of singing birds and the lovely scent of flowers. Ponies look for the sign of danger in the clouds, for the slightest cloud to turn to a storm. When the curious ponies see the empty sky that symbolizes the perfection of the day to come, they move to awake quickly to enjoy the beautiful day. The young fillies pile out to play before school begins. They stand outside the school house and wait for morning bell to symbolize the beginning of class. The Cutie Mark Crusaders stand off to the side and play alone while conversing of the events to come. “Aren’t we getting a guest speaker today?” Sweetiebelle looked towards her companions. “I think, isn’t that what Cheerilee said?” Scootaloo replied. “Maybe the speaker will give us an idea on how to get our cutie marks!” Applebloom joyously added. “Yeah!” Sweetiebelle added. “Or it will be another boring speech about plants from one of the local gardeners, like the last 50 times.” Scootaloo wasn’t excited. Cheerilee is loved by all the students, but she often brings in local friends to do “guest speeches”. Last week, Rose Luck came in to talk about gardening, and Cheerilee assigned all the fillies the homework assignment of planting a garden at their homes. As the fillies frolicked, a white pegasus with light blue mane and tail. Her wings were colored at the tip with red, yellow, and green. The fillies watched as the mare walked into the schoolhouse. “Who was that?” Scootaloo asked her friends. The bell interrupted the fillies’ question. All the ponies went inside the schoolhouse to start school. “Now, my little ponies, today we have a wonderful guest speaker.” A wave of moans and quiet distaste followed Cheerilee’s statement. Cheerilee smiled, expecting all the ponies to jump to conclusions. “Now we recently got a computer donated to us from a mare who thinks all need to learn of the internet.” All the fillies looked confused. “So now I have the honor to introduce … Chromia!” Chromia entered and bowed. “Hello everypony!!!” Chromia’s exuberant introduction excited the young ponies. “Now, everypony, do you ponies know what I do?” “Are you an artist?” One little filly replied happily. Chromia trots over and pets the foal’s head. “Sorta, little filly. What I create IS art.” Chromia smiles and the little filly blushed. “I am the created of the greatest web browser ever, Google Chrome!” Chromia smiled as the fillies looked at the speaker. “Now, little fillies, let’s talk about the internet. The internet is the ultimate source of knowledge and enjoyment. But it is a dangerous place.” The students gasped. “Why is it dangerous, Chromia?” Scootaloo asked. “Well, the internet is made up of many files and information that all have their own code. The internet is like a video game, it is made by code and information. Files and everything on the internet and in video games are made up of things called bytes. Bytes are a unit of measurement that tells you ponies how much space a file will take. The measurements are increased in 1000x values. A bit is the first, and it’s a bit small.” Chromia chuckled and looked in the blank faces of the ponies. “Hehe yeah… so after bit is byte, byte to kilobyte, kilobyte to megabyte, megabyte to gigabyte, gigabyte to terabyte, terabyte to petabyte, petabyte to Exabyte, Exabyte to zettabyte. Only super computers can reach the very high levels of storage.” The students look ghostly at the mention of the words. “So, after storage we should talk about files. Torrent files, locked files, filed files.” Chromia chuckles again, met by the silence of the students. Cheerilee steps forward and tries to stop Chromia from continuing, but Chromia doesn’t listen. “Torrent files are the markers that inform the system where the file is. It doesn’t hold the file itself. A zipped file is a file that contains the compressed files. Then there are the search browsers. The best is Google, because Google is the fastest.” The students look blankly forward. Cheerilee jumps forward and takes control. “Thank you, Chromia. We will all remember … whatever it is you just said.” Cheerilee faked a smile. “Okay, thanks for inviting