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...Where did I use the term "brony insider"? Also how does being part of a group mean that I'm automatically unable to have an objective opinion of it? Just because I don't believe that it's a rampant issue doesn't mean I don't think it's an issue. I never said that the sexualization of the show isn't a problem? I felt like the fact that I mentioned a fan-organized effort that I am a part of specifically to tag it and keep it out of the reach of the target audience made it more or less clear that I'm not okay with it. I'm not saying that the NSFW content isn't a problem, what I'm saying is the notions that A. it's a core part of it that the majority of bronies take part in, and B. the fandom is ambivalent about it, are completely false. The portion of the fanbase that partakes in it is a small minority, and again, the fact there's an entire movement to tag the stuff and keep searches clean, should make it pretty clear that a lot of us agree it's a problem. As for rampant misogyny, I'm sorry, but everything I have seen does not suggest to me that it is as rampant an issue as you think it is. Again, a significant chunk of the bronies I know, both online and offline, are women, and I'm pretty sure they don't hate themselves. I've known maybe one person that was a brony and was misogynistic the entire time I've been part of the fandom, and not only did I make a point of calling him on it, he disappeared from the fandom as of a year or so ago. I'm not saying they don't exist, I'm saying that, again, they're a minority. ...And I feel like a broken record, but I am making a point of trying to change that. I actively tag inappropriate search results, I make a point of keeping it to myself unless people ask or are fans themselves - my avatar is a guitar-playing penguin, not a guitar-playing pony, and you can count on one hand how many times I've posted on my blog about it - I enjoy the show and the community but I don't let it define me, I call out misbehavior when I see it, I can go on for a while. I am far from alone in any of this. Aside from two or three members, every bit of this applies to everyone in the campus group, as well as virtually everyone in the fandom that I have experience with. I'm not sure exactly what more any of us are supposed to do? We cannot control the problematic members any more than any other group can control their stupid people. We can call them out for it, we can make an effort to clean things up, but at the end of the day, if they aren't doing anything illegal, and if online, are abiding by the rules of the website, what are we supposed to do if they elect not to listen? ...I never said it was about boys not being allowed to like girly things, I have no idea why you felt the need to address that as if I did. Just as well, it exists for everything. It exists for Pokémon, it exists for Adventure Time, it exists for Batman & Robin, it exists for The Avengers - especially Loki - it exists for Digimon, it exists for Harry Potter, it exists for Transformers, it exists for Frozen, it exists for other children's cartoons, it exists for every single fandom on the internet. That doesn't mean it should just be shrugged at and ignored, which is why, again, a lot of us are making an effort to change it, but acting like it's the cross to bear of a single fandom is flat-out ignorant. I'm not here to defend the fact that people make it because I don't enjoy it and I don't like it, I'm here to say that my opinion is far from the minority in the community. ...Where in the name of all that is holy did I ever say something like that? I have never posted about brony conventions on my blog, I have eleven posts in the MLP thread, none of which are about conventions if I recall properly, I have never said anything remotely close to that. Provide a link if you're going to make a claim like that, because unless I blacked out and posted something crazy last night that I am no longer able to locate, I never said anything of the sort, and If you're going to put words that extreme in my mouth, I'm not interested in having this discussion any further. Things I have called the documentary in the past three days: StupidA waste of moneyDumbA poor decisionProblematicSomething a lot of us are more embarrassed about than proud ofI'm not sure how much clearer you want me to make it that A. I don't like or agree with the majority of people in the documentary, and B. I'm far from alone in this regard. It's also worth noting that the documentary was made in 2011/12. Two or three years doesn't sound like much of a difference, but the show started in 2010. The documentary was shot early on in the fandom's existence, when most people were still insecure and felt like they had something to prove because of it. The fandom now compared to the fandom when the documentary was made is, aside from the original subject matter, almost completely different. As are most of the people that were in the fandom at the time; I can tell you now that I'm a very different person now about half a year from turning 21, than I was when I got into the show back in 2011 at 17. That goes for a lot of the members of the community; a lot of them started out in the 16-25 demographic, and especially in that age group, three or four years makes people dramatically more mature. It's matured both by a changing makeup of people and by, quite literally, the members of the fanbase maturing. I'm well aware of it, and I never enjoyed it personally. If you really want my take on all of that, I'll send you a PM explaining my thoughts on it, but I think both of us are well-aware of why discussing it here isn't exactly an option. I never said I don't value his words. I feel like the fact that I started my response specifically by saying I value what he has to say about the industry should make that pretty clear that I do. What I did say is that you said that there were numerous quotes from the staff of the show, which there were not. You told me that you were going to paint the fence blue, then painted it purple. If the staff of the show say "We got shut down because they didn't like having girls as fans", that's much different from an industry insider who, as much as he was part of DC and as influential as he is, never touched Young Justice, saying "There's a lot of sexist people in the industry." Considering I said "there is indeed sexism from executives, which I acknowledge now probably did play into the decision more than I originally assumed.", I don't think I'm denying that it played into it. I have also agreed that Cartoon Network mishandled the whole situation, and should have adapted their marketing and merchandising strategies to fit the audience. However to suggest that it was the sole reason, or the primary reason, the show was canceled, is something I think has no basis in facts. Also, I don't know what Young Justice being modeled on Dini's work has to do with anything. I'm not disputing the quality of it, because as I have said before, it was a genuinely good show. The artistic inspiration of it has nothing whatsoever to do with what the producers did or didn't say. Then explain to me what you meant by saying "When men liked a girls' show, they were able to fund a kickstarter campaign to pat themselves on the back.", because the only meaning I can extrapolate from that is that sexism would make it difficult or impossible for women to do something similar, so if that's not what you were saying, then I'm not getting what you're saying with that. Also, when you say that someone appropriated something and that it now caters to them instead of its original target, that pretty heavily implies that they've become the core demographic. And again, I am not denying that played into it, but I am denying that it was the central motive. A voice actor is not a member of the creative staff. They're a member of the talent that makes the product what it is, but they're not writing the script, they're not drawing the characters, they're not handling the creation of the ideas behind the show. Considering that's Tara's only career production credit, you can argue how much creative control she was given, simply because it's something she didn't have any prior experience with, when you have experienced producers elsewhere. As for Lauren Faust, the documentary was made after she left the production staff, so at that point she was no longer working on the show. As well, as mentioned by Scanty, she came onto the project after it was fully funded, so it's not like she backed it from the beginning and was a driving force behind the original idea. The original idea for the documentary and the funding for the documentary was all done by members of the fanbase, you can hardly blame them for hiring a producer that was already familiar with the subject matter and was suddenly available. How is an argument that relies on a fundamentally flawed comparison not using broken framing? And do you want to know why I defend the community so vocally? It's not just because, in my experience, the bad eggs are the minority. It's also because I have seen a disturbing amount of vitriol flung at people on a personal, individual level, over it. A friend of mine has been told multiple times on another website, alongside some very colorful language, that he should kill himself because he's a brony. It's worth noting that he has suffered from depression, so it goes without saying how much telling him something like that sets me off. Another friend of mine has been intentionally misgendered and called some very hateful, bigoted phrases over it. Another friend of mine actually had people track her IP and post her address online because she had the nerve to have the same opinions that I do on the subject matter. You can imagine how paranoid she is to express any opinion online now. Another friend that's in the on-campus group has been harassed and called a pedophile because he likes to wear shirts with the ponies on them. He served in Iraq and suffers from PTSD as a result of what happened over there, he watches the show because it helps him cope with the symptoms of it. The thing that helps keep him in control of himself and from reliving those nightmares gets him called a child predator. None of them have ever been part of the problematic area of the fandom. These are innocent people that are ridiculed, harassed, threatened, and intentionally triggered for no reason other than the community they identify with, and they're far from the only ones, they're just the ones I know personally as good friends. I get so riled up about all of this because there are other people like them who are attacked on an individual level by people who think that it's okay to threaten to kill someone over liking a TV show, who think it's acceptable to leak someone's personal information because they disagreed with them. I don't care what anyone in the fandom has done, telling someone recovering from borderline suicidal depression - or anyone for that matter - to go kill themselves, illegally tracking and leaking someone's personal information, intentionally misgendering someone, telling someone that the thing that provides them comfort and quite literally helps keep them sane makes them a pedophile, none of those are acceptable, especially over something as ultimately insignificant as liking a TV show. That's why I get so passionate about this, because I have seen the hurt, I have seen the way that it causes them true emotional distress, because they're genuinely good people who suddenly feel guilty because of the actions of others that they had no control over, and start to question something innocent that they love because of it. Again, while I think it's a significant minority, I make no effort to deny that the bad part of the fandom exists, because it does. But I defend the good part because innocent people get thrown an absolutely disgusting amount of vitriol and bile, and not on an impersonal, general level either, on an individual, one-on-one basis. I see the way these people react and the way these people hurt, and it makes me sick to my stomach.

