May 8 [Skywatcher]
May 8
I got off to a pretty lazy start this morning, sleeping in until almost eight. Then I just couldn't stay in bed any longer and Aric was a little bit grumpy about getting up, but he did. He should have had plenty of sleep last night, if he was really sleeping until almost noon like he said he would be.
We had breakfast at Nina's, then I convinced him to go shopping with me, 'cause I needed to get some stuff for the rest of the school year like more batteries for my blinking light and more cans of anchovies and more shampoo and I also thought while I was there I should get some laundry soap because I'd been borrowing Peggy's and I ought to pay her back. We also found a nice birdfeeder that looked kind of like a house and he said he'd hang it up in the backyard and by the next time I slept over the birds would probably be used to it.
He said that since we were out anyway he was going to stop by a parts store and pick up a set of brake pads for Winston because the ones that were on it were nearly worn out and he didn't have any more spares. I thought that would be interesting for me because I'd learn more about what made a car work, and there were so many different parts, rows upon rows of them. If I hadn't been meeting Doctor Thomas Thompson, I could have spent all day there with him as he told me what Frams were or why there needed to be so many different kinds of windshield squeegee.
The brake pads came in a little box, and when we were in Winston he opened it up and showed them to me and then held them in his hand and demonstrated how they squeezed on the brake rotor to stop Winston. Then on the way back he told me how the brake pedal pushed on a piston which put pressure in pipes and that pushed on more pistons at each wheel. It seemed pretty complicated; if wagons had brakes there was just a lever that pulled on a rod that applied the shoes.
He dropped me off at the dorm and helped carry my things up to my room (even though I could have carried them myself because the bags have little loops in them for hands or mouths) and then we kissed and he left and told me to have fun today.
I checked my computer mailbox and I had gotten a letter back from both Mister Salvatore who said that I could go visit the airplane director and take a tour of the control tower on Tuesday and from Gates who did want to get a movie of me catching a cloud.
So I didn't have a lot of time left, but I met up with him at his dorm and he gave me the duffel bag full of equipment and asked if he could come along to film from the ground and I thought that would probably be okay but we'd have to ask Mister Salvatore or Miss Cherilyn for sure.
Well, they didn't mind. They were already there when I got back and they were a little annoyed that I hadn't been there when they’d arrived, but they softened when I told them about the great movies that Gates had already made and so he got into the van, too, and we went off to meet with Doctor Thomas Thompson.
We went to a place called Yankee Springs, which was north of Kalamazoo and had a big lake that I could fly over. The place where we met was a pavilion on the end of a peninsula, and Doctor Thomas Thompson was already there along with Ryan the weather watcher leader who I had met at the NOAA weather station and another man who introduced himself as Mel, and he was a ham radio operator.
To be a proper weather watcher, I needed to be able to use a different radio than my airplane radio, and I had to have a special license for that, which meant that I had to take a test like I'd had to for my pilot's license. Mel explained that there were several different levels of license, and that the one I'd want would be a technician's license, and that he could tell me about that. Or I could relay messages using a different type of radio called a CB radio which didn't have any special requirements but did have a much more limited range.
I asked if I could start with the CB while I was studying to be a proper radio technician and he said of course I could. It meant when I was storm watching I would have to stay in range of what Mel called a ground station, who would receive my messages and pass them on. He said that depending on the weather conditions and terrain that might be as few as a couple of miles, which was why it was better that I got a technician's license.
He gave me books to study and Mister Salvatore said that there was a lot of electrical theory in there that I probably didn't need to know but he wasn't sure that he could get it taken off the test just for me and I said that was okay; I'd make sure to study it all. And then Mel told me that there was an internet page that had practice tests and I ought to take them several times until I was confident that I knew what I needed to know.
So then Mel gave me a radio that I could use for the time being and showed me how to use it. It was a lot like the airplane radio, so I was at least a little familiar with the controls. Then he said that he was going to go to his truck which was parked right next to the pavilion and I could fly out over the lake and practice using the radio some. They had rigged up a little strap just like with my airplane radio so I could wear it on a leg.
Gates said that I might as well wear the GoPro helmet while I did and so I put that on and then flew out over the lake and pretty soon I heard Mel talking on my radio. He told me for now to just listen and gave me directions on how he wanted me to fly. Then he said that I could take turns talking to him and he asked me to describe what I was seeing, just for practice. Then he changed frequencies a few times and I followed along with him, then he let me request a change that he had to follow with.
