September 30
For once, I wasn't looking forward to my classes, 'cause I knew we were going to Indianapolis right after dinner and I was really excited for that.
If I'd still been a filly, I would have bounced up and down on Peggy's bed until she woke up. I didn't think she'd appreciate that, 'cause adults are supposed to be more reserved.
So I went to the bathroom and filled up my camelback and then put on my flight gear. I was gonna have to wash my flight vest today if I had time.
I called the airplane directors and Dori gave me permission to fly and warned me that there was going to be a helicopter flying in to the hospital from the west soon, so I should watch out for it.
So I stayed pretty low, just a meter above the trees or so. There was a gentle rain falling—almost a mist, really—and I hoped it wasn't going to get worse. I thought about flying up and getting a feel for the clouds, but I'd told Dori I was gonna stay low and I didn't want to call her back and tell her that I'd changed my mind, because then maybe she'd have to tell the helicopter to move.
It was fun to stay right above the trees like that, although I felt kinda bad for scaring a bunch of sparrows who were huddling in a tree to keep out of the rain.
I almost forgot about the deer, but at the last minute I remembered and made a hard turn to keep from scaring them, and I got close enough to a tree that I brushed some of the leaves in its crown. And I went over the river and curved back in, dropping on the path.
I did a couple of laps around the trail, switching between a trot and a canter, and then I took off on the river side and flew along the trail that followed by the river and went through the woods. Instead of walking I flew along it, not too far above the ground, and that was a lot of fun. Then when I got back to where it connected with the prairie path, I just started climbing and flew back to campus. Dori said that the helicopter had landed so I could fly higher this time, and I did.
When I got back to the dorm I poked my head into the bathroom and somebody was already in the shower, so I went back to our room and took off my flight gear and then went down to the laundry room with my vest. There was an empty washing machine, so I put it in and went back upstairs, and the shower was empty.
Once I was done I shook off my coat then went back to our room to groom. Peggy was just waking up and I nuzzled her hip when she got out of bed and she petted my mane.
She went to the shower and I packed up my books for class, and then went downstairs to check on my flight vest but it wasn't done washing yet, so I decided I'd get it after breakfast, on my way to thermodynamics.
I had to wait a few minutes for Peggy to get out of the shower and get dressed, then we went to breakfast together. And when we got there a man was making omelets and the waffle maker worked again and I didn't know which to choose. I had a waffle maker of my own if I really wanted some but I'd had an omelet yesterday and I couldn't decide which would be a better breakfast. Both would have been nice but too much food, so I finally got a waffle and then as I was carrying it over to the table I kept thinking that maybe I should have had the omelet instead.
Anna and Reese both came in while we were eating, and he liked Fruit Loops too, 'cause he also had a bowl of them. Anna had an omelet and I regretted my choice until I bit into my waffle.
I had to leave breakfast early, so that I could get my flight vest, and when I got the the laundry room someone had taken it out of the washing machine and put it on the folding table, so I took it upstairs and hung it over my chair, then went out the back and flew over to the science building.
Professor Brown told us about bond energies and before he got started he said that we'd probably never use it since there were already tables. But he said that it could be useful to think about especially in biochemistry. And we had to kind of imagine that some of the molecules and atoms weren't changing states even though in real life they would, so I though that those must be ideal molecules.
And I tried to pay attention, but it was hard especially since I wasn't sure if I would ever need to know this after the class, and my ears really perked when he finally said that we were going to move to a new topic.
We were going to talk about what kinds of things happen on their own, like alchemical reactions sometimes do when you just mix two ingredients, or how weather could just do things on its own because of the sun and air currents, and when he was explaining it he said that the first law of thermodynamics didn't explain why all the air in the room didn't just go off and sit in the corner by itself and suffocate all of us.
I wasn't so sure about air, but I did know that if you left clouds to their own devices they mostly liked to spread out and cover the skies, as long as there was enough moisture in the air to let them. If there wasn't enough, they evaporated, and if there was too much, they rained, and if there was a lot too much, they became thunderclouds and it seemed like everything might work on that same basic principle.
But Professor Brown didn't start by talking about clouds; he talked about steam engines and how they couldn't be a hundred percent efficient no matter how hard anybody tried. And so he showed us the math behind how steam engines worked, and then he also told us that all spontaneous processes were irreversible. Clouds were like that, too—you set them out but they never came back to you.