I am officially a graduate of The Pennsylvania State University. ~|ET|~

[media=560,315] [/media] Lost for words. Happy. :3 Beautiful song. Beautiful message. Amazing victory.:3

Essays, Not Rants! 112: Computer-mediated Communi-what now? Being a big fan of his other stuff, I saw Jon Favreau’s Chef last night. It’s a wonderful movie full of heart and food porn. Seriously. That movie will make you hungry. Really hungry. It’s remarkable for more than just salacious shots of food, though. There’s the fun character dynamics and the great soundtrack. There’s the fact that it avoids the obnoxious Bad Thing Before the Third Act that’s so commonplace in comedies and other films like Chef. But what I wanna talk about is its use of social media. Oh boy, there’s that buzzword. Social media and other forms of computer-mediated communication, as it’s known in Conversation Analysis (which is a thing, and I’m taking a class on it), are becoming more and more common. Heck, you’re probably reading this ‘cuz I posted the link on my Facebook or Twitter. In Chef, the protagonist, Carl Casper, sets up a Twitter account and gets involved in a flamewar with a critic. It’s delightful to watch because of how it’s presented: we see an overlay of the Tweet box which, when sent, becomes a small blue bird that flies off screen. But what’s really great is that it’s treated not as a fad or something insignificant, but rather as a legitimate means of communication. In the world of Chef, just as in the real world, Twitter (along with texting, Vine, and Facebook) is a perfectly normal way of interacting with other people (and drumming up noise about your awesome new food truck). The TV show Sherlock and the film Non-Stop both use an overlay effect for texting and present it as a normal means of conversation. Non-Stop uses its potential anonymity and discreetness to hide the identity of the hijacker and to build tension, but it never feels like a gimmick. Characters in Sherlock, well, mostly John, will get texts during conversations. As viewers we now get to watch the all too familiar tension that comes from being stuck in one conversation when there’s another waiting in the wings. Wonderfully, Sherlock also treats texting as something people do. It’s as commonplace as phone calls and given equal weight. Texting is showing up in books too. The Fault in Our Stars has Hazel and Gus texting each other. Like in the other examples, it’s treated as a normal part of life. People text to talk. It’s a thing. The Fault in Our Stars has a very, well, contemporary, attitude to texting. It’s not a Big Deal or even some magical piece of New Technology or a sign of Declining Sociality; instead it’s downright normal. It’s not trite, it’s just a part of life. You don’t have to call someone, you can text them instead — which is often more convenient. What sets these examples apart is how well integrated they are. A lot of shows and movies either ignore the presence of cell-phones or only use them on occasion. It’s seldom to see texting and social media as integrated into a story as in Chef, Sherlock, and The Fault in Our Stars. The world’s changing. Computer-mediated communication is becoming really commonplace. Not only that, but it’s steadily being scholarly accepted as a legitimate form of communication (seriously, I read a paper on gossip in instant messaging). Yet pop-culture has been oddly slow on the upkeep. There aren’t many shows like Community where everyone’s digital lives are presented as normal, including Jeff’s constant texting and Troy’s Clive Owen Tumblr. Granted, it can be a slow or overwrought way of communicating exposition, but it can be done well and, as in Chef, it can be visually interesting. I want to see more movies, shows, and books like this; where computer-mediated communication isn’t necessarily nerdy or reclusive, where a Vine and Facebook can be a bonding moment between a father and son. Because hey, this is the world we live in.

Unikitty · Pink fur · Part cat · Princess of Cloud Cuckooland · Master Builder · Loves cute things Faris Nyannyan · Pink hair · Part cat · Family owns Akihabara · Champion Rai-Net Battler · Loves cute things If they ever met each other, they would instantly become best friends for life.

So my goal, as I may or may not have stated in the past, is to built one MOC per month, at least, for the entirety of 2014. In January I had Hahli Husky. In February I had a Kakaru MOC I haven't posted. In March I had Samus. In April I had both Onua and Bec Noir. And in May I now have a Gundam. Link to topic:

Or you could say... there might be a cat fight...

Why on earth would you want to be left-handed? School desks are built for righties. We smear everything we write, and get ink all over our hands. We can't write comfortably in spiral binders or notebooks. Most tools are designed for righties. Left-handed sports equipment is more expensive. Left-handed musical instruments are harder to find. It's true that being left-handed has forced me to use both my dominant and non-dominant hands, but that's simply a survival skill. Using a mouse with my right hand doesn't make me ambidextrous: it just means I've been forced to use something in an unnatural way, and eventually become accustomed to it. It's a righties' world, really; wishing you were left-handed is kind of like winning the lottery and then trying to give the ticket back. It's only "cool" because of its rarity.

