Tech malls are fascinating places. You can find all kinds of neat stuff there, including the Mane Six in your universe, apparently.
Inspired by my own 4-year-old laptop, a discussion with a friend and Raugos’ Rainbowseum Dashcosis in which Rainbow Dash (at least the one we’re focusing on) is a kind of germ from an alternate universe.
Thanks to Admiral Biscuit for proofreading the story.
Chinese translation by myself can be found here.
Russian translation by Mordaneus can be found here and here.
Chapters (1)
That's pretty silly! Do they ever go back and buy the laptop?
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Personally I wouldn’t buy something as expensive as a laptop at a place like this.
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Yeah makes sense.
I'm starting to think this entire story was written just so you could make that joke.
At first I was like
.
But then, I
'd.
(Deep breath)
Shame on you. Shame.
(Also, Dash is clearly the power supply. She'll never leave her friends hanging for energy, especially when she can buck out lightning at 60 hertz.)
I got pinky wrong, thought her boundless energy would be the battery.
Wonderful tech(softcore) porno. :-)
...to have a bit of symbolic pony in your life - this idea is really usual for me. My daughter have safe scissors made for kids - they are made of plastic with thin metal strips for blades. And that plastic is mostly light yellow with some parts pale pink.
It's normal girly scissors.
I never said it aloud, but for me they are FluttyScissors...
But one phrase is a challenge for me: in Russian it is impossible to translate "cool" as "cold"
...only as "powerful"...
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Glad you enjoyed the story! Softcore tech enjoyer is quite an accurate term to describe me. On the technical side of things I only know the basics but I'm reasonably good at finding the right stuff to buy and solving problems encountered while using my PC.
Flutterscissors made me think of this:
pbs.twimg.com/media/FDX21XgXMAwMw9q?format=jpg&name=large
Also, I'm Chinese and you can tell the story was not originally written in Chinese then translated into English simply because the 20% cooler pun can't be translated into Chinese as well.
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Using wordplay that is exclusive for the foreign language requires a lot of skill; that's why i translated half a hundred English stories to Russian and not a one other way... :-(
Btw, an official request: may I translate this story?
There are a lot of IT/tech people in our company, and spontaneous tech discussions are frequentl... :-))))
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Sure, go ahead! Usually it's me translating stories into Chinese, it's gonna be refreshing seeing my story translated by someone else. Give me the link once you’re done and I’ll add it to the description. Also, if you can't find a way to make it work, I suggest you just keep the "20% cooler" pun as it is in English. It's basic English and people should be able to understand that, I think. At least, that's what I'm gonna do once I start working on the Chinese translation of my own story.
I have a question about you and the protagonist:
¿Do you ever take the LapTop out of the home and have it do things while running off of the battery?
I notice this bizarre trend of ponies considering it declasse to own a DeskTop when they could get a LapTop instead, even though the DeskTop would have a bigger monitor, a faster CPU, more RAM, a faster GPU, more VideoRAM, a bigger SSD, and, unlike the LapTop, be upgradable, all for the less of money. Personally, I have a 7-year old DeskTop with 32 GigaBytes of RAM, which does all I need it to do.
Personally, I believe that the age of LapTops is over:
My MareFriend does need to use a computer on the go. LapTops are every difficult to use holding the LapTop in 1 hoof while typing with the other. She uses a Tablet (iPadPro with ApplePencil) for this reason. When she can sit at a table or desk, she gets out a KeyBoard (MagicKeyBoard) and attaches it to the tablet, thus making an instant LapTop. It seems to me that the days of mobile computing with a KeyBoard forever fused to a monitor are finished.
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I believe many laptop-using people can benefit from switching to a desktop PC, but you do have to consider that there are people who require a device that is both powerful and mobile. Maybe they have to move constantly and moving the whole desktop setup would require a lot of work; maybe they don't like using tablets, even if they have a keyboard attached; maybe purchasing a desktop and a tablet can be quite expensive and some people would rather spend their money elsewhere; maybe they just prefer using a single PC... Point is, everyone have their own specific needs and there isn't a setup that works perfectly for everyone. As for "age of laptop is over", well... Just Googled and apparently Laptop sales surged after the Corona pandemic broke out while the desktop market has been in constant decline for years. It also doesn't seem like tablets are going to get any substantial growth either. So I'd say people are using laptops and will be using them for a long time.