Me and Lisa went to the lounge again and went over our lab homework, and it all looked pretty good, and we both agreed that it was ready to be turned in. So after that I flew back to my room to do homework and it was really hard to focus 'cause I kept thinking about how pretty soon we'd be on the way to the airshow and I'd get to see Aquamarine and Gusty and Cayenne and also all the ponies from the tornado team and all my friends who could come would get to meet them, too, and it was probably going to be a really exhausting but fun weekend.
But I couldn't let my homework suffer, and if it was done I wouldn't have to think about it, so I tried to put everything else out of my mind and work on it. At least I'd be with Sean when I did my math homework, and he'd help me focus.
Sometimes when you were working by yourself it was hard to keep motivated, especially if you were looking forward to something fun that you were going to do later.
I had all but one of the problems done when it was time to go to lunch, and I couldn't decide if I should do it now or go to lunch. I knew I wasn't gonna be in the mood in the afternoon, so I took a deep breath and stretched out my wings and then let them sag as I exhaled and I told myself that the problem wasn't hard; I'd already done a bunch and this was just the same.
And it wasn't really hard, just lots of figuring and then I had it. So I closed my notebook and textbook and packed my math things in my saddlebags, and since I didn't feel like strapping them on I grabbed the backstrap in my mouth and flew off to lunch.
Humans are lucky because they can put on their backpacks while they're moving. I guess maybe I could put on my saddlebags while I was flying but it would be really, really tricky and I'd probably wind up just dropping them or crashing into something because I was paying too much attention to getting the girth strap pulled tight.
Of course, that meant that I had to set them at the table before I could get any food, but at least that gave me a chance to greet everybody. And Peggy said that I was late and I said that I was doing homework and she said that I had all weekend to do it and then she remembered that we were going to the airshow and I think she realized that she would have homework to do and she couldn't do it while she was driving.
I kinda wanted to invite Anna and Reese but there wasn't enough room in Cobalt for them unless we got really crowded in there and it would be rude anyway if I hadn't asked Peggy first. So I kept my mouth shut and thought if I had a chance later I could ask her.
I didn't have time to have much lunch, but that didn't matter because I wasn't too hungry, so I just got some salad and they had some breaded cod patties but they were square and I didn't trust a square fish.
I trusted that Sean would watch the time, and not let us be late to class, and I just focused on eating my lunch before it was time to go, and when he got up and picked up his tray I stopped eating, too, and I followed him to the window where you returned your dishes and trays.
Sean asked if I was eager for class, and I was because Professor Pampena was a lot of fun and so was multivariable calculus. I think it was my most fun class this quarter.
The first thing he taught us was the approximation formula, because we needed to know that before he taught us about optimization and critical points, which were for working on three-dimensional shapes. And he showed us how to solve at critical points, which was actually pretty easy although at first it seemed odd that you could add two different equations together.
And once he showed us critical minimum points and maximum points, he showed us the picture of the saddle where its critical point was only local and it made a difference which way you came at it from. And then he taught us about experiments and least-squares interpolation, which was where you had a bunch of data and you tried to figure out the function that best fit and that was kind of like what we'd learned in astronomy about finding distant planets, so it was neat to see more of the math behind how that worked, and how you figured out what was a good line.
Me and Sean went back to his dorm room to work on our homework together, and while we were walking I started to wonder if maybe I should suggest that me and Lisa could work on our homework together. I'd have to ask her after class on Monday, 'cause I didn't know when she did it. Maybe she stayed up late at night working on her homework like some people did.
With him working and with Loreena McKennitt singing I kept pretty focused on my math homework, plus it was lots of fun. And I got done with it before he did, so I went back through and re-checked my answers, and then I started working on a new problem in Equestrian math. I didn't want to just copy one that was on the answer sheet, but make up a new one on my own where I really didn't know the answer. And I was still working on that when Sean finally finished, so we took a break and compared our answers, and then went back and worked on the one problem where we'd gotten different answers.
I was confident I'd gotten it right and Sean was a little bit less sure, and it turned out that I had.
He didn't think that it was fair that I was better at math than he was, and I told him that pegasuses had invented proper math, and that's why we were good at it.