This is a legitimate point, however I question the claim that it had "a huge following amongst the female demographic", simply because, again, the numbers say otherwise. I don't doubt for a second that a larger proportion of its fanbase was female than is the norm for a superhero cartoon, or doubt for a second that the toys flopping had something to do with a failure on the part of manufacturers to develop toy lines that catered to their audience(Though from what I can find online, they were also put at a pretty expensive pricepoint for what they were, so that likely contributed as well), but again, the problem with the claim that it had a large following is that the only number that correlates to something like that suggests otherwise. As for Paul Dini, while I value what he has to say on the industry as a whole - as well as the creator of some pretty awesome TV - you said that the quotes were both numerous, and from the producers of Young Justice. After five pages of google searching "young justice cancelled because of female audience", every quote I find is from Dini, not a one from Register, Weisman, or Vietti. Even if it's an industry veteran, there's a stark contrast between the experiences of the victim in-question, and the interpretation of a third-party on the subject. One is reliable testimony, and the other is correlation. If the reason that the creative vision of the producers and staff of Young Justice was quashed was primarily because of something like this, then I find it really hard to believe that they wouldn't have spoken out to back Dini when he's been so outspoken. I also disagree with the notion that it's on-par with where shows with its target demographic are supposed to be, because again, Teen Titans Go!, one of the shows meant to replace it, has almost reached the same numbers in its average as Young Justice reached with its peak. Adventure Time, which is again, another show on the same network, with a lot of merchandising, and a target audience somewhere around 8-14, has clearly outpaced it as well. Again, I think there is a legitimate point that CN's business plan with it failed to adapt, but that doesn't change that the ratings were lower than most other cartoons, even competing shows on CN like Adventure Time, which not only helps explain why it was canceled, but also casts a pretty large doubt on the idea that there was a huge following of Young Justice. DeeVee, I am sorry, I respect you both as a staff member and as an intelligent, well-spoken person, but you have no idea what you are talking about on this subject. The fact that every brony convention I have read about/heard of/etc. consistently allows children attending to ask voiceactors, producers, what-have-you, questions at Q&A panels before any bronies, that an entire community-driven project specifically to tag and clean up search results so that kids don't see the inappropriate stuff(We're far from finished, but considering it's been done about a half-dozen times, the improvement to the search results is very encouraging), just to name two off the top of my head, the idea that the majority of the community sees the target audience as unimportant, while true for the first year or two, hasn't been true for at least a year or two now. Are there still people like that? There are, but there are unreasonable morons in every community, every fanbase, every anything. As far as the show being catered to bronies, I'm sorry, but that's completely false. The "nods" to bronies or references are about as disruptive as a different color scheme for a character that just walks through the background of the scene, or three or so sentences of recorded dialog per season. It's about as destructive to the core of the show as Hey Arnold! having a joke about Woodstock, or Fairly Oddparents having President Clint Bushton almost nuking Russia(or for that matter a TRON-themed pilot), or The Powerpuff Girls having an entire episode loaded to the brim with Beatles references, or any other humor that is put in for the entertainment of either a periphery demographic or the parents of the target demographic. It's a concept that is hardly new, and in no way, shape, or form altering the show beyond changing the color pallette of a pony who only exists to give a startled reaction once, or changing "sure" to "eyup". The only real change in the way the show is structured or thought out was when there were changes in members of the staff occurred between seasons 1 and 2. When something like that happens, changes to the show are kind of inherent, the same way replacing a member of a band changes the sound of their music. You're also assuming that all bronies are guys, which is an offensive erasure of the female members of the fandom; of the 23 members of the show's club/group/whatever term you want to use at my campus, 12 of them are women. The same goes for my favorite artist amongst the fandom, as well as the majority of bloggers in the fandom that I follow, and one of the top posters and moderators for the pony thread of another forum I'm on. Guys definitely do make up a majority of the fanbase, and early-on there was a pretty strong "boys club" mentality, but that mentality is all but dead and gone for a vast majority of the fanbase, tends to be met with harsh internal criticism when it's seen, and acting like women are either nonexistent or next-to-nonexistent in the fandom is daft and offensive. I interact with these people on a daily basis. I read what they post, hear what they say, see how they act. I know who they are and what they're like, and while we certainly have our bad eggs just like any group, I can tell you right now that you're completely off-base with your characterization of the fanbase in-general. This I do agree on. It has fortunately improved over the past few years - Call of Duty and its online community of frat dudes and foul-mouthed 12-year olds aside, I've seen acceptance of women in gaming go nowhere but up in the online games and gaming communities I'm part of - but it's still an issue that needs addressing. There are still activities and things that are considered hardline masculine or feminine, and that's flat-out silly in the 21st century. Again, you are completely off-base with this. The notion that the majority of fan content is sexual or misogynistic in nature is beyond false, and while I'd like to get more detailed into the specifics of it, that kind of starts talking about inappropriate content, which is a no-no on BZP. Much more of it exists than should, but the notion that it's a large percentage is completely inaccurate. ...Invalidity of the "different thing" argument aside, that doesn't make any sense. The idea that only male-oriented projects get posted or funded on Kickstarter is ridiculous considering Anita Sarkeesian received nearly 30 times here requested amount for her Kickstarter project. Like I said before, there is nothing stopping the fans of Young Justice from making a documentary about why it should be brought back and why the reasons for its cancellation were unjust. I don't care even if a point is valid, you have to make a valid argument to back it up. If your conclusion is true but the framing of your argument is broken, then there's no reason you can't reframe it in a proper light, since again, the conclusion in this hypothetical is true, therefore there is proof of it, and the onus is on you to find it. The notion that a flawed argument is acceptable is ludicrous. Misinformation isn't acceptable just because it supports a noble truth.

Salutations. A new year brings a new t-shirt design contest. Since this is the fifth year in a row, let's just get to it. Info: This years theme is Metru Nui. Just like last year it's the 10th anniversary of the Legends of Metru Nui film! However, you're more than welcome to use anything from the 2004 saga. So this allows you all to have more creative freedom, rather than having just one character. Rules: Your design must be a simple design, one color, and must be medium sized. The prime example is last years winner. https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8416/8820021114_4757ed1131_b.jpg Your design must also be black on a clear white background. This makes it easier for the screen printing process. You may post your entries in this thread, and have until the end of May to submit your design. The Prize:The maker of the winning design will receive a free T-Shirt! Feel free to ask any questions, and good luck to all.

...you feel like you should be angry, but you are NOT? ...or when you feel that you should be ashamed of yourself, but you can't really be? ...or when you feel like you should be sad, but you're laughing and staring in morbid fascination instead? I feel that this is the worst feeling in the known universe. Actually feeling anger, shame, or sadness can be dealt with, that's something get over-able. But when you see what you think or what you did caused others to have misconceptionitis enforced by hurt, and then you want to blame yourself for what happened, because you did it, but can't. You still feel that you're right, and that you've learned from your mistakes, if you made any, and that people shouldn't take it so bad. So you feel numb, isolated, and very much alone.

Yeah.too much. Glad Im not the only one!

Little tiny twig floating around while the storm wages on overhead but I am confused on one of these points, the one that keeps bringing up Rule 34. While there certainly seems to be plenty of that in the MLP community, well, I guess the big point here is public availability, rather than its actual existence? Google searches and that. Personally I've never actively sought out such things so I don't know how much that applies, though I am aware of the semi-disturbing trend of anthropomorphic ponies, things that aren't really NSFW but also very clearly show a level of sexualization by the author. That is the sticking point I'd like to make; while I may not agree with DV's overall thesis (which, if I read it right, is "the brony community is flawed and the hate directed towards it is because of its negative parts) (which I'd be more inclined to agree with, incidentally, if I hadn't seen the sheer vitrol of what fundamentalist Kansans have towards that sort of thing) (but I do agree with the flawed part, to a degree), I do feel that the brony community isn't really doing as much for the non-graphic stuff. Enjoy what you want to enjoy in your own time and place, but that stuff is public on places like Tumblr, and can cause the younger children problems. I can't speak much on the topic of homophobia or misogyny in the fanbase, mostly due to lack of knowledge, though I do have to say that the "coming out of the stable" stuff continues to annoy me. Yeah the folks around here might not like men watching little colorful ponies but they have a prioritized scale and to compare one to the other is laughable at best and downright offensive at worst. It is worth noting, though, that I also agree with bits of Necro's thesis, that being that it's a minority, a ten percent ruining it for the other ninety percent. Harder numbers are needed on the subject but I just have not seen the vast problem myself, not unless one goes to sites specifically dedicated for that sort of thing. Tumblr has a problem too, so I've heard, though honestly Tumblr sort of lends itself to the easy posting of such content. I'd like hard, empirical studies, to get proper numbers on this, and not just "I've seen it myself" or "I haven't seen it myself." Maybe some institution will get bored and do it one day. One final note on the vitriol, and one that may get me labeled as "NOT ALL MEN!" but hey, such is life. Innocents do get caught in this crossfire. Go on a noble crusade to rid the community of its filth, I'll support you all the way. Sack a city or two along the way and I'm going get a bit queasy. I have seen, like Necro, people be lambasted for merely liking the show. As far as I'm aware, despite the fact that I occasionally watch it with my sister, I have yet to become some sexualized freak. If I am, it was probably from something before MLP, trust me. Judging a community is fine. Judging people based on the community is not. A topic* that immediately comes to mind, especially since I'm following a peep on Tumblr that does it all the time, is the bi/gay dichotomy. There is a strong sentiment in the gay and lesbian community, which has been documented and recorded, as well as been put out by popular members of the community like Dan Savage, that bisexuals either do not exist, are merely confused, or worse, traitors to the cause. This is disturbing as a bisexual, and I've had to deal with it in my own local community, one of the reasons I left the local LGBT group for the local GSA. At the same time, though, when I see a gay person my first thought isn't "oh god he's one of those people who don't believe bisexuality is a thing." But people do! One of the Tumblr blogs I follow has made "monosexual hate" a meme, and actively spouts it off, with a great deal of support. Similarly (though not equivalently, mind), I have to raise an eyebrow at the antics I occasionally see on Tumblr, where individuals, not the community, are attacked, and not for their individual deeds. I have even seen it occasionally in the non-internet world. People can and have been driven to suicide by this. I cannot support any movement that will not acknowledge this fact, and maybe then decide for a more surgical approach, rather than just bulldozing everyone out of their way. tl;dr I'm a nice guy and I don't like people yelling at each other, my family does that enough that I don't need any extra in my life. I think both sides could stand to to hear each other out a bit more, I support glorious crusades against internet filth, but I'd also like to avoid sacking any cities along the way. *no this is not an equivalent topic in terms of severity, I rather care about this a lot more than the problems of bronies, but it's the best thing I could come up with at the time.

