also, the whole mlp:fim phenomenon began as trolling; those whose heads the troll went over latched onto it as something cool and started calling each other bronies and referring to the show as “a masterstroke of worldbuilding and character craft” that “skews heavily toward the male 18-35 year old demographic.”

in a way, the troll was unsuccessful because rather than pissing off the target, we gave them something they can enjoy, since, much like many weeaboos, the bronies for whatever reason fixate on things intended for children (the psychological possibilities as to why are fascinating). but maybe the troll is successful in the sense that the bronies keep spreading this tripe all over the internet, which in turn both trolls more people (albeit unintentionally) and gives them more converts.

bronies, i suppose, wind up being the viral carriers of the troll.

*shrug*

Kudos for using the metric system.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucurMr28dt0

Have you somehow managed to avoid learning about the pony madness that has infected the Internet? That’s actually a little comforting to hear and I feel kind of bad to spoil your ignorant bliss.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Little_Pony:_Friendship_is_Magic_cult_following

One useful side effect of the show getting most of its revenue from merchandise: Hasbro’s expressed basically no desire to take down the episodes uploaded to YouTube. (And they’re not even broken into half-episode chunks!)

Hmm. Actually, it’d be kind of interesting to – in conjunction with Eric R’s point about the small size and therefore reduced mass of Fluttershy – to work out how many layers of butterflys would be needed. What /is/ the packing ratio for a standard butterfly?

Also: Who knew butterflys were such commie scum? Helping each other like that. *pshaw* Clearly they vote Democrat.

The new show is a masterstroke of worldbuilding and character craft. The creator, Lauren Faust (of Powerpuff Girl fame) went out to make a show for kids with cosmology, real danger, and intelligence. She appropriated six archetypical personality types from romance novels to form a main cast of strong females. And she’s listening to the internet, with at least one character suggested by fans (Derpy) having regular cameos on the show. (There may be another, Dr. Whooves, but whether they’re using him intentionally or not is not certain.) In the process she’s made a terrific cartoon — with all its episodes available on Youtube — that skews heavily toward the male 18-35 year old demographic. It proves that an intelligent show featuring strong women can be a big hit, no matter what the format.

This has become an internet meme of the highest order. I’m boggled that this is the first time BoingBoing has come across it. Watch some episodes and you’ll understand. Join the herd. :)

http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/my-little-pony-friendship-is-magic

The show (My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, not the earlier incarnations) is brilliant. Amazing animation, considering it’s all done in Flash. Great characters, etc.

Also, I love this kid. “I watch a show for little girls called My Little Pony…” *hoofbump*

Sure, it started on /b/ as a trolling scheme, in february (doubtly so now, yet you still have threads), but that’s what you get for being /b/. However, long before, on /co/, Something Awful, Facepunch and other places, it wasn’t a trolling scheme and rather the fascination about how a show that was EXPECTED to be hilariously bad was somehow so good.

I have issues with the other analyses: (a) momentum is /not/ conserved in the see-saw (the momenta are in opposite directions!). You could solve it with conservation of angular momentum around the fulcrum of the see-saw, I suppose, but I would use conservation of energy. And (b) the force needed to stop the pony is much greater than just counteracting its weight. You need to compute the average force required to decelerate the pony over such a short distance (and/or short time – you can compute it two different ways).

So, depending upon the parameters of the assignment, it wouldn’t earn a 100% in my class, but I think the assignment itself is quite clever, and I love the enthusiasm from the student and the class.