I let Sean try and solve my problem, too, and he did pretty well, although I had to explain a couple of things to him just because he wasn't very familiar with the symbols. And I wondered what Professor Pampena was thinking about my problems, 'cause I hadn't explained all that much of them, but I think he probably enjoyed puzzling through them. I guess he'd know—or at least think—that it was similar to the ones that we were working on, so he might be able to figure them out from that.
Sean said that he still had to pack for the weekend, and then he mentioned that maybe we should bring some beer and I can't believe I hadn't thought of that. And I knew it was a long trip down to Indianapolis 'cause Peggy had said that we wouldn't get there until after midnight, so she wouldn't want to stop on the way.
So I thanked him for reminding me and I flew back to my dorm room long enough to empty out my saddlebags, then I flew to Tiffany's and bought three carriers of different kinds of beer, which was all that I could fit in my saddlebags at once. And eighteen beers should have been enough but maybe other ponies would want some, too, so I made three more trips and by the second time the clerk was helping me load them in my saddlebags and asked if I was planning a big party and so I told her that I was going to an airshow with all my friends and I was going to see more of my friends there so I wanted to make sure I had enough to share. And she thought that was really nice of me.
Peggy came back while I was packing my flight gear into my saddlebags and I asked her if we should invite Anna and Reese, but she said that we didn't know them all that well yet and it was really last-minute and there wasn't enough room in the car anyway unless people were riding on laps. And I didn't mind if I had to—I could stretch out across their legs, and three people could fit in the back (especially because Anna was small for a human) but I did understand why she might be wary, and our hotel room was already going to be crowded.
And it was kind of annoying that everybody wanted to talk at dinner, 'cause I wanted to be on my way, but I thought I'd let Peggy decide when it was time to go. And she finally said that it was if we wanted to get there at a decent hour, so we went back to our room and she carried all the beer I'd bought down to Cobalt and arranged it neatly in the trunk and I felt bad for her having to do all that work, but she said she didn't mind and she'd probably burned at least one beer's worth of calories doing it.
I got in the back seat, 'cause Sean would probably want to ride in the front, and we drove down the hill to Christine's room, and she and Sean came out with their bags and packed them in the trunk of Cobalt, and then Christine got in the back. She sat behind Peggy, 'cause Peggy drove with her seat forward farther and that gave her more room for her legs.
We drove through town and then went east on the 94 Highway until we got to the 69 Highway, and we took that south. It didn't take us all that long to get to Indiana, and we passed around a big city called Fort Wayne, and then after that it got really boring outside because there was only farmland for a while.
But everybody in the car wanted to talk, and that helped pass the time, plus Peggy had the radio on and it was fun every time we got too far away from one radio station and had to pick another one to listen to. And there were radio stations about Christians and I wanted to listen to one of those for a little while but nobody else in Cobalt did, and I was kind of sad that I got outvoted but I guess it was fair, and it was important to listen to what Peggy wanted to so that she'd stay alert.
We stopped at rest areas so we could get out and stretch our legs and pee, and all of them had machines which would let you buy snacks, and the most interesting one was a machine that sold ice cream treats and a little hose went out to pick them up and then drop them in the tray for you. Sean loaned me some money so that I could buy a Klondike Bar, and he got one of his own, too.
Peggy hadn't needed her GPS to find Indianapolis, but when we got close she needed it to find our hotel, which was called a Marriott.
It was a pretty sleek building, with shiny glass walls and a big open lobby and elevators that had windows which I thought I wouldn't mind riding in. And Mister Salvatore had gotten us a big suite which had a lounge with couches and two connected bedrooms and that was really nice. So a helpful man got all of our luggage out of Cobalt and helped us take it upstairs and when I looked out the windows on the elevator it was pretty pleasant. It still scared me a little bit when it started moving up, but then I could see that I was moving and that was a lot better than being trapped in a little silver box.
Jenny and Aquamarine were already there, and Gusty and Cayenne were going to arrive really late. I think that Mister Salvatore had thought he'd have one bed for each pony and her human, but he probably hadn't known that I was bringing friends with me.