Actually from what I gathered about the doc, Tara Strong and Lauren Faust only got involved after the kickstarter already made over $60,000. Plus I hear they're both usually active in their fanbases (I believe Tara Strong was a supporter of the bring back Symbionic Titan crowd a while back). Just a little FYI.

Yes. Sexism is absolutely a thing and I don't doubt that it played a role in Cartoon Network's canning of a great show (I was late to the party, I watched it about a month ago). It also wouldn't be the first terrible decision they've made. This comparison, however, is poor. It ignores the numerous other variables, turning it solely into a "men get everything, women get nothing" scenario. That is indeed how our society is biased, but using this as an example of that does not work. It's broken logic, and dismissing criticisms of its flaws as "mansplaining" strikes me as more reactionary than rational. The cause behind the argument is good. The argument itself is not. And seeing someone argue for something I believe in with fallacious reasoning is disappointing.

Food $200 Data $150 Rent $800 Candles $3,600 Utility $150 someone who is good at the economy please help me budget this. my family is dying

no

spend less on candles

It totally does. I have to argue against this: they do exist, they just exist outside of normal numbers; this is just like how irrational numbers exist outside of the set of fractions of whole numbers, but they still exist. (Alternatively, there's the wonderful debate over whether any number actually exists, or whether they simply manifest themselves in our world, but that's a philosophical debate for another day. ) Unfortunately, my brain is not giving me any good puns right now. You know I had the exact same line of thought, then I got to the part where I wondered if any number could actualy be considered to exist so I decided not to say what I wanted to say about the imaginary numbers. -Gata

If it weren't for the fact the producers of both Young Justice and Green Lantern TAS have both spoken out repeatedly about how they were told by CN that their shows would not be renewed because they were too popular with girls, and they refused to market to girls via toys or accessories, maybe the rest of your mansplaining comment would have a purpose. 1. Would you be willing to provide a source for these quotes? Or...you know...the quotes themselves? All Google is giving me is some quotes from Paul Dini, who didn't work on Young Justice and never explicitly mentions it, saying that A. the executives want to go more for hyperactive, "lowest common denominator" humor for younger audiences instead of thought-out, mature writing, which is far from uncommon in any forms of media, and B. there is indeed sexism from executives, which I acknowledge now probably did play into the decision more than I originally assumed. That said though, even if it did play into it, I still find it hard to believe that it would be a bigger factor than the bottom dollar, which, again, did not favor Young Justice compared to other animated shows. I'm more than happy to provide the source for my viewing numbers for Young Justice, Adventure Time, Legend of Korra's first season(I know that citing a Wikipedia page is laughable, but the Wikipedia page isn't as much the source in and of itself, as it is a gateway to the sources, which are linked at each viewing statistic.), My Little Pony, Teen Titans Go!, and the number of TV households in the US. I would like to correct myself on one point; I botched my statistics when citing the viewing numbers for My Little Pony. The 4 million number I cited is from monthly views, not weekly. However it's also worth noting that I also had the date wrong on that statistic; I said it was from the start of the second season, when actually it was for the end of the first season. That may not sound like a big difference, but as someone that was part of the fandom at that time, I can tell you right now that it exploded in size between seasons, so the number from the end of season 1 is not at all indicative of the numbers for any of the later seasons. By all indications, that number has done nothing but increase dramatically, so it's fair to say that as of the current season, it's far beyond the 4 million a month mark. I will give you that Beware The Batman, one of the two shows meant to replace Young Justice and The Green Lantern, has been a ratings flop so far. However that is not the case looking at the success of Teen Titans Go! since replacing, where it's almost equaled the numbers from Young Justice within one season. On top of that, the series averages for the other shows outpaced the series high for Young Justice. It's not like they canceled a wildly successful show purely out of bigoted motives. 2. Even if I am wrong about why Young Justice was canceled - which I very well may be. I think I'm right, but I've been wrong before - this does not change that the core point that the entry is making("Guys like my little pony and they get a documentary, girls like superheroes and they get canceled) is a completely broken comparison. One was an independently-funded decision by a group of fans, and the other was a decision from the network itself. They decided to make the documentary themselves, and paid for it themselves. In theory, there's nothing stopping fans of Young Justice from making a documentary of equal quality arguing why it should be brought back. It's not like the network itself made the documentary or something like that. A decision by a group of individuals to pay for a Kickstarter is a completely invalid parallel to a decision made by the executives of a television network. It would be like holding sports team X in contempt because they fired player X, and citing the fact that the fans of sports team Y privately funded a statue of player Y as an example of why firing player X was wrong. The two have no correlation at all. 3. What the heck is "mansplaining"?

A member in my family is a lefty. We must strategize on how we sit at dinner to avoid getting in each other's way while eating.

i (talking to pi): be rational Pi (talking to i): get real Also there was how my Calculus teacher proved that relationships are evil. Relationships cost time and money. R=t·$ Time is money. t=$ R= $·$ or R=$^2 Money is the root of all evil. $^2= evil R=evil. QED Edit: Also happyn is adorable. <3

Screw you people with the "not all men" images. I'm getting really sick of this and all the other social justice junk I have to deal with. I consider myself to be fairly progressive, and I'm tired of being lumped in with horrible people because of the shows I like, the people I associate with, or, god forbid, the sex I was born with. Some people may think that turnabout is fair play, but I dealt with tons of bullying, stereotyping, and hate growing up (despite being, by most relevant measures, part of a privileged class), and I just don't see how turning that hatred back on people who mistreated me helps anything (especially through broad stereotypes that affect more than just the people who are actually to blame). I'm just about ready to give up on Tumblr, and I'd hate to have to do the same with BZPower. But continuously being told that my problems aren't valid just because I'm not gay or female or part of a designated minority wears me down.

i think youre forgetting one

I'm not denying the fact that the stuff you're talking about is vile and repulsive. I completely agree. However, this is the case with everything on the internet and, no, children should not even be using the internet without adult supervision or at the very least some kind of capable filtering software/parental controls. Anyone who thinks otherwise is irrefutably a moron. This also goes hand in hand somewhat with your comment about the convention(s). If a parent is going to bring their young children to a convention they should probably be sure of just what it is they're getting themselves and their children into. Now, granted, even I'll admit that it's not exactly inexcusable for a parent to not consider such given the subject matter. There are, in fact, still a lot of people who've never even heard about this whole brony thing yet. People who frequent the internet, at that. I know this because I've met them personally in my IT courses. I can understand where you're coming from and I don't blame you. When it comes down to it, though, it isn't all that much more polluted than any other given fandom out there. It just stands out more because a) I dare say it is currently one of the largest fandoms out there, b) it's against the societal norm, and c) its bar for "mature content" is set extremely low. This sort of stuff happens just the same with, say, an M-rated video game series. In such a case, though, there's already blood/gore/whathaveyou so it isn't such a large leap to get to the "unsavory interpretations". Takuma Nuva Ok, but here's the thing: the vast majority of fandoms do an extremely good job of keeping things that are NSFW, gore, etc. (things that the MLP target demographic should not be seeing), hidden and hidden well. I just did two google searches with safe search on (of "My Little Pony", "Applejack", and "Pinkie Pie"), and a second search on deviantArt with safe search on, and within seconds I found nudity, gore, and multiple other things that would be considered NSFW and highly inappropriate for a child to see under any circumstances. To check this to see if other things came up with other fandoms on google, I also did searches for "superhero", "Spiderman", "The LEGO Movie", "Ninjago", and "Sesame Street". All things are things that the average 4-8 year old would be interested in/my 3-4 year old students are raving about at the moment. None of those came up with anything that would be even remotely inappropriate for a 4-8 year old to see. The My Little Pony fandom does not do a good job at keeping their inappropriate content away from the target demographic. If a parent takes their child to a convention that is dedicated to a line of children's toys, they should not have to be on the constant lookout for inappropriate content. They should be able to take their children to a safe place where they can enjoy something they love.