I asked him why and he said because the CB was line-of-sight, it was possible that I might have traffic on my band that I could hear but that he couldn't from where he was, or I might be getting interference that he wasn't. He said that would be less of a problem when I had a ham radio license.
After that short trial run I called the airplane directors and got permission to fly up higher, so I did that and we kept on talking. He asked me to report on what I was seeing, and so I took a good look around at the sky and the clouds and the ground and then they had me land again.
We had a bit of a snack that Miss Cherilyn had thought to pack and she offered me a bottle of yellow drink called Gatorade.
I still wanted to catch a cloud for Doctor Thomas Thompson but there were hardly any so Miss Cherilyn said that she would watch for clouds that came close while the rest of us talked about other duties as a weather watcher and that way we could kill two birds with one stone.
I didn't want to kill any birds, and she laughed and said that was just an expression that meant get two things done at once.
Ryan who had mostly just been watching us got out his folding computer and sat down next to me and started to explain to me the basics of being a good skywatcher. It actually went pretty quick because mostly what I needed to know the most was the different human terms for weather and we'd covered some of them in climate science class. He said for now I'd be paired up with Mel so if anything needed clarification, Mel would be able to do it.
And then Miss Cherilyn pointed out a cloud which she thought might be close enough so I went away from the computer and looked up in the sky and it was kind of hard to judge with it just being there all on its own but there was nothing to lose by trying.
It was going to be a little bit awkward with another radio hooked to me, but I'd just have to take that into account. I probably could have left the CB behind but I knew that I should get used to having it.
When I finally got close to the cloud, my ears fell. It was pretty thin and it was going to take a lot of work to get it to even hold together at all. Even the wind off my wings might break it up if I wasn't careful.
If I could have gone up higher, there were some airplane clouds that looked a lot thicker and would have been easier to grab. But I wasn't allowed to, so I would just have to work with this one.
It took me a lot longer than I would have liked to compact it down into a smaller, denser cloud, and when I did it started sinking but that was okay because me and the cloud were going down anyway.
I stayed on top and rode it down, sort of helping it, 'cause that also let me feel if it wanted to just rain out all its moisture—I'd be really embarrassed if I got it most of the way down and then it just broke up under my hooves.
There hadn't been a whole lot of wind so I didn't have to make up much distance over the ground. I took it over a grassy strip near the pavilion and once I was in the lee of the trees it got pretty easy to control.
Well, I'd attracted a bit of an audience by then; I guess everyone who was out on a boat had seen me and a lot of them had come to shore and there was a lot of talk among them. Plus a few people who had been in the park had seen, too, and they were all coming over, too.
I did my best to ignore them while Doctor Thomas Thompson and Ryan looked over the cloud and Gates moved around taking a movie of it. Mister Salvatore had gone to talk to a man in a brown uniform that said DNR on the shoulder, and Miss Cherilyn was just watching over the crowd.
Eventually some of the people who had been watching came closer and looked at the cloud but I made sure that none of them got close enough to touch it.
Then since I didn't want to get the pavilion wet I pushed the cloud into the parking lot and Miss Cherilyn and Mister Salvatore had to help keep people back. They kind of formed a ring and I set the cloud near the center and hopped up on it a couple of times and it dissolved into rain pretty quick.
I got a little bit of applause for that, but I could also hear a couple of people grumbling too.
Mister Salvatore decided that it was a good time to leave, and he said that it was almost dinnertime anyway so we might as well go to a restaurant, so we went to a place called the Sandhill Cafe. I thought it ought to be called the Sandhole Cafe, because there was a big hole next to it that looked like a small dirt mine.
There was a bit of a wait until we could get a table big enough for all of us and we probably wouldn't have except Mister Salvatore showed his wallet to a waitress and pretty soon a man in a suit came out and found us some space.
Ryan finished explaining things to me during dinner, and then he said that I was officially a Skywatcher now and shook my hoof and we all celebrated by having a nice dessert.
We got back to Kalamazoo kind of late, but everyone was happy with how the day went. I took my new books and new radio up to my room and started studying right away. I was determined to get my new license as soon as I could.
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I wonder what Mr. Salvatore thinks of his new job.
He's never seen either of my CB's.
To my knowledge, 38 miles (+-1) is the best I have done (sending and still receiving) on channel 20 to a base station while driving the opposite direction at 70mph.
