I used to be a stranger

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"Quantum" basically means "the smallest thing that can be examined in a system". The quantum measurement of the carrying capacity of freight ships is displacement-tonnes. The millimeters' gauge or 1/16th inch gauge on your elementary school straight-edge is the quantum measurement of that straight-edge. When Quantum measurement is applied to particle physics, then it comes to measuring things on the scales of Angstroms (fractions of the width of a single proton) and the movement of subatomic particles like quarks. I think you're mistaking "randomness" for either the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, or the Observer Effect. The Uncertainty Principle in a nutshell says that the more precision you know about the position of a particle, the less sure you can be sure about its speed, vector, momentum, etc. and vice versa; the more that's known about a particle's vectors, the less you can be certain about its position. This is often bluntly summarized as "you can't know the location and the momentum of a particle at the same time". The Observer Effect is famous through Schrodinger's Cat Paradox. Until a particle is observed, it will vary in a number of different possible locations. When the particle is observed, its position collapses from a number of potential locations into a determined state. The Cat Paradox is an anecdotal description of this phenomena with an illustration like this: "A cat and some poison is placed in a box, and then the box is closed. The cat may die of the poison, or it may not. However, the cat effectively is both alive and dead until the box is opened and the state of the cat is observed." No matter how hard you breathe out, you can never make a vaccum in your lungs. Your lungs have cavernous tissue that keeps an air reserve always inside, to keep the lungs maintaining a proper shape. This is called residual air. When you "get the wind knocked out" of you, a pressure wave has pushed against your chest cavity and forced the residual air out. The horrible gasping feeling is your body trying to restore its residual air, to re-inflate your lungs. However, the human body is unable to actually "pull in" air very well, so the lungs can only re-inflate at the rate at which air can naturally flow back in. Some musicians have the ability to breathe in and out at the same time, through careful control of their diaphragm in conjunction with their trachea.

There are four fundamental forces which bind normal kinds of material together, in basic atomic chemistry: Ionic, Covalent, Metallic and Van Der Waals. Ionic bonds are the strongest, where electrons are shared between the orbitals of two different elements. These kinds of bonds are present in ceramic materials like concrete, glass and gemstones. These bonds result in extremely strong, but typically very brittle materials (not very bendy) with very high melting points. The exemplar of this sort of strength is Diamond. Ionic bonds are always between a metal and a non-metal. Covalent bonds are made between non-metal elements, where ions are shared between atoms of the same kind. These bonds are responsible for every kind of organic chemistry, from gasoline to sugar to DNA to rubber to peppermint to xylene. Their characteristics vary wildely, but often have it in common that they have low ignition points (they burn fairly easily) and are often flexible, elastic or ductile in solid form. Metallic bonds are weak but durable. Basically large stacks of the same kind of element coalesce together in giant rigid piles, with seas of electrons floating between them. They are often very strong and proportionately better at being flexible than ionic bonds (think iron vs. pottery), and the best of any kind of bond at being heat or electrical conductors. This is because when an electron strikes the side of a metal, it hits the sea of electrons and knocks another electron out on the other side. Metals can also be very dense. Gold is both the most conductive element and the most ductile, Osmium is the densest, and Unonoctium is the heaviest. Van Der Waals are tiny. And before you can understand what they are, you'll need to have a bit of understanding for how electrons behave. If you've ever been given an impression of what electrons are like, you probably thought of them as tiny balls of light whipping around the nucleus of an atom like lightsaber-style planets orbiting a lumpy star. This mental picture is useful for many kinds of Chemistry, which it's why it's still around. It's called the Bohr Model. However, it breaks down when you're trying to explain Van Der Waal force. You need to understand the Probabilistic Model. The Probabilistic Model says that you can't "find" where an electron will be-- which makes sense, since they're such infinitesimal things, and they're moving at the speed of light-- but you can predict where they'll probably be at a given moment. So you assign "clouds" of probability which dip and bob around the nucleus, indicating where electrons will most likely exist at any given point in time. With this understanding, you can then imagine what it would be like if, for the briefest of moments, all of the electrons around an atom were located on one side of the nucleus. This would actually push the atom in a direction, like a rocket engine. Granted, it wouldn't push it very much: the force is minuscule and the time it happens is ever-so-brief, but the force is there. It's a bit like molecular static-cling. Van Der Waals are responsible for the flexibility of shoelaces and plastic bags, among other things. Secretly, I've influenced you to know the four standard Engineering Materials definitions as well: Ceramic, Metallic, Polymer and Hybrid.