me.” Chromia stuck her hoof in the air and a panel appeared. The students gasped at the phantasmal image. “OH NO, I’M LATE!” Chromia ran off. “Alright, children… who wants to learn about math?” All the students cheered the idea. “Alright let’s talk about arithmetic.” Chromia gallops through Ponyville to reach her destination. “I forgot about our picnic! Kindle is going to burn me!” Chromia laughs aloud and trips on her hooves. She quickly dusts herself off and continues on her way. “I’ve gotta tell Pepsi that joke, she’ll love it.” Chromia continues off towards the fields that are famous in Ponyville for picnicking. A light pink mare with a red and white tail and mane paces uneasily. Her cutie mark is a giant red O. “Do you girls think she is okay?” The mare’s worry for her friend shows clearly. An orange mare stepped forth. The mare’s mane and tail are completely made of fire. Her cutie mark is a fox that is curled up. “Stop worrying, Pepsi. She’ll be fine, for now.” Pepsi nodded. “You’re right, Kindle. Once she arrives, we will kill her right?” Pepsi smiled maliciously, as Kindle shrugged. “Maybe, first I want to eat.” Pepsi and Kindle laughed aloud. “Maybe she crashed?” A bright yellow mare with a light blue mane and tail with a big blue E with a halo as a cutie mark asked. “Ivy, only you crash.” Kindle’s retort caused Pepsi to start rolling on the ground laughing. Kindle joined Pepsi on the ground as Ivy turned and quietly took the insult. A white unicorn with a blue tail and a blue and orange mane and a compass as a cutie mark stood. She then trotted over to the picnic basket to grab some food. “STOP!” Ivy yelled and pointed at the mare. “We are all waiting for Chromia, Saffire.” Saffire stopped and turned to Ivy. “I’m starving, Ivy. Chromia is always late.” Saffire sticks her hoof into the basket. “You… are… too… impatient.” Chromia appeared, panting. “Now you can eat.” “YOU ARE LATE AGAIN!” Kindle yelled. “Sorry, fireball.” Pepsi broke out laughing with Chromia. “Fireball, really? Wow, I’m dumbfounded by your brilliance.” Kindle sarcastically praised Chromia. She sighed and took a cupcake from the basket. “You have to be here on time, Chromia. We are all very busy.” Saffire scorned. “You are busy, oh sorry. By the way, how are your 10 users?” The other girls broke out into laughter as Saffire sighed. “Shut up, Chromia. Also Christopher, Steven, Alec, Elizabeth, George, Justin, Alex, Michael, Tim, and Anthony are just fine.” Saffire takes her cupcake and sits on the blanket. “Actually, Saffire I have a question?” Pepsi asked. “I came by your house and I couldn’t open the door. It had a number pad on the front, so what was that?” Saffire sat up. “It’s my lock. Input the code then slide the door. It isn’t that hard.” “Actually, Chromia, where were you earlier?” Kindle looked towards the pegasus. “Oh, Cheerilee asked me to explain to the children about the internet and computers.” Chromia spoke with prowess. “Okay, I guess that is a good reason why you were late.” Pepsi added to the conversation. “Kindle, did you get these cupcakes from the Cakes?” Pepsi looked worried. “No, I made them.” Kindle took delight in eating her cupcake. “Oh, that’s why it tastes like dirt.” Chromia spit out the cupcake she was biting into. “They don’t taste like dirt.” Kindle defended. “Careful, Chromia, you don’t want her to BURN you!” Pepsi broke into laughter with Chromia. Kindle sighed. “You two are idiots.” “Hey, don’t get like, Kindy.” Chromia laughed. “Kindy?...Kindy? Really, that’s what you’re going to call me?” Kindle looked unimpressed with her friends’ nickname. “Take a chill pill, Kindle.” Pepsi laughed again. “Okay, I’m leaving.” Kindle started walking towards the forest to go back to town. “Careful, don’t burn down the forest…AGAIN!” Pepsi, Ivy, and Chromia erupted into laughter. “I will. I’ll just burn your houses’ down. Then let’s see you laugh.” Kindle smirked. The other girls laughed. “You girls never think your jokes through.” Saffire criticized. “We think our puns through, sometimes.” Pepsi and the girls sat and ate the cupcakes. Chromia flew off to find better food.