TopQuark

I use Sublime, since it's the best free editor I could find that works with OSX. Also, I love its dark colour palette.

I'd really like to get proficient in a couple languages, but so far have only learned the basics. I've made a couple basic Minecraft mods in Java by loosely following a guide, have reasonable knowledge of Lua, as well as a small amount of experience with Python. Also, I know some of the Arduino language for robotics and such.

I have to say, I probably like Lua the most so far due to its light-weight, easy to learn syntax. I want to learn C++ to start game development, but it seems to be a little too involved for someone of my level. I anyone has advice for learning it, I'd like to hear it.

What is really interesting about this experiment is it has potential to invalidate Newton's Third law of motion, which would really shake up our understanding of physics.

Newton's Third Law is more flexible than many give it credit for, and I doubt having a thruster that doesn't use reation mass will change anything as major as that. You can propel yourself across the room in an office chair without expelling mass, just jiggling yourself back and forth. In this case, you're reacting against the force of friction of the ground. Newton's third law says that you just have to react against something, whether it be mass or an energy field. The Hubble space telescope doesn't break any physics just because it can use the magnetic field of the Earth to desaturate its reaction wheels without propellant.

Do note that the actual prototype is a rather crap engine even if you do not require a propellant.  The thing still only produces around a milliNewton of thrust when consuming 1 kW of power, so you would need 5 MW of power to generate a single pound of thrust.  Maybe if you brought a nuclear reactor into orbit with it, but you would probably be better off with something like a VASIMR if you were going that route.  The main problem with space travel remains escaping Earth's gravity in any case.

There have been no attempts to optimise the (really quite crude) prototype device, so there is no data on how much/little improvement in performance is gained from proper maufacture. Resonance cavities need to be extremely precise for optimal performance, so I imagine if the EM drive works, it can be improved quite a bit.

I live in Canada, I go down to the US a few times a year, I've been to Mexico, and I landed in Austria to go to the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

The first composer known by name is a woman, yes, and that's very neat. What I was referring to are conductors, members of orchestras, instrumentalists in general, etc. (When I said composers, I was referring to composers who were talking about how one should conduct an orchestra). [in which, around the time that Enheduanna lived and composed, the positions relevant to that time were not kind to women. Women were straight-up barred from education (in music and in general), and musical competitions.]

 

Women were straight-up prohibited from these positions, and as I stated, not all of this is ancient history. According to my history book on the oboe (simply called The Oboe, lol), the Vienna Philharmonic was continuing to refuse admission to women as late as 2004 (when the book was published). It was also noted that playing the oboe professionally in general was not opened up to women until the early twentieth century.

 

And it is the very definition of misogyny. In that same book, a male member of an orchestra laments the idea of men and women playing together in the orchestra, because the presence of a woman in the orchestra would be too distracting for him. Then he notes another male member of the orchestra saying "If she is attractive, I can't play with her; if she is not, then I won't". How much more misogynistic can you get than that? Honestly.

 

Trying to bring up the idea that if women had the freedom to work and not be stay-at-home would cause the collapse of society in the twentieth century, Mesopotamia, or Ancient Greece or any time, is just about as ridiculous as saying that accepting homosexuality will bring reproduction levels down too low and bring about the destruction of society. Just like a large number of people are normally straight, a number of women do like being stay-at-home and taking care of children. However, the option for us to do whatever the heck we want because we are people, should have always been there. No excuses. And as I said, if you go back in history, that is NOT even the reason presented. The reasons presented were like "But her presence here might distract me!"

 

Now, obviously, history has not always been black-and-white, it has not always been a straight-line toward "less sexism"... But at ALL points in history, women have been barred from doing MANY different things for sexist reasons, and a lot of these do line up. And as I said, I was reminded of this numerous times in numerous classes in just one day. "By the way, only men could do this..." "By the way, this was only men"... That's all history ever seems to be about, and it hits hard when it's talking about something I'm passionate about.

I never tried to deny that sexism was not pevalent in history, I was just saying that its not really the only contributing factor to the lack of professional and specialist women.

Actually, I'm more concerned about this school of yours. When I took music in highschool, we had a older female teacher who was trained by nuns, was an excellent pianist, and was extremely knowledgeable about all the standard ensemble instruments. There was none of this talk of "what women couldn't do a few decades ago". My friend was the star of the show; the best sax player in the school. She even got accepted into a local orchestra as an extra-curricular. She never even mentioned the issue. Because it's not an issue, it's a thing of the past.

Your passion is music, and mine is science. No one can deny the proportional lack of women in science, mosly due to the high degree of difficult education. If I were to wager, I'd bet that women have a higher chance of completeing a science post-grad degree, but comparitively few sign up in the first place. It just seems to not be a typically feminine interest. Don't ask me why; I'd love to see more women in science.

Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is that social rules mean little to someone who is dedicated. Everyone knows the story of Marie Curie. She, too, wasn't allowed into standard higher education. If she had let that discourage her, she likely would have accomplished very little. Instead, she essentially said "screw the system" and went into science anyway, raising her own money and educating herself. Now, she is one of the most accomplished scientists in history. My point is, if you see something blocking your way to achieving something you care about, you don't just sit there and moan about it, you get up and actually try to do it anyway.

So now, in 2016, you are doing what you love, learning music. You have your cake, and you didn't even have to break any laws to get it. Are you going to waste energy that could be going into studying getting worked up over an injustice from the past that doesn't affect you, or will you be greatful to live in a time where you can do what you want, and focus on using your talent to make the world even better? I know I'm happy not being forced to drudge away in some filthy field for a living.

Is everyone forgetting that there is a gender-neutral term? Many times have I heard the use of the term "pony fan" or "MLP fan".

I've been reminded in pretty much every single music class that women have only been allowed into these professions for a very short amount of time...

Pardon-moi? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_female_composers_by_birth_date

As can be read in the intro, there is no doubt that women's compsitions were marginalized, but to say that they were out-right prohibited from the profession is simply erroneous. The same is true with just about every other profession. It would be easy to see a distinct lack of females in a profession's history and conclude "misogyny", but you would have to ignore many facts.

Feminism seems to have decried the steriotypical position of "house-wife", but none of them seem to realize that house-keeping and child-raiseing is an extremely important occupation, and without it, society would have collapsed before civilization could even get started. Women need to suckle the child for the first few months, and men biologically have the muscle strength to work fields or mines (what 90% of men did until relatively recently in history). It's just a matter of convenience; nothing "misogynistic" about it. When farming got good enough to support specialists like artists and scientists (both of which have certainly never been male-exclusive), men were just in a better position to take those jobs.

Now, technology has gotten to the point where caring for children and homes is much easier (vacuums, dish-washers, frozen breast milk/formula, kid's TV shows, etc.), that the parents actually have a choice which one stays home and which works, or if both work, or both stay home.

We live in a wonderful age of opportunities, and it bothers me whenever someone points to the past and tries to use it as evidence for discrimination in the present.

Gotta go with Havarti and Monterey Jack.

If it doesn't live up to some people's incredibly unrealistic expectations, than yes.

I don't know about the rest of the fandom, but I'm not exactly sure what I expect of this. As long as they don't do something stupid and marry Twilight and Flash (*shudder*), and generally just stay as far away from Equestria Girls as possible, I'll be glad.

How long did it take you to learn how to properly draw, and what resources did you use to do it? For example, did you just decide one day to learn, and bought a bunch of stuff like tablets, softeware, and instructions? Or did you start small with pencils and paper?

I'm inclined to agree with Doug/Rob Walker and Shoe0nHead/ArmouredSkeptic's belief that your opinion going into the movie will mostly decide how much you'll enjoy it. Personally, I've boycotted it, mostly for "political" reasons. I might see it one day, but I'm not much of a movie watcher, so it'll be on the end of a whole list of other movies that I expect to actually entertain me.

It's a relationship of rolling the dice over and over and hoping you come out on top. Wish there was a better way, but sadly there isn't.

*ahem*

I don't think this is a real phobia, but when I was a small child, I was terrified of large, dark clouds at nighttime. I somehow got it into my head that they were black holes, and were going to suck up the Earth. I guess I've always been a nerd.

Lack of growth is not indicative of nearing termination. Humans stop major growth sometime in their 'teens, but that doesn't mean they're anywhere close to dying. I'm no statistician, but I'd say that the fandom has been around long enough that it has already attracted most of the people predisposed to joining it. What Hasbro will make of the situation is yet to be seen, but even if they cancel the show and primary toy market, I don't see that having too much of an effect on the 'core bronies', as much of our content is third-party anyway (PMVs, fanfics, etc.). If anything, Hasbro cutting the MLP line might actually help brony creators, since the corporation wouldn't be so desparate to keep the brand in its iron fists, thus less likely to bother dishing out C&Ds left and right.

For the BronyCon attendance, I think the reason is because this year it was in July, when in other years it was in August. Also, it was exactly 2 weeks before San Diego Comic Con, which is one of the biggest conventions in the world, so it had serious competition. I expect that attendance will grow next year since it will be in August again.

Is there any word on why they did that, exactly? It was almost enough to keep me from going again this year.

I've been using my Macbook Pro for about five years, and I've never had any serious virus or malware issue. Hoever, since it is getting rather old, I decided to get Avast, just in case.

This is an interesting question, though I haven't personally seen much of it. You could ask the counter-question, why do bronies and furries tend to get along? What dictates one group of non-homogenious group's disposition towards another? I'm no sociologist, but it seems like a very complicated question to me.