We thought that Gusty would probably have Nikky with her, and they'd want a bed to themselves, and Sean and Christine would want to sleep together, and so that left two more beds for three ponies and at least two humans. So Peggy offered to sleep on the couch, and then Jenny said that that wasn't right, but Peggy thought that since she'd been the one to bring extra people she ought to.
I thought that since the couch was pretty wide, me and Aquamarine and Cayenne could share it, and that would leave a bed for each Jenny and Peggy, and we finally agreed on that, and said that if more people came we'd have to think of some other arrangement.
So we sat and drank beer for a while, but it was pretty late and we were all tired and we kind of wanted to stay up until everypony had arrived, but we didn't. Aquamarine said that she'd wake up when they came in and could tell everybody the sleeping arrangements, and we agreed that we'd all have breakfast at nine and then go out to the airshow and then after the first day was over we might have to re-arrange who got what beds, but we would figure that out later.
I said that I wanted to go looking for the tornado team, because they might be in the same hotel as us, but I was yawning as I said it and Peggy told me I was too tired to do that and I guess she was right.
Me and Aquamarine stretched out on the couch, kind of nose-to-nose since it was narrow, and I made her promise to wake me up when our friends got here. And we also agreed that if Cayenne wouldn't get up in the morning we'd drag her into the bathroom for another cold shower.
7764652 That makes much more sense.
Great chapter.
Wow. Teachers must love having students with highly visible indicators sticking out of their heads showing whether or not they're paying attention.
Octagonal fish, on the other hoof…
sad
You should take US 31 from Kalamazoo to Indianapolis, especially now that it's been made a limited access highway all the way to I-465.
Are they staying at the JW Marriott downtown? Or something closer to the speedway?
Marriott... Expensive.
As a former desk clerk at a motel, I can tell you that hotels here in Phoenix, Az. charge extra for more guests. At mine it was +$6 (+tax) per guest. Also, there was a maximum number (4) allowed per room. I think the fire dept. set the limits. I KNOW sneaking extras in got you in big trouble. The minimum was you had to pay for the extras & if anyone didn't have ID, you all got kicked out with no refund. If necessary, we called the cops.
Silver, you scofflaw.
Loreena McKennitt is okay, but a little too New Age-y for my taste.
Best female Celtic vocalists are Aoife ní Fhearraigh, Anúna and Chloe Agnew.
The High Kings and good old Chieftains for guys.
7766366
Oh, well, you'll be wanting the A39 then... oh, no, no, you've got the wrong map there. This is Stalingrad. You want the Ilfracombe and Barnstaple section.
7765668 thx for making me feel good about being single.
Also funny how (most likely) a woman downvoted your post...
7766375 Your tax dollars at work.
Haha that's going to be fun.
I wonder when Silver is going to start a homework group, to motivat others to do their homeworks right after class.
should be a period instead of a comma.
that's a period that should be a space.
double period
only need one of those.
made
Elvis:Thats too Square, man. Much too square. Uh Uh.
I still cant remember what that function is called, which is like a Meta Least Squares function, where it gives you a measure of the optimum trade off in polynomial complexity verses polynomial fit to given data. As in linear least squares gives a range of variance, a quadratic might be a far better fit, a cubic even better etc, but not as good a fit as the increase in complexity would expect.
Yaay steam engines, Carnot and Brayton. Strange how all ICE work on Otto, but electric vehicles, running on power stations, run on Brayton, yet car companies refuse to remove the ICE, leave the turbocharger, and run it in far more powerful compact and far more effiicnt Brayton serial hybrid mode. After all, a standard turbocharger uses the power that the engine doesnt use, and theres far more of that. Last I saw you could buy a 60 HP exhaust gas turbogenerator that was the size of a large coffee tin. Dont think its much? Charge the battiers and supercaps with it then feed to the 400 HP electric motor. Now take out the quarter ton ICE and see how your performance improves. Then again, its the same way watches evolved, and the argument against evolution is that you cant evolve by losing bits.?
Long drive is long. with beer to keep the car stable. Extra stable because of included equine? Which state is it wher you cant have alcohol in the car, unless its inaccessible in the boot, so you cant have anythingthing, even passing through, in a camper van etc?
Crowded rooms are crowded, they should have submarine bunks, three to a wall.
That point isn't critical though.
Remember, human did too
7766556 The points about maximum occupancy raise the issue of the legal status of ponies.
I think in the US, this would have to be a constitutional amendment.