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Here it is! At Ponyfiction and Ficbook (multifandom site).
:-)
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Notice that I wrote
You can check the original EMailNotification to make certain that I did not edit it.
Many people consider it declasse to own a DeskTop, even though they never take it outside the home and run it off its internal battery. Let us look at the name of the chapter"
My monitor is a 24-inch 5K with 32-bit color and a refresh-rate of 60 Hertz. It is nearly twice the linear diagonal length and almost 4 times the area. The monitor of the Haybook cannot compete with that.
If one wants to buy a lLapTop and has no intention of ever taking it off of the desk, one can get a much better DeskTop, for the same money, which one will never take off of the desk either.
I never suggested buying both a tablet and a DeskTop.
People are confused by the ToyTablets for less than 100.00 U$D. High-end tablets with all of the bells and whistles and retailing for over 1 KU$D are basically LapTops with detachable KeyBoards. Given that these high-end "LapTops with detachable KeyBoards" can be used held in 1 hand while manipulating the screen with the other hand, while traditional LapTops require being put on a table or desk to use, it seems silly to buy a LapTop with the screen and KeyBoard used together. Just look at the high-end tablet, the iPadPro:
iPadPro
It is more powerful than over > 90% of LapTops, come with a KeyBoard which is also a stand, but can operate without the KeyBoard when one carries it in one's hands.
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Okay, so there are people who never move their computer and are better off with a desktop than with a laptop, with bigger screens and better thermals and whatnot. I acknowledged that, didn’t I? But one thing is clear: for those who do need to use a PC on the go, owning only a desktop isn’t an option. They have to buy something mobile, a laptop or a tablet. Do you contest that? No? Good.
My other point is that tablets, even something as powerful as iPad Pro, cannot replace laptops in their current state. iPad Pros are powerful, but Apple’s claim that it’s “more powerful than 90% of laptops out there” doesn’t hold much water. It’s certainly more powerful than every thin and light laptop from, say, three years ago, but remember, Intel and AMD are constantly improving their chips also. Their newest chips may not be as energy efficient as Apple Silicon, but laptops with fans can sustain a much higher energy output than a fanless 6mm-thin sheet of aluminum and glass that is iPad Pro. It’s frankly foolish to assume that iPad Pro can just ignore its physical limitations. The other thing is that iOS (iPad OS is just rebranded iOS, we all know that) is a highly restrictive system, which means you can only do so much with it. Basic web browsing and document writing? Sure. Photoshopping and video editing? Maybe. But games on Steam? Professional softwares? You’ll need a PC for those. Not to mention the clunkiness of iPad’s input methods, and the fact that iPad Pro with a Magic Keyboard is expensive and not exactly lighter than a laptop of the same size. Again, there are people who are better off with a high-end tablet than with a laptop, but tablets simply aren’t for everyone. Market sales proves that. Remember, Apple is the biggest tech company in the world and the leading tablet manufacturer, there’s no shortage of marketing on their end. Even they couldn’t make the majority of people into abandoning laptops and embracing tablets, which simply means tablet isn’t capable of replacing laptop in its current form. As for why people who could replace their laptop with a tablet/desktop PC choose not to do so, why would I ever know that? I personally do need to move my laptop constantly, and there’s that.
Lastly, I’m Chinese and what I said is based on my observations and personal experiences in China. I can’t say I know exactly what the situation in the States is like, but there certainly are differences. So, should you still disagree with my point, I’d say we leave the topic as it is and agree to disagree, since we’re not exactly talking about the same thing.
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Many thanks and description updated!
Footnote, huh? Personally I find it a little bit clunky in this case (it's like literally explaining a joke) but it's certainly an option.
...
Do you know how long it has been since I was hit by a 20% cooler pun? Well played.
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Hey you found my silly little story! Glad you enjoyed it. Various reports all indicated that they didn’t see the pun coming, and I see that as quite a success.
Clever.
The 20% cooler pun has quite some history now, and you are the most creative one using it.