Edit: Of course I finish my response after we're told to all cool it. If anyone actually wants my in-depth response let me know, but I'm not dumb enough to ignore a staff member telling people to chill, so for now it's nixed. Takuma, if you'd be willing to look it over in a PM or something to see if it's okay to put back up here, I'd appreciate it.

I feel like the badness of Nuva shoulders as chest armor is often overstated. It's not that it can't be done well, but rather that it almost never is. I feel like Axonn's stout dwarfish build benefitted from it, and I'm sure in all the time I've been a Bionicle fan I've probably seen one or two MOCs that used it well for "breasts" (though I'm in no mood to try and seek them out now). The problem is that just slapping them on a MOC and calling them boobs is as sloppy as it is lazy, especially on a mid-sized MOC where they inevitably end up ludicrously disproportionate.

Hiyall and welcome to the list of links to my all-time favorite Bones Blog entries, from the very start loooooong ago. This entry will replace the messed-up and prone-to-disappearing sidebar archive and will be linked in my sig. I've listed slightly different titles here than what are in the actual entries in some cases for clarity's sake. Comedies & Cartoons: Interview: Evil Clock Interview: Evil Lord Survurlode Interview: The Chief Gremlin, Minion Of Survurlode Interview: Gollaga, Enemy Of Survurlode Interview: Orca Goblahk, Ex-minion Of Survurlode Interview: Lawyerahk Bob, Of The Dreaded Real Life Attack Wing Pet Peeve Winners! Bo Ring Cartoon Collection #1 Bo Ring Cartoon Collection #2 The Bones Diet The Gold Key To Nongu Award For Theories Art & Writing Guides: Bones Drawing Guide Vector Art In Powerpoint: Quality, Inexpensive, Easy NOTE: Now I use OpenOffice Draw, which is freeware, very different from Powerpoint in some respects, actually more powerful in most. With that, you can make vector art that is not only quality and easy, but FREE. Coolifying With Powerpoint Vector Art .ppt Face Contest Winners! Ruthless Elegance: A Visual Guide To Cool The Arena Method Of Writing Adventure Mystery Secure Password Method -- Bang (Strategically) On Keyboard Best Of The Bionicle Entries: Easy Makuta Powers Guide Science Fantasy = Bionicle Focus Groups: An Interview With Greg Farshtey Bionicle Ends Right Now Everybody Loves Teridax (His Name ) Eight Years Of Toa Mata? Truthseeking & Debate: Good And Evil: Points Of View? Can Opinions Be Wrong? Join Petiton For Ban Bad Grammer Toady! Taste Reset Bars Exercise We're All Smart -- Brain Allocation Theory Off The Wall / Other: Ban Coffee Wacky Fanfic Elements UFO Theory -- Ionic Triangle Stealth Craft 1-800-HAPPY-SMILE-KIT Transillumination Home Makeover A Block Away SUBTRACT Oonahvay Labble The Orange Fades Wise Guy Universe Swept Aside Paracosmos RPG Game: The Map Of Mata Nui -- Walkthroughs: From Beginning To Ko-Koro, by Master of The Rahkshi and bngi From Le-Koro To Storyline End, by Master of The Rahkshi and bngi List Of Paracosmos Matoran, by Zarkan Pet Memorials: In Honor Of Penny In Memory Of Esne Some other favorite banners from otherwise boringish blog entries: There's a lot more entries I could link, but had a kinda of blah reaction to while looking over them just now, so didn't. Also, I'm not listing the MOC contest results entries mainly because the images don't seem to resize anymore and some are ridiculously huge. I'll work on a contest results archive later that will instead link to the powerpoint slides I made of them. Still have to pick the winners of one of them, I think... And as for Unseen, I'm going to finish writing it and just post it in Epics.

Great post. Your blog was really the only one I spent any significant amount of time reading. Regarding specific entries, I'm still waiting for all those wacky elements to show up in the Bionicle Paracosmos. So far, I think all we've really seen are Music (aka soulsongs) and the Mutated Elements (aka Kriitunga). Also, is it safe to assume that, since BZP hasn't had significant lag issues for years, Survurlode is either dead or has given up conquering BZP?