It doesn't seem to bear on the specific exclusions that can't be amended, so it could in principle be done.
The simplest way would seem to be an amendment along the lines of 'any reference to child, person or similar should be read as also including the species Equus Sapiens, unless that reference refers specifically to physical characteristics of humans' or similar.
Getting this through the somewhat involved process of a new amendment coming into force might be a story all of its own.
The constitution of the US never really treated slaves as non-persons - so the possible constitutional analogy isn't really close.
Equestria's math sequence must be really weird. She took a class that involved dynamical systems and differential equations without ever taking multivariable calculus? Or, from what I recall of a previous entry, she doesn't even have a great background in single-variable calculus if she seemed wowed by using a derivative to calculate rate of change.
7767277
Not full persons either.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-Fifths_Compromise
7767458 No. The Three Fifths Compromise was about tallying populations to work out how many congressmen a state would get. Slaves weren't allowed to vote in any case, but if they were calculated as full citizens that would have given slave-holding states (and the slave-owning voters) a far more powerful legislative presence.
Damn, Peggy narrowly missed out on getting cuddled.
Thinking about it, it would probably be an executive order until It got to the Supreme Court.
They might have slid the Ponies in as pets. Wonder how PETA feels about Ponies? Fluttershy would probably join
Also, IIRC the only legal help animals are dogs -and Ponies.
7766636
Yeah, women are hypocrites:
We are slow becoming erect because we are tired from working hard to put food on the table, they berate us; but sadly however, when they are not in the mood and we suggest politely the use of personal lubricant and having sex anyway, they make us sleep on the couch.
7766693
Nah, I'm not a US citizen. =P
Lol I know the feeling when running a national route. That's why I bring my Ipod.
7766354
7766360
Although for the boring teachers, it would probably be pretty demoralizing to see a class full of ears all pointed in any other direction. Then again, that might be a good chance to think about livening up your lecture/
Everybody knows that round fish are where it's at.
aguide2israel.com/UserFiles/Image/eilat/round_fish.jpg
Correction made; thank you!
7766366
Google Maps still suggests 69 as the fastest route. I've never gone to Indy from Kalamazoo, so I can't say for sure which route I'd use, but that's what most of my friends chose.
The JW Marriott.
7766375
It's all government money, though, so it's okay. Plus, they're getting a lot of ponies into the rooms, so it works out to being pretty cheap on a per-pony/per-person basis.
7766556
Yeah, I would think that since they're getting suites, the number of people who are supposed to be in the room is probably eight. But ponies might get an exception to the rule, especially when the helpers tell the hotel that this is how it's going to work.
You can't blame her; she's not the one who made the hotel reservations.
7766608
Enya was quite popular when I was in college, too; I'm not sure if she still is.
One of my favorite bands is Eluvite. I'm 99% sure I have some music by, Anúna and Chloe Agnew, but I'll have to check out Aoife ní Fhearraigh.
I think I've also got some stuff by the Chieftans, but nothing that I can think of by the High Kings.
7766693
Probably the tornado team got Red Bull to pony up for their hotel room, and if Mister Salvatore is clever, he might be able to get them to pay for Silver Glow and company, as well. But yes, anything that wasn't covered by them would be tax dollars at work.
Now, on the other hand, if I had to pay a couple of hundred dollars more per year to sponsor visiting ponies in the US, you can bet I'd write that check in a heartbeat.
7766791
I wonder when Silver is going to start a homework group, to motivate others to do their homeworks right after class.
She should. "Do your homework or the adorable pegasus will be mad at you."
7767027
Seriously, square fish aren't to be trusted. That's a fact.
7767047
All corrections made; thank you!
7767064
Correction made; thank you!
7767062
As I recall, not all car engines work on Otto Cycle. I think some of them work on Atkins, IIRC. But I never knew that much about the theory of the design, 'cause all I have to do is fix it after it breaks, not build it from the ground up.
For what it's worth, one of our instructors describes the four-cycle process as 'suck-squeeze-bang-blow.'
In Michigan, you can't have open alcohol in the car unless it's inaccessible; however, you can carry as much closed alcohol wherever you want.
Well, since all the ponies like sharing beds, they don't really need to stack them, since one bed is good for three or four ponies.