I wonder if any of your fans have the Mad art skills required to show SG wearing a radio on each fore leg, a helmet with a camera and a flashing light on her back among all the other instruments the weather people want to hang on her?
Do the radio antennas stick out behind her neck?
If the radios and batteries were in the left and right saddlebags it wouldn't adversely effect her Center of Gravity (Which is important in controlled flight)
Somehow, I got a feeling that nobody told Silver that human's average sleep time is higher then equine's. She is always complaining about how people are sleeping...
Gotta have an interesting story behind the Sandhole.
7371506 The CB we use in bicycle race are not bad either. I remember listening to the race official talking about logistic at the start line while I was a few dizain of kilometer away near the finish line.
And the weather was bad that day.
And those used from pro race are probably even better.
derpicdn.net/img/2015/9/29/990807/tall.png
"This isn't what it looks like!"
(I was actually hoping to find one of a pony stuck in a bird-feeder, but sadly no luck.)
With the blinker, two radios, and the fuel tank (can of anchovies), our little ornithopter really is turning into a bit of an airplane.
7371529 http://www.fimfiction.net/story/295223/equestrias-garden
Growing up, I had 3 sisters & none of them could go shopping without a support group. My mom could, though. I think taking little kids shopping cured her of that problem. It was probably Darwin in action because IMO taking kids clothes shopping is against the part of the Constitution that forbids cruel & unusual punishment.
I'm surprised SG hasn't had a hostile encounter with dogs. Now that I think about it, we had a lot of dogs when I was growing up. Most of them would chase after horse and buggys going down the road. Maybe it's because she is a Pegasus & flys most places. Thus, she avoids most hazards like bums & dogs.
7371506
I'm not sure that part makes all that much difference, mind. You're not using directional antennas, and 70mph is about 1e-7 c, which makes for a negligible redshift.
7371659 True, I meant it as just going down the road away from the person I was talking to see how far it would go.
When you mentioned grumbling during the cloud demonstration, this is what went through my head:
"Damn pegasi, taking our skies. Next thing you know, they'll make it legal to marry geckos."
"Shut up, Xenophobic Frank."
"MAKE ME!"
7371868 A good explanation.
7370474 I have heard similar things. It at least for a while was especially bad for trans people; facebook's "real name" policy at least at the time didn't really have any sympathy for the difficulty of legally changing a name. Nor the potential issues if the person wanted to be out to their friends but not their coworkers or parents, etc. (In some places you need to do things like put notices in newspapers, legal name changes are jurisdictionally varied and sometimes super weird.)
7370500 I had an official "no sex in my bed unless I'm involved" policy in college. It was both highly effective (no one else hooked up in my bed) and not at all effective (it never caused anyone to invite me to join in). So an imperfect policy at best.
7371511 Not entirely sure of that - she also goes to bed earlier than I did in college by a lot. I think she's just still on a pre-industrial schedule where your waking hours bear some relation to daylight hours.
Woop woop
Fun day is fun.
7371747 I think it's probably more to do with the unprecedented and horrifying scale of the war, and the extent to which it permeated society even for those that weren't on the battlefield in a way that most pre-industrial warfare didn't.
There is a pool of questions and answers that the technician test is taken from. She can just memorize the pool of questions and pass with no problems without actually understanding a lick of the electrical theory.
Also, CB is not really line of sight. It's at a much lower frequency (26Mhz?) than the VHF rig she uses to talk to the airport, and will skip quite far under the right circumstances. The reason that VHF handy talkie's have such extraordinary range is often because of repeaters which are located on tall towers.
7371506 How big was the radio? Remember that Silver's has to fit on one foreleg and not be awkward while flying.
7371953 That was my theroy at first too, but even when she does an activity with friend and goes to sleep late (wich is often), she end up waking up earlier then said friends.
Then we have the average sleeping time for horse that is around 5 while for human it is sligthly higher: around 7.
7372200 I'm generally good with basing ponies on horses but in this case I'm a bit skeptical, I'd think a more complex brain would likely be relevant in the sleep needs category.
7372188 Slightly larger than a regular CB radio. I still have it just not in my truck anymore. Its not that heavy, but definitely heavier than a little walkie-talkie. So she could put it on her back (attached to her flight vest where it would not interfere with wings), or in a saddle bag with the mic on her leg. Didn't think of the battery she would need, though... drop it in the other saddlebag she's strong enough. :derpytongue2.