Reminder: The Pet Peeve Contest is open till November 29. One of the most asked questions about Bionicle is "What genre is it?" There's a lot of confusion about this, and today the Bones Blog brings you the answer to the question (and to why it's confusing!). There's a standard conversation that I see very often in S&T and other places. It goes something like this. Member A: "What genre is Bionicle?" Member B: "It's science fiction." Member C: "No, it's fantasy!" Member D: "It's supposed to be fantasy but there's all these machines messing things up." Member E: "It always had machines! It's science fiction but there's these mystical themes." Member F: "I agree." And on and on, ad infinitum. In reality, these members are falling prey to the logical fallacy of false dilemma/dichotomy; also known as the "Either/Or" fallacy. It's Both The answer is really very simple -- it's both! Bionicle is science fantasy. This is what Greg Farshtey has labeled it, and objectively speaking, it has all the elements of this genre. It is a blend of science fiction and fantasy themes. But you're probably thinking "But bones, but bones, I've never seen a sticky label on a book that says 'science fantasy'!" Very true. Science fantasy is a relatively new genre, and much that is in it is mislabeled as one or the other. Not everyone knows the term; not everyone even agrees that this is the term to use. There are some out there trying to push their own invented term for this new genre, probably hoping for the fame of inventing "the term". This has happened before. Science fiction was once a new genre too. When it first became popular, a plethora of terms popped up, everybody trying to promote the term they invented. It took a long time for the term "science fiction" to catch on. Now "science fantasy" is going through the same process. If you watch the "Sci-Fi" channel, you might notice that a lot of what they show feels more like fantasy. If you watch Star Wars for example, it's labeled science fiction, but there's the mystical element of the Force that the story centers around. One of the biggest problems is -- how are science fiction and fantasy defined? If you research this, you'll discover everybody has their own opinion, and they usually try to define it with some clever concoction of words, rather than simply looking at it logically. Well, this logician has his own opinion on it. Physics Fiction Spectrum Science fiction, science fantasy, and fantasy are all within a larger category that we could call "Physics Fiction". If you think about it, the common trait of them all is that physics is important to the storyline, as opposed to more "real world" fiction. What's more, "Physics Fiction" is a spectrum, not three seperate categories. At one end, science fiction focuses on real physics. The story centers around what real phsycists, scientists, etc. know about how our world works and takes it in an imaginative direction. At the other end, fantasy focuses on fictional physics. The story features physics invented by the author; taking physics itself in an imaginative direction. In between, science fantasy merges the two, melding real phsyics with fictional ones to give the fictional physics more of a sense of realism while also giving the imagination freedom. So here's what the spectrum looks like if you consider examples of popular physics fiction examples: Bionicle is probably one of the prime examples of "pure" science fantasy. You've got fictional elemental energy, protodermis, Kanohi, etc. and yet you've got machinery, technology, etc. blended together. Star Wars is another good example. Don't Misunderstand One myth that needs cleared up. This spectrum has NOTHING to do with the physics being "realistic". There's a big different between that and "real". "Real" phsyics are what our world just happens to have. "Realistic" physics is what is logically plausible in a fictional universe; physics that make sense but just happen to be different from ours. So just because Harry Potter's physics of magic spells are not real does not make them "unrealistic", nor does the presence of elemental energy in Bionicle mean that Bionicle physics are implausible. All quality physics fiction presents its physics as making sense. Some scifi or fantasy might keep the physics secret, presenting it as a mystery, but it's still intended to make sense. Some poorer quality science fiction might have just as implausible physics as poor quality fantasy. Science fantasy is not a compromise on physics making sense -- it simply delves into fictional physics, yet stays grounded in some real physics too. Of course, this excludes comedy examples that use nonsensical physics for comedic value. Another myth is that science fiction always takes place in the future while fantasy takes place in the past -- this is OFTEN true, but not always. Scifant often plays with this idea; Star Wars takes place long ago, for example, while Dune takes place in the future. Narnia took place in the present, as did Jurassic Park. Back to the Future took place all over time, but was grounded in the present. Bionicle isn't even in our universe at all, so it's not in the past, present, or future. Still another myth is that the vague concepts of "science" or "technology" are by definition only for science fiction. No, "science" is the study of physics, real or not, and technology is the use of those physics in machinery and the like. Within the fictional context of a world like Bionicle, the fictional physics is "real", and so there's no reason the Matoran cannot study it and use those physics to make machines such as Chutes, Vahki, Zamor Launchers, or Lava Boards. In Harry Potter, for example, there are magical machines and all sorts of technology that makes use of the fictional physics within that world. So don't mistake scifant for a melding of technology and mystical or natural themes. That is simply a theme that is popular in science fantasy because those two aspects do "feel" like either scifi or fantasy. But technically, science and technology are possible all throughout physics fiction. Popular Genre Lately there's been a shift among the public in popular genres, and story authors and observers are only just beginning to catch on. In the fairly recent past, the "science fiction" end of the spectrum was very popular. There is a giant collection of scifi fiction works out there, but most of it ceased in the late eighties. Some of the popular themes were starships, time travel, and alien planets. Star Trek has stood for all three of those for a long time. But nowadays, there's been a shift away from science fiction and towards fantasy, largely due to Harry Potter's success. People are tired of real physics, which often feels dry and "heady", and they enjoy the more mystical feel of fantasy, which gives more of a sense of freedom to tell enjoyable stories and focus on characters without the headaches required both to create and absorb quality science fiction. Recently we witnessed the failure of Star Trek's latest spinoff for this reason (among others), and this is also why you're seeing the "scifi" channel delving into fantasy and scifant a lot more. The negative reaction has been especially strong in the time travel category. Time travel used to be the perfect gimmick for get-rich-quick moviemaking schemers. Throw time travel in your story and BAM, popular. But the public seems to have either caught on or gotten tires of the complex mechanics of time travel. The latest example was "Daybreak" on ABC, which bombed in the ratings, despite it being highly enjoyable to physics geeks like me who love time travel, and even despite being actual high quality in terms of characterization. Even LOST may have been hurt by its use of time travel (or apparent time travel) in Season 3, which had dropping ratings. Thus I'm very, very glad Bioniicle has a rule against time travel, even if I'd personally enjoy it. At the same time, science fantasy has benefitted from this shift. Scifant that avoids time travel is pretty popular now, with Star Wars even doing well in its latest movies with starships and alien planets. The theme seems to be that enjoyable storyline is what the public wants most, and science fantasy allows this. Delving into fantasy physics frees up the storyline to have epic danger without getting too "heady" and "technobabbly", unlike science fiction. Also, one of my theories has been that we are living in an over-teched society nowadays, but we are still human -- we still long for nature. At the same time, we wouldn't want to live like Suvivor contestants -- we like some technology. Thus science fantasy that feels like a melding of nature and technology is naturally pleasing to people living in today's society -- it presents a world many of us wish we could live in, even if we don't consciously realize it. Conclusion Bionicle is "science fantasy", a blend of themes between science fiction and fantasy. It is in the center of a "Physics Fiction Spectrum", which is fiction that focuses on physics. Real physics are at one end of the spectrum, fictional physics at the other. In feel, Bionicle is a melding of nature, "magic", and technology. Its physics is designed to be different from our own, but to make sense and even feel somewhat 'scientific'.

A lot of people don't seem to know about this method, so here you go. Been meaning to do this for a while, recent events merely reminded me. Note, please take into account the suggestions mentioned in this Refdesk topic. Also HH has good tips here. The most secure passwords are random strings of as wide a range of keyboard characters as possible. An easy way to create them is to bang on your keyboard. It sounds primitive -- it is -- yet it gives you the most secure possible password. The only downside is you must record it somewhere, or memorize it, but I recommend copying it to paper; if you use if often enough you will probably memorize it anyways. So instead of agonizing over coming up with new passwords -- or worse using easily guessable ones -- just bang on the keyboard! For added security, though, here are several easy techniques to make it more strategic than just a random bang. 1) Make it long. Maximum possible if you can; unfortunately some sites limit passwords to twelve characters or so, which is IMO stupid but they do it. 2) Bang on the letters area AND the numbers area. 3) Make sure you're not just banging up and down in the same few spots. Cover the whole keyboard randomly. (Of course, avoid the F# buttons and other things such as the "Shut Down the Computer Instantly And Ruin All Your Unsaved Work Just Because A Cat Happened To Step On Your Keyboard" button if you have a keyboard from Stupid Design Enterprises™ like my other comp does.) For this I recommend slowing the process down, so you randomly bang, then consciously move your hands, then bang again, etc. until you have a long password. 4) Alternate holding and letting up on Shift as you bang, so that you get a mix of capital letters and symbols too. 5) Alternate holding the keyboard backwards, so the side that's normally away from you is closer to you, just so you don't get predictable finger-relation patterns. Though hackers would need to be super mathemeticians on the level of Charlie Eps on Numbers to use such patterns. Still. If you do Step 3 well enough this isn't necessary though. 6) Once you've got a long string, look for often-repeated characters and delete them. Also make a note to yourself to avoid hitting them so frequently in the future; if that happens often you're not doing Step 3 well enough. However, if it's fairly rare, leave them be, as a truly random string is quite capable of having repeated characters and if you interfere too closely you're probably making it easier to hack, not harder. 7) If you wanna go supersecure, bring in a few foreign characters (Insert Symbol option on Microsoft Word has a lot of 'em for example), although then you can't type it. Well, I've heard these have keyboard shortcuts sometimes but no idea what they are -- you could research that and stuff. But make sure you just randomly put a few in, and don't reuse the same ones. Also, don't use only these; remember the idea is to have a wide range of characters. Other advice, do NOT store it anywhere online. Especially not in email accounts, and never use the same password twice (see the web page the Refdesk topic links to). Assuming you haven't memorized it, you have two basic options IMU. One, store it in a text file on your hard drive, recommend naming it something illogical to have anything to do with passwords and bury in lots of other text. Then when you need to sign in, copypaste it to the password area. (You could write it on paper too as a hard backup, of course.) (Many people including HH advise against this, but aren't factoring for keyloggers, see below.) Two, write it on paper only, and physically type it in every time you need it. This is harder, and might be less secure in the case of keylogger viruses, which record keystrokes and can send them to the makers of the virus. On the other hand, if a hacker got into your files the other method could be equally risky. So which of these two you choose may not matter much, far as I know (and I don't claim to be a professional this is just based on everything I've heard/read over the years). What I recommend strongly AGAINST is storing it on the computer AND typing it in, as that puts you at risk of both ways for a hacker/virus writer to get it. The chances of either method or even the third one happening to you are rare, but better safe than... 8) Another idea to avoid both the above risks is to type it from paper, but use a random "count how many I've typed, skip characters, then count back and insert the missing characters" pattern, which you should probably write out in detail and diagram on paper instead of trying it from memory. This adds a level of security that could only realistically be thwarted if a hacker logged keypresses, mouse clicks, and where exactly you clicked. No idea if that's much harder for hackers lol, but it's further complexity and a normal keylogger is guaranteed not to break it right away. 9) In fact, you could even use a randomly shifting group of skip and insert patterns that you cycle or the like if you're REALLY paranoid. Or just periodically change your pattern. Unfortunately both methods 8 and 9 take the "easy" claim mostly out the window, but if you plan it properly, it's not much harder. My best advice, though, is this -- if you think these more complex ideas are too hard -- BANG ON YOUR KEYBOARD NOW. That, at least, is so kindergarteney easy with such great results there's no excuse to put off changing your password. Finally, change it often. Your idea of passwords online should NOT be something you memorize and then just use forever, IMO, but of something you must periodically change intended to keep your online stuff safe. The old simple memorizing idea is a nice gesture, and maybe in ancient times it worked fine, but it doesn't necessarily anymore. (On the other hand, a passphrase is still more secure than a password, so that idea hasn't entirely gone out of usefulness, but like I said, many sites limit your password max length to ridiculously low amounts, so phrases don't really work there; in that case I recommend not risking easily memorizable words, and you'd better be able to memorize the random string anyways.) Yarr. I intend to repub this several times in future. In other news, tons of work on the EM is happening. It rocks. Yay and stuff.