7767075
That's very true. Silver Glow's still proud of the fact that pegasi invented calculus, and not unicorns instead.
7767277
That would be really hard to do, though, because some of the laws that would change wouldn't make much sense. Ponies would suddenly find themselves guilty of indecent exposure practically everywhere (and in some states, being charged with indecent exposure means you have to register as a sex offender). I think that it would be a long and convoluted process and very much open to debate; however, it could potentially be mitigated by the fact that they aren't citizens of Earth.
Probably some of the laws just plain wouldn't be enforced anyway, and then there are also people like Silver Glow's helpers who are supposed to smooth over misunderstandings when they occur.
It might be interesting to read a story that features a legal case of some sort that arises in a PoE situation, ideally written by someone who has legal experience.
7767429
It's probably different than ours, and she's likely to have learned much of it piecemeal thorough her weather work, rather than in a formal, classroom setting.
Also I don't know any math beyond algebra, so I had to guess on what classes seemed the most helpful/most enjoyable for her.
7767772
As did Jenny. All four of them obviously should have had just one bed.
7768005
It could also be an international treaty, like something that the UN worked out, and the US agreed to abide by it. At least for the most obvious things, like it's not okay to murder a pony.
Considering them as pets raises its own set of problems, though. I'm just imagining a city where the pony visitors have to wear a leash.
Not sure what PETA would think. On the one hand, they seem to be very 'in tune' with animals and nature, and presumably use a minimum of animal products in their day-to-day life; on the other hand, they appear to keep animals like sheep, cows, and pigs, almost as slaves. So PETA would probably be very conflicted. And yes, Fluttershy would join in a heartbeat, not only PETA but also the WWF.
thatawesomeshirt.com/images/get/45/430x550/
Monkeys might be as well, depending on the jurisdiction.
Also:
tosh.cc.com/blog/files/2015/09/HandicapHorse.jpg
(apparently, the rider is legally blind)
7772552
The last long cross-country road trip by car I made, my Discman broke about eight hours into the trip and for the rest of it I had to listen to broadcast radio or else the weather radio. Not too long after that trip, I bought an XM radio, which was nice for a few years. And I now own an iPod for road trips to Bronycon or whatnot.
7784863
I'm not sure how much of the theory she'd pick up from work, and theory is way more important in this case. And piecemeal wouldn't really provide the broad understanding you need. it really broadens out fast. And not having it can really mess you up (i know from experience on this one).
imgs.xkcd.com/comics/grownups.png
imgs.xkcd.com/comics/blanket_fort.png
reminds me of the first few panels of these
So I found the limit of Silver's changing it to equestrian notation trick. Eventually she's going to learn new symbols (partial derivative and gradient immediately come to mind) and she's not going to be able to put anything that uses those in equestrian notation.
7795716
This is how I like to live my life. I've always said that if I ever win big in the lottery, I'm going to have an olympic-sized ball pit, just because.
That's very true. She may have to either use the normal math symbol for those, or else she's going to have to improvise. She could make up a symbol for it, and the professor could probably figure out what it was based on that.
That's a good point. It will probably help make some of the theory more obvious to her, if she's had related experience, but only if she connects the dots. It's also something I've run into at work, and sometimes it's a case of knowing what something is without knowing why it is, and then learning the why later.
That's one of the biggest differences between repairing and designing, honestly. I have to know what's good and what's bad, but I don't have to know why.
Silver, Silver, Silver... Didn't we just learn that, yes, you can have too many friends? Though it's absolutely adorable how she's always so excited to have more people hanging around with her. If I didn't know better, I'd say she was gunning for a herd. Platonic, of course.
7892710
But it's only for a weekend, and they're friends from tornado duty. And the excitement has been doubled, 'cause she gets to introduce her pony friends to her human friends, and vice-versa.
Plus sleeping in a pegasus pony pile.
7795716
Same energy, but way older than Randall Munroe much less XKCD:
11191924
It’s totally true.
Soon to bought and turned into a Mareiott. @alwaysdressesinstyle
11225654
Funnily enough, two cons from now we’re probably staying at a Marriott, just ‘cause . . . well, we gotta.
Also, nobody should trust a square fish.
You don't want to listen to Christian Talk Radio.