The radio in question is a modified Cobra 200 GTL DX:
s31.postimg.org/6xw7qgca3/cobra200_GTLDX.jpg
However since that one distance test it has been modified further and in its current configuration she could not carry it easily as its now in a slip-box.
7372213 But it is not related nor corelated. Sleep is linked with metabolism and safety.
Small animal that hide to sleep tend to sleep more then big mammal that sleep exposed.
7372213
If all else were equal, I'd be inclined to agree, but I suspect magic would counteract that to some extent. After all, it seems a bit implausible that their biology would use magic solely for the sorts of abilities the show is able to, uh, show - it seems virtually guaranteed that magic would allow for superior functioning relative to purely nonmagical biology in a lot of areas, and one would expect their bodies to be built to take advantage of that. It's conceivable sleep/other mind-related stuff could be an exception, but I somehow doubt it.
7371949
OH, that makes so much more sense.
7371509 a pair of radios and some batteries shouldn't mess with the center of gravity much although it does depend on their size and location. Plus it's possible she's counter weighted.
I had a quarter where my first class was at 2 pm. It was glorious.
yay for hydraulics.
Shit. Shit is what Frams were. Wix 4 lyfe.
A good story and an excellent cup of coffee. Goes well together.
7373514 Regardless of exactly how the genetics works or doesn't work, it seems like a major question is going to be "how well integrated are Equestrian towns, and how long have they been like that". That's not clear from the show, really; on the one hand, background ponies seem to be a pretty heterogeneous lot in the major settlements we've seen. On the other hand, Ponyville is repeatedly called an "Earth Pony town" and there are important cultural differences based on that, including how it does Winter Wrap-Up. Ponyville was founded in living memory (cf Granny Smith), so that can't be that long ago. (Unless ponies live just ages and ages, but a thousand years was enough for Nightmare Moon/Luna to become so obscure that everyone but Celestia thought she was a myth, so they can't be that much more long-lived than people.)
So basically within living memory being an "Earth Pony town" was meaningful both culturally and demographically. It seems pretty likely, then, that Equestria's become a lot more cosmopolitan in recent memory; one reasonable explanation might be that rail travel is new, and weather factories are also new or newly improved, allowing for new land to open up to settlement. (The Celestia mod for Civ 5 treats them this way - Weather Factories replace Factories as Equestria's core industrial building.) It's been unified politically for long enough that there was probably some migration and interbreeding, but it's pretty likely that there are still significant family lines, especially rural ones, that are basically all the same tribe. (The Apples being a good example.)
So it seems pretty likely that unexpected off-tribe offspring would be relatively rare just because a lot of ponies don't have any representation of other tribes in their ancestry at all.
Oh, look at this fancy guy, driving a car with disk brakes.
7371509 I might try drawing this. Admiral, where was that reference picture you had of her?
7373514 I don't think i've said the entirety of my headcanon on this issue so I'll try to explain it a bit more. I'm still working on it so there are some details i'm still working out. magically Alicorns (and possibly some other species such as draconis and large dragons such as the dragon lord) are megafauna. They require massive amounts of radiant magical energy to survive. Either gradually or drastically (such as a k-t style event) the amount of radiant energy decreased and the planet wasn't able to support large amounts of magic megafauna. Overall it's kind of like what happened to giant dragonflies. At one point they existed, but as the oxygen content in the atmosphere fell, they weren't able to survive and the species went extinct and was replaced by smaller species. This put the Alicorn species into a death spiral towards extinction. While on the way to extinction, three mutations appeared resulting in earth ponies, unicorns, and pegasi occurred (collectively referred to as ponies). these new mutations proved to be more adept at surviving in a lower magic environment and as the alicorn population plummeted, the occurrences of these new phenotypes (and the associated genotypes) skyrocketed. At the time of the show, there are only two known full blooded Alicorns left in existence (Celestia and Luna) and the rest of the population are ponies. Cadence, Twilight, and Flurry heart are somewhere in between, they aren't entirely Alicorn, but they aren't don't have pony phenotypes This new Alicorn phenotype may prove to be successful or it may not. Species wise, it's complicated. The common definition of a species would label Alicorns and ponies as the same species (assuming Flurry heart isn't sterile) but they have fairly different phenotypes (i also don't think that the wings and horns is the only difference between the two).
true, i'm still figuring it out. It may be how the genes interact with each other.
you're missing the part THAT YOU QUOTED where I said that the entire thing is a set up for a throw away joke and I don't take stuff like that under consideration. If I did then I'd also have to use girlfriend/boyfriend instead of marefriend/coltfriend (or whatever variatoin you want to use) and boy/girl instead of colt/filly as they are used in the show. The cakes had a chance of 37.6% of having either a unicorn or a pegasus.