My Structural Engineering Masters' Praxis is going to be constructing a 1:2 Scale Model of a Typhoon-class nuclear sub using sandwich fixings.

While I am a fan of the development and procurement of precision technology, I am against things which are purposed with killing or maiming. This has long been the conflict between my interest in rocketry and aircraft, and my desire for pacifism. I am not so naiive to think that the world could ever function without war, but I also think that the existence of war only precipitates through either selfishness, or poor communication between groups. I think Mass Drivers are cool, and am looking forward to their advances, even if their current primary purpose (other than particle accelerators) is for Naval gunnery. I also hear-tell that large ships in navies are obsolete due to ballistic missiles. One well-placed missile coming straight down on top of a Nimitz carrier would render it inoperative and helpless.

The websites where teenagers are most likely to peruse goes up during the summer and goes down during the fall, in my experience. I suppose the main reason is forum populations are dominated by the waxing and waning of free-time available to young students in technologically developed western countries. I am now attending a Technical Institute for Engineering studies. Schoolwork takes 10 hours out of almost every day of the week, sleep and other necessities take another 10. The remaining four is often eaten up with making sure I'm on task, checking other websites and chatting with friends. MLPforums by comparison is fairly low on my "priority list" of time-wasting venues. This is my little microcosm.

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Magic. Look obviously if the Everfree Forest is any indication, it should be clear that artificial control of the weather (as Pegasi exert) is not something that happens everywhere at all times. Do the horses in Saddle Arabia have controlled weather?

I've thankfully never nodded-off while driving a car, but I have nodded off while riding behind a tractor. Stop the thread, we have a winner.

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Snips+Snails Diamond Tiara+Silver Spoon Spike+Big Macintosh Spike+CMC (probably) Shining Armor+any of his underlings

I'll be honest, I stole this off of a webcomic where there's a TV show around a guy who lives in the Donut Kingdom, where all buildings are made of food. The Webcomic is called Cucumber Quest, and the entire idea is actually a really obscure reference to a background character that so far is only mentioned once.

Yes yes we know, Sparity is a highly speculative ship.

She's obviously the host of the all-Equestria famous Alberta Blue Architectural Digest Challenge where she goes to various food-based events and eats entire buildings, much to the excitement of her adoring fans, and to the dismay of her nutritionist who protests against eating masonry.

No character ever is going to say the word "murder".

Earth Ponies are numbskulls! Pegasi are brutes! Unicorns are snobs!

Somehow a piece of art I made was unusually prescient. I finished this on July 29th this year. Well somehow you sure nipped that secret in the bud. It only took you eight hours to uncover.

Simple effects of disposition often occur in real life due to the nature of how one lives and the decisions you have to make. For example, even compare different kinds of pilots. An aircraft pilot is typically a bit more casual and calm, since aircraft can fly simply by going fast in one direction. By comparison, a helicopter pilot is typically more cautious, detail-oriented and introspective since helicopters are inherently unstable and depend on extremely careful attention to a number of factors all at the same time to keep them balanced. Likewise, if flying comes as naturally as breathing, I can see a pegasus typically being quite brash and laid-back like Rainbow Dash, since such a fantastic ability is so easy and free. Similar stereotyping applies for the other races. Risk-takers and adventurers would be the stuff of their kind. Though I would think that the Earth ponies don't generally have the stereotype of being slow and slow-witted. As with people who are slower, they are generally more cautious, conservative, patient, calculating, and able to accomplish fantastic things through slow, steady, tried-and-true effort. Such would make them excellent gardeners, farmers, miners, engineers, teachers, managers and inspectors. Unicorns would have a great power in readily weilding magic. I can see how this power might make them develop a superiority complex but more level-headed ones would probably put it to use in exploring their abilities and harnessing the advantages they naturally have in the same way the other races do theirs. They would be inventors, scientists, engineers, doctors and ostensibly leaders towards progress and focusers of culture. From all of them however, there would be an equal capacity for artistry.

Gravity. Though she's always foiled in the end, nopony truly escapes her grasp...