What I meant was, if you misunderstood me, don't open a text file on the computer and physically type what you see there into the password prompt. That puts you at risk for both keyloggers AND hackers getting into your files. You can either type from paper, or copypaste from text file, but don't mix the two strategies. Make sense? If I misunderstood you and you didn't misunderstand me, well oh well just checking. Update: Added some stuff I forgot, and a link to HH's recent blog entry on this subject.

The Bonesiii Mental Health Diet Important points are bold. Weight Loss Plan Eat less. Forever. Mental Health Diet Regiment All those veggy diets and such bleagh-ness neglect the importance of good taste for mental health. Besides, all the fancy schmancy diet intructions are murder on your sanity. Who cares about a flat stomach if you go insane? Therefore: eat tasty stuff. Just less of it. Cheese is good. Throw in a leaf of lettuce every once in a while if you feel like it. Try Honey Roasted Peanuts, they rock. Orange juice is cool. For meat... BK's Double Cheeseburgers. Aaaaaaaaaaaaw, yeeeee-uh!. The Price Just send me money! It works with all the other diets, right? Testimonials Pohatu: "I tried one of those liquid diet supplements, but I just kept putting on more weight. When you read the fine print for those things, it says it doesn't work without diet and exercise. I'm too lazy for exercise, and why bother with some extra supplement if the dieting is what actually does the trick? So I tried the Bones Diet, and voila! Dramatic weight loss! I've even turned the color of sharp cheddar cheese! Cheddar rocks, man!" Makuta: "I used to snack on Dark Hunters and anybody else I could get my Shadow Hand on, until I accidentally tried to eat a rock and ended up in a protocage for a few months. Not eager to repeat that experience, I tried the Bones Diet, and I can say I've most definately put the weight off!" Nuju: "Click whistle whistle tweet-chirp snap crackle pop whistle tweet tweet cluck caw cocka-doodle-dooooo! Raaaaahk! Polly wants a cracker! Raaaaahk! Polly wants a cracker! Raaaaahk!" Axonn: "Um... I have big bones." Karzahni: "What are you staring at? Physics is backwards in my realm, remember?" Ahkmou: "Nice try, dude -- I'm on the Makuta diet."

This seems to be another one of those gimmic diets. Maybe it's because an insane person made it, a person so insane that I would not trust his "mental health" diets for a dime. Personally, the Diet of Worms has always worked. ~EW~

So I wanted to post something besides the usual essay today but couldn't think of anything fast enough. This is a fallback I've had ready for a while, ever since an old (dead) COT topic. Plus someone else was blogging about UFOs so why not (see Czar's blog). Now, the UFOs in question here aren't the flying saucers. It's the giant, silent triangle craft with three running lights. There have been sightings all over the country, and I even know someone who claims to have seen one. This description is near-universal. It seems unlikely to me that it's made up. Well, a few months ago, there was an episode of Mythbusters that gave me an idea: Why I Think This is Plausible First of all, everybody's probably going "But what about ET?" Well, the answer is ET is working for us, and Rahkshi don't have running lights last I checked. But seriously, I don't think any of the alien ideas are actual plausible theories. That doesn't mean it's impossible -- believe me, I'd love it if there were aliens and if they had wacky enough technology to actually come here. But there's three huge problems with the idea: 1) Statistics. Statistically the chances of life-supporting planets being close enough to us for a sublight trip here (and then only to fly around trying not to be seen) are pretty unlikely. Never mind the fact that in both major origins worldviews, logically, it's unlikely that aliens exist at all, but that's a subject we can't get into here (and is full of confusion among the populus). Statistics for the homes of aliens are an even bigger problem. 2) Travel time. Let's assume that there's an intelligent, highly advanced alien civ on a planet on the other side of the galaxy. Unlikely, but pretend. They would have to spend hundreds of thousands of years to get here as sublight speeds, since there's an upper speed limit called the speed of light. Matter cannot reach or surpass this speed. So unless some aliens figured out how to make warp drive a reality, it's unlikely they'd come here. 3) Least likely scenario. There's two main possibilities for these UFOs IMO: (1) They're classified aircraft, and (2) They're aliens. Since we know the US de-classifies aircraft every once in a while, we can assume they have classified aircraft right now. So for both the silent triangles and flying saucers, isn't it logical to conclude the UFOs are most likely classified aircraft? The argument I see so often is "Here's evidence that there's really a UFO.... Therefore aliens are real." That makes no sense, really. Evidence that an unidentified flying object really is flying, and really is unidentified, is just that -- evidence that something's in the air that we don't know what it is. It's a giant logical leap to say it proves aliens. No, I would argue that it barely even implies them. I think a much better argument is "Here's evidence of UFOs, and also, we can assume USA has classified aircraft. Putting two and two together, UFOs are probably just classified aircraft." And then, the triangle shape of this theory would explain one of the types we hear about so often. *waits for government to storm house* ----------THIS PRESENTATION SPONSORED BY:---------

Bones knows too much, evac now! Postpone until next week! And besides, the reason why the Government would test around areas where it is likely to be seen is because people would tell others, it would be too incredible to belive, and denounced as insane. Less suspicion that way. Or is that what they want you to belive? *Makes alluminum hat*

Got tired of maj being offline so put the craft pic on bshelf for now. 1) Not if they're scouts, though I think you might have been joking. 2) Pretty sure that is where most sightings are, yes. But there have been exceptions. 3) Haven't seen footage no. But what kind of craft was it, and BTW, we can't assume all UFOs are from the US. There are other people in the world yanno, lol. But assuming for the sake of discussion that it was ours, I doubt the plan was to let it be seen. Missions of any kind, classified or not, can easily go wrong (and do). Well of course they're "real." Classified vehicles would be "real", no? And governments cover stuff up all the time. Part of their nature. CIA, yanno? If you had deflector arrays like in Star Trek, though, or forcefields of some powerful kind, debris wouldn't be an issue. And lol.

I'm not totally sure I understood what you're saying, but I think we can assume they weren't in "stealth mode" when they were sighted. BTW, another reason for running lights I thought of is this -- the craft are usually reported to be pretty large. It's possible they can't maneuver deftly if another aircraft approached, so need the lights so aircraft would know to dodge. At least when not spying on targets but flying to landing pads, etc. So you weren't just joking lol? As I said, the lights would presumably be so they can see when flying low, so as not to crash into trees and the like. They would switch them off when flying higher most of the time. So it's a stealth aircraft that's for flying low? Well, I don't think it can be a military thing in that case, because I think the military has night-vision technology... I hope you're kidding there, because my response would involve a lot of typing. I dunno why there'd be a distinction between military and anyone else -- night vision technology is very common (and it's pretty safe to assume any aliens smart enough to have hyperdrive would think of that too lol). Note that the above reason wouldn't be solved by night vision. Also, it's quite possible the government doesn't care if everyday citizens see the craft. We wouldn't be the ones they need to spy on with such a craft. I'm curious what the typing would entail, so start typing. I'm not ready to count it out either. Not sure I hope that these are aliens though, 'cuz if hi-tech aliens are keeping themselves secret from us, they'd probably be hostile.