7371506 The range limit for CB radio is mostly due to interference from other CB radios, since the maximum legal 4 Watts RF output (AM) could reach quite a long way otherwise. The band isn't as crowded now as it was in the late 70s when the CB radio craze was at its peak (when I was repairing Cobra brand CBs for a living) so that shouldn't be such a problem. (The late 70s is about the time when I got my amateur license and was allowed up to 1,000 watts legally! Huzzah!)
<CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW?) 
<Where was this during our cheerleader practice?)
7373766
I plead the 5th. Though I happy acknowledge that I can sit on the road outside my friends house and freak him out by coming over the speakers hooked to his tv with it.
Yah, I have no idea what my output is. The manual says it started with
Power Output:
Low – 4 watts AM/FM | 12 watts SSB and High – 30 watts AM/FM | 100 watts PEP SSB... but I've had it modified a few times and it miiiight now have a kicker attached too.
Still fun to use sometimes, especially when you don't have a radio to listen to music on in your vehicle.
Grats! Too much stuff on the test that I don't think is necessary so I have no desire to even attempt. Not sure why having to know how to build one, repair one, or how all the stuff inside works makes a damned bit of difference... especially since I would just pay someone else to fix mine, and buy one not build one.
7372480
Would whoever downvoted that last post be willing to elaborate, please? If I'm missing something, I'd like to know what it is.
Now Silver is a skywatcher eh? I remember when my friend and I went to take a class on how to be a tornado watcher way back. It was pretty cool. We did report one instance where there was severe rain one time.
7373587
pre10.deviantart.net/6e44/th/pre/i/2015/164/a/a/silverglow_g3_pony_by_2devils-d8x5ry3.png
7371529
It's not a pegasus stuck in a birdfeeder, but it's close:
derpicdn.net/img/view/2012/12/31/198739__safe_twilight+sparkle_rainbow+dash_cute_open+mouth_eyes+closed_underhoof_spread+wings_frown_wide+eyes.png
Miss Cherilyn is best human for actually explaining something instead of just laughing and leaving Silver Glow ignorant.
7373756
As I stated a few days ago, it is very difficult to tell what is or isn't a joke, because sometimes the jokes turn out to be far more serious than it would appear. For example, the whole Baby Cakes episode is largely comedy, set up around the idea of Pinkie trying to baby sit--and control--two ponies, which as part of the joke have magic that seemed to be far in advanced of their ages. But then the Crystalling comes around and, in fact, foals apparently do have super powerful magic.
I'm not saying it isn't a joke, but just because it was meant to be humorous doesn't mean there isn't an element of worldbuilding to it.
Uh oh, looks like some anti-pony jerks don't like foreign Pegasi messing around with proud, native, Earthican clouds. I predict trouble.
7371509 Here it is: http://totallynotabronyfim.deviantart.com/art/Weather-Pony-620712111
7371458
Can you imagine the briefings those poor helpers have to go through? And all the hoops they're jumping through behind the scenes? He's already had to lean on the FAA and pretty soon the FCC, and if Silver Glow wants to pursue a driver's license, he'll have to deal with the Secretary of State (that's who does it in Michigan).
7371506
Seriously, though, what's the range of an off-the-shelf handheld? Can't be all that much.
One thing I know about mobile radios, the more home-built the antennas look, the longer the range they probably have. I wish I'd gotten a picture of the setup one of our customers at Firestone had. He was rocking a 12 foot antenna on his minivan.
7371511
Silver's got a shorter than normal sleep time, but more importantly (and this sets her apart from other college students) she goes to bed early and gets up early.
One of the things that I do want to put in a story some time (although it conflicts from canon) is the ponies having actual equine sleep schedules--two fifteen-minute naps on the ground around midday for their REM sleep, and dozing on their hooves whenever there isn't anything exciting going on.
It's just a building expansion--the're building an addition or something onto the main building, hence the sandhole.
7371529
"Okay, yes, this is exactly what it looks like. Now help me get out of here!"