I read an article once I thought had a really interesting quote that would pertain to this discussion.

 

"The occasional overly pedantic Tumblr user targeting white men in power is dwarfed by the thousands of racist, sexist, and homophobic tirades which flood online comments sections every single day. Who’s the real problem here?"

Answer: the overly pedantic Tumblr user.

A person may act completely inappropriately online, because they know they can get away with it. They know what they're doing, and 'most' are not dumb enough to act that way in the real world. SJWs, on the other hand, actually believe what they are doing is for the good of humanity, and often congregate to force their beliefs to be accepted. Just type "SJW protest" in YouTube, and you'll understand.

That's not the gender wage* gap.. or related at all. The gender gap is a difference in wages between women and men. Furthermore, if you read the rest of my post, you'd understand I also stated that it exists for both sides. 

Oh, I did read your whole post (I'm not one of those guys). I was just confused by your use of the term "gender gap". If you meant some dipairity between the earnings of different sexes, that's usually referred to as the "wage gap".

Furthermore-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjWBXbGVyQU

But that's besides the point. Your nonpartisian stance is appreciated.

"So while I do htink that the gender gap is real and exists and needs to be fixed..."

What exactly is the "gender gap"? Last I heard, there were more females than males in most developed countries. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_sex_ratio ( see fig. 1)

Is it pathetic that I actually contemplated getting that tattoo for a while?

Not at all! Though, I've never heard of glow in the dark tattoos. Doesn't seem healthy...

I've seen the CH video discussed here, and I agree that it was mis informed, but more importantly, simply unfunny.

However, this CH video below I actually found to be very funny. It still plays on the common brony stereotypes, but does so in an actual comedic fashion, rather than simply mocking bronies.

Ah, so much nostalgia being brought up in this thread. Many fond memories of spending summer days in the library reading these books. I think I only got to around book five, but I really enjoyed them. The stories were excellant, since I can still remember a lot of them now, four or five years later. All the alien races were so real to me, so fleashed out. It even influenced my taste in scifi with lasting effects; to this day, I still draw insiration from it.

Could we just not? The show is fine with its current dynamic. Nopony needs to have their sexuality revealed. When has romance ever worked out in the show? The only reason Cadance and Shining Armor did is because they were sort of contrived to fill that roll. The Cakes were already together, and Cheerilee/Big Mac didn't go anywhere. And we all know how Flash Sentry went down. The way I see it, this could only go poorly.
 
Just leave it to the fan fiction, and everyone can be happy.
 
 

A part of me honestly wants FlutterDash or Rarijack to happen JUST TO SEE the massive mounds of salt that would be produced by the AppleDash shippers, it would greatly amuse me.

 
Oh, and you expect us TwiDashers to just sit here and be marginalized? I see how it is. /s

I find it funny that, as a Canadian, I've never heard of most of the people being discussed here (besides Franklin and the big presidents), since I'm no history buff. I've always found American bills quite boring. They're just shade of mossy green, and don't have anything interesting to look at. Canadian banknotes, on the other hand, are colourful and shiny, and the transparant security features are quite cool.

My favourites are the reverse sides of the five and hundred dollar bills, the five depicting the Canadarm on the ISS, and the hundred showing a vial of insulin, a strand of DNA, and other neat science things.

Now if only our government could do something about the drop in currency value. There's a "seventy cents to a dollar" wage gap all right, but not for women. It's Canadians who should be getting all the "equal pay for equal work" crap.

As for changeing the American bill, from what I've read here, it seems like this Jackson fellow probably never should have been put on it to begin with. Tubman seems like a good subtitute, but I would warn against shoehorning in people for the sake of "diversity". Only the people most important to a country should be on the currency. There shouldn't be any shame in admiting that the majority of people involved with making your country great were of a certain race or sex, just because that was the way things were in the past. You don't see many white people on African or Asian currencies.

Did I miss some news? What's all this talk about the movie's rating?

Of the hundreds (literally) of stuffed animals I collected in my youth, these are my favourites, though the only one I sleep with is my Twilight plushie.

From left to right is:

- Brum-Brum (Czech onomatopoeia for the sound a bear makes)

- Twilight

- "Racoonie" (Creative, I know)

- A Boo (From Nintendo games)

- Chibi Vinyl Scratch (who looks even cuter with my beret on)

- The Companion Cube (from the Portal games)

- Hobbes (Named after the tiger from the comic "Calvin and Hobbes")

I also would have liked to include my oldest plushie, Klubíčko (Czech for "yarn ball") the cat, but I couldn't find it at the moment.

So, as you can see, they were quite a hobby of mine when I was younger.

I just got back from the movie theatre, and thought it was great. Most of the jokes were spot-on, but I found the music (at least the main themes) to be a tad uninspired. One of my favourite jokes was the Breaking Bad reference.