So you weren't just joking lol? As I said, the lights would presumably be so they can see when flying low, so as not to crash into trees and the like. They would switch them off when flying higher most of the time.

The triangular kind.

But why do you jump to the conclusion that it is aliens? When that is the least likely explanation? Isn't it a lot more likely that UFOs (which simply means unidentified flying objects) are simply classified aircraft? If you think the mere sighting of an aircraft implies aliens from lightyears upon lightyears away, I think you don't understand the incredible difficulties any aircraft would have to overcome in order to cross such a huge distance. Especially if you assume they weren't from the nearest star system -- that would be unlikely anyways. And Mars is pretty much old hat now, lol. And if you pay attention to US aircraft history, you know that from time to time the military de-classifies aircraft that it's had all along. So isn't it logical to assume they've currently got some aircraft that are still classified? And are in operation?

2008 is full of Makuta -- even the canister villains are Makuta. These masters of power have quite a lot of, well, powers. Remembering them all can be tricky, but rewarding for fun roleplaying, fan fiction writing, or even just enjoying the Bionicle story. So today the Bones Blog brings you an easy way to "decode" and memorize all the Makuta powers. Basics First, all modern Makuta have transcended normal life and death. This means they all:Exist as antidermis energy-gas inside strong Protosteel armorCan use mask powers, each has their own maskCan slowly die if armor is shattered -- gas slowly scatters so they must find another host fastAntidermis can control Matoran, etc.Don't need sleep, foodCan absorb other beings, killing them and adding to the Makuta's mass, or absorb stuff.In addition, they were all once scientists that made Rahi creatures for the whole universe so often experiment and still know how to make new creatures or mutants. They became guardians of certain zones before betraying Mata Nui, and came to learn just about all there is to know in the Matoran universe. All current Makuta are evil. Mask Powers:Makuta of Metru Nui -- ShadowsAntroz -- Corruption (decompose objects)Chirox -- Silence (make target deaf, mute)Vamprah -- Hunger (drain light, energy, positive emotions, turn Matoran into Shadow Matoran)Icarax of Karzahni -- Wears Shadows for now, normal mask unknownMutran -- SilenceSpiriah of Zakaz -- CorruptionKraata Powers:Makuta can make kraata slugs out of their substanceKraata come in 42 types, each with their own powerKraata can that infect masks and control the wearerCan put Kraata in energized protodermis to make Rahkshi armor for another Kraata to control like a vehicle with enhanced power and a staff to focus itNow, can carry Tridax Pods in their chests, with Shadow Leeches insideShadow Leeches are mutant Kraata that turn Matoran into evil Shadow Matoran42 Rahkshi Powers42 can be thought of as seven groups of six, like seven Toa teamsEach power can be roughly equated with the six elements of the Toa MataArranged counterclockwise from Ta-Wahi on Mata Nui Island, elements are: Fire-ishWater-ishSton-ishEarthishIce-ishAir-ishThe Seven Lists: Here's the powers, with the justifications for how I've arranged them. Note that of course many are a stretch, but the idea here is to aid memorization. Most Makuta-ish: Most easily identified with Makuta. Shadow and Shapeshifting are obvious, Mind Reading and Illusion were tactics Makuta used most often in the Chronicles Books, Makuta teleported the Toa to the surface after they beat him in MNOG, and Chameleon goes with Shapeshifting.Darkness -- Leads all Makuta powers; fire = leaderShapeshifting -- Water is fluid like Makuta's shapesMind Reading -- Turaga Onewa had a mind mask power Teleport -- Biggest stretch Chameleon -- Ice can be harder to spot than many thingsIllusion -- Turaga Matau had an illusion mask powerRahkshi Mata: Powers of emotion and destruction, these are the six Rahkshi Makuta sent to stop the Toa of Light from coming.Fear -- Red Rahkshi in Mask of Light storyDisintegration -- Blue Fragmentation -- Brown Hunger -- BlackAnger -- WhitePoison -- GreenKal Elements: Still not sure why Makuta have these six elements and not the main six elements themselves, but hey. Electricity -- Red Bohrok KalMagnetism -- BluePlasma -- BrownGravity -- BlackSonics -- WhiteVacuum -- GreenEnvironmental: Control over, or resistance to, what is surrounding you is what makes these powers stand out.Fire Resistance -- Fire Toa have thisWeather Control -- Water affects weather stronglyRahi Control -- Po-Koro MNOG had more visible Rahi than other KoroInsect Control -- Bugs and dirt mixIce Resistance -- Ice Toa have thisPlant Control -- Le-Wahi is full of plantsStrong Attacks: These are all destructive powers. All but molecular disruption are easily identified as "projectile" attacks of some sort.Heat Vision -- Fire's hot yoChain Lightning -- Lightning hits water = bad, reminds me of a water beamLaser Vision -- Lasers could carve rockMolecular Disruption -- Similar to rock coming apart into dirtPower Scream -- Would shatter ice, goes with white Kal of SonicsCyclone -- DuhSubtle Attacks: You are getting veeeeeery sleepy. Now you are asleeeeeeep. Now you're being infeeeeeeected.Stasis Field -- Vakama made Vahi; Tahu used it to put Kal in time-stasisConfusion -- Underwater navigation is confusingSlow -- Pohatu is slow without his mask power of speed.Sleep -- It's dark underground, like night when people sleepSilence -- Kopaka is silentAccuracy -- Projectile accuracy could be done via air currents tooPower-ups: These all affect the Makuta himself more so than a target, giving the Makuta a special ability, useful in battle but defensive rather than offensive.Limited Invulnerability -- Sorta like the Mask of ShieldingAdaptation -- Common example is developing gillsDensity Control -- Rock is denseElasticity -- Dirt can bend, as it wereQuick Healing -- Ice can be quickly shaped or refrozen, etc.Dodge -- Air Toa are acrobatic, can dodge wellNOTE: There may be more powers; for example MoMN had a "Shadow Hand" power in LoMN but it's not known if all Makuta have this power. In roleplaying and fanfictions, it's plausible to make up new powers for them. In the story, we might learn of other powers in the future. This content also available in topic form here.

Well, it was more that I needed an entry since I'm trying to keep this a weekly blog at least. But no, I 've been meaning to do something like this for a while. I can use this a lot myself, after all, as my fanfics feature Makuta (and eventually will catch up to 2008).

Yes, but as I said: Obviously I don't think Greg had this in mind when he chose these powers; it's purely a way to help remember them. And underwater nav'ing is confusing. And thanks. You learned this from being on the orange submarine, no doubt?

That wasn't his original mask though. Technically, they're only the known ones, there may be more. It's not just Matoran. You might want to add that they have those powers outside of their Rahkshi powers. All Makuta can as it is part of their non-Rahkshi shadow power, the same way Takanuva can make a light hand. That's all I noticed at first.

Maybe, but it had a specific function with rules -- it was basically a "yo-yo grappling hook" that, once released, had to grab something and had to retract. (The last rule worked against Makuta in LoMN when he accidentally grabbed a giant rock, which then had no choice but to slam into him.) That sounds a lot more like a unique power than just part of darkness. Yaknow maybe it's just part of the ability to absorb other beings mixed with darkness though.

Yes, but as I said: Obviously I don't think Greg had this in mind when he chose these powers; it's purely a way to help remember them. And underwater nav'ing is confusing. And thanks.

I've had it recommended to me and I've read about it, but never had time to actually get it and read it.

I don't really know about your placement of the Matrix (should probably be right on the fence of sci-fi and scifant), but it's a good analysis. It's also part of the reason I like Bionicle, because it's well-grounded, it's not that ANYTHING can happen, there are limits. And yes, the no-time-travel thing would be cool, but it would definitely cheapen the integrity of the story. Such as an improbability drive, or flying just because you missed the ground, lol? Ah, gotta love the Bones Blog, one of the few places where you can hear the word "Thus", and undergo some quality over-usage of the scroll bar. -VK- PS. Episode I Racer = win.

You can call me bones. I guess I can edit the pic to add Marvel in there, heh. Edit: Edited.