But she's a damn cute airplane.
7389020 Rainbow Dash is almost doing that, but on cloud instead of ground.
You know what? It could be some comedy gold with pegasuses dozing mid-flight.
7371585
I've got no experience with children (thank heavens) but I can say that when I go grocery shopping, the idea is to never fully stop the shopping cart, but rather to grab it off the shelf as I go by, and if I miss it, I didn't actually need it.
In the city, and running in the morning like she does, she's actually pretty unlikely to encounter them--in the neighborhoods around Kalamazoo College, most people keep them inside for the night. Plus, I just think that ponies have better luck with animals.
7371738
In a way, though, it's a legit fear. A team of pegasi could steal all the clouds away--at least the low ones. Plus, people don't like change.
7371939
Yeah, they had a problem with that for a while. So did Google Plus, although it didn't make the news as much. All the false names my accounts are under are at least real names (according to their algorithm), so I got away with it--but I didn't have to try and change after FB made their new rules; I'd set up that account years ago.
I didn't have an official 'no sex in my bed unless I'm there' policy, although as I recall when I was in the dorms I was usually in someone else's room when the opportunity arose.
I dunno--that's a good question. Different animals handle it differently. Heck, if you doubled the equine sleep requirement to account for sapience, that only adds a half-hour to their REM sleep needs.
7372416
Now I'm getting a vision of Silver Glow, pirate radio station.
7372424
Small animal that hide to sleep tend to sleep more then big mammal that sleep exposed.
Is that the sole reason, though? Or are there other factors which go into it?
7372480
It's possible that they get a magic boost (although from what we've seen in canon, ponies appear to have human-like sleep needs and times). Or that sleep an intelligence aren't necessarily linked: dolphins are pretty smart and they don't sleep like we do (if they did, they'd drown).
7372724
The biggest problem, and one which the show doesn't really address, is getting them clear of her wings. Traditional saddlebags, especially on a barrel as short as a pony's, wouldn't clear the wings at all, so they'd have to be pushed back over her rump, which would make her tail-heavy. Or I suppose they could be under her barrel; that would limit leg movement when she was on the ground but might not interfere too much with her flight.
At K-College, when I was there, there were no theatre classes before 10am, and the 10am classes were a rarity. Usually they were afternoon classes, since it was assumed that theatre students would be up late at night.
Hydraulics are amazing. So much on a modern car uses them: Fiat's multi-air system even uses oil valves to open the intake valves, which means that in theory they could develop an engine that didn't have a timing chain or camshafts.
7372764
We use Purolator at the shop where I work.
7373538
7373587
Only on the front. Rear's drum. FWIW, I don't actually own any cars with four-wheel drum brakes; my 69 truck was converted before I bought it.
7374316
I've never taken any official classes . . . maybe I should.
I did get to see a tornado forming one time and I would have liked to watch it more, but after the shingles started coming off the roof of the building across the street, my manager made me come inside and crouch under a table in the breakroom until the storm had passed. I thought that was stupid; it was at a factory with steam presses; if we got hit by a tornado odds are the conference table wouldn't do a damn bit of good.
7375187
Yeah; some of the humans take too much pleasure in watching her blunder cluelessly around human phrases. Of course I can't say I wouldn't do the same thing.
7376663
Damn ponies coming over and stealing our clouds.
Been slowly plugging through this when the mood so strikes me. The thought occurred to me that ponies are probably showing up for foreign exchange all over the world, and not just with America, right? Feasibly, you've probably got unicorns ending up in places like South Korea, right? Now I've got it in my head that maybe, in some strange variant of that world, there's a little unicorn filly who is quickly becoming the rising star of the StarCraft 2 scene in Korea. Just wanted to thank you for putting that idea in my head, because now I'm imagining a pony actually going to a Korean college to learn StarCraft. They actually TEACH on that in Korea. No joke! Players are even accepted as student athletes.
7656922
Correct. I haven't specified what nations have ponies, but I'd figure that every major nation that's willing to host the exchange can get exchange ponies. So South Korea is perfectly plausible.
I could see that. I could even see that being something that a pony could apply for ("I want to go to an Earth college to learn to play video games"). Heck, after enough Earth/Equestria contact, ponies would probably start getting Earth-themed cutie marks.
Between the FAA (or is it IRA?) and the weather guys, they seem to be turning Silver into a bit of a pack-pidgeon with all that equipment she has to carry.