I moved all my brony stuff to another tumblr, but I forgot to update the bio in all of my profiles to point to that site. So if you’re looking for stuff from my less professional side go follow that one. This one’s mostly for programming-related stuff these days.
“Great ideas don’t sound like great ideas before they happen. They sound unlikely. Egotistic.” — Scripting News: Can Larry reboot Google?
Earlier today on Twitter I was talking with some bronies on the topic of our favorite ponies. I explained how I started out liking Rainbow Dash but settled on Twilight because apparently I can suspend enough disbelief to say a world with talking ponies exists but giving myself wings is *too much*. A discussion as to whether wings or horns was cooler ensued, and I sided with the uncool Earth ponies.
This has roots in darker days when I played Dragonball Z MUDs but that’s a story for another day. Suffice to say I hate universes with an obviously advantageous character because everyone picks that one. When it comes to ponies, we’re at least limited by canon to 2 alicorns but that doesn’t stop an abundance of pegasus/unicorn ponies.
None of the pony races seems to have a focused talent. Yes all winged ponies can fly, but Rainbow Dash is an exceptional flier while Fluttershy is more at home with ground creatures. Twilight Sparkle has powers that rival Celestia’s, but Rarity is more dangerous with fabric than magic. It’s the Earth ponies that are hard to define: Apple Jack seems on par with Rainbow Dash for athleticism and Pinkie Pie’s displayed abilities that defy rational explanation: she’s faster than Rainbow Dash, aware of the fourth wall, and even Celestia seems hesitant to question her actions.
I’m a huge nerd and tried to come up with a way to explain this. I’ve got a little bit of knowledge of how D&D works, and started thinking about how characters are created. What I wanted was a solution where Earth ponies play a role like humans in D&D: no latent abilities but able to amass power and abilities more quickly. The more I thought about it the more it seems to fit. So here’s what I came up with.
A pony can pick one of three classes. Ponies can obtain abilities as they gain levels (through undefined means) with a notable milestone being acquisition of a cutie mark, which bestows additional power in a specialization. I remember there being specific perks you could take at character creation in D&D, here’s how I think it works:
This seems to fit well. Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy were born with flight. Dash gained athleticism and Fluttershy gained animal friendship. Twilight and Rarity were born with magical talents. Twilight gained more magical ability and Rarity gained fashion sense. Apple Jack was born with no talents but selected physical strength, and further augmented this strength when she got her cutie mark. Pinkie Pie was born with no talents, her birth talent is unclear, but she specialized in parties when she got her cutie mark. Pinkie Pie’s mysterious birth talent is the secret to her power, but I also have a suspicion her time on the rock farm was equivalent to power-leveling or she’s found an artifact. Perhaps she’s a lich; I dunno. The mane cast is significantly more talented than most background ponies, indicating their life experiences have brought them to a higher level.
I don’t care to enumerate all of the possible perks/talents ponies can choose; I think leaving it unbounded is more fun. It seems to fit well: there aren’t any multitalented pegasus or unicorn ponies but proof Apple Jack can at least match Rainbow Dash’s athleticism and Pinkie Pie threatens to overpower them all. Thus I assert the humble Earth Pony is possibly the most powerful of all, and more people should appreciate them.
This show edges out the TMBG at Stubb’s show that’s been my favorite concert for years. We had great seats, it was a great show, and we got roped into a sort of audience participation. Weird Al is a really good performer. He changed into song-appropriate costumes often, and filled the costume change breaks with content from his Al TV show and clips from the many shows that have referenced him and his work.
The crowning moment was during a song made up entirely of horrible, horrible pickup lines. He entered the crowd and began singing the lines to random audience members. He sang, “My love for you is like diarrhea, I can’t hold it in” to my wife and we cracked up. Then he proceeded to climb an empty chair behind us and do a booty dance. Of course after he was finished was when my lizard brain remembered, “Hey, you’ve got a video camera you should have taped that.” Whoops!
There’s too much to describe and I know the titles of so few songs so it’s hard for me to do a long recap like I did for The Flaming Lips last year on my more stuffy blog. Don’t miss Weird Al if you get the chance to see him live. He’s worth it.
Why Silverlight was destined to fail and my time as one of its custodians. | RIAGENIC.com -
Wow. Just wow. Curious how much is rage and how much is true.
The Fraying of a Nation's Decency - NYTimes.com -
Whoa just read this, so true
“If you’re indispensable, you can hold on to your job — maybe. But the flip side is that you can’t let go of your job either. You can never wash your hands of a project, never hand it over to someone else. You cannot be promoted. You’ll need to take your laptop with you on vacation, if you’re able to take vacation.” — Do you really want to be indispensable? — The Endeavour
Capital punishment: A death in Georgia | The Economist
stephpellegrin asked: TUMBLLLLRRRRRRAH!
What is this I don’t even
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