I just watched MMMYstery on the Friendship Express.

Is it just me, or does Gustav sound like the French Diplomat from Medieval II Total War?

edited 7th Feb '13 9:19:23 PM by SantosLHalper

@ Hsere: I might be in the minority here, but I'm not interested in celebrity news at all. It's just one long, droning bore to me.

My favorite episode!

@Syd; Minority? I don't know a single person that cares about celebrities... unless its like some really cool person that just died, and then its just "Aw man, that sucks", and then we all move on with our lives.

To be honest, I don't think I will care all that much even if Ms. Faust herself passes away.

edited 7th Feb '13 9:24:22 PM by dRoy

I won't start going on about why I like it so much though. You all know why.

Best pony cucumber bit right here.

Spike (to Rainbow Dash): We're dating now.
Rainbow Dash: Whahuh?

@ Calnos: Good. I don't give an airborne rodent's posterior about what (or who) the Karkrashians are doing this week.

edited 7th Feb '13 9:28:06 PM by Sydxelia

@Calnos: Its the same for everyone I know. But someone must be interested. I mean, they make a hell of a lot of magazines about it.

@Apple: Nope. No idea at all.

edited 7th Feb '13 9:28:55 PM by Crowfall

@Syd: I'd say you're the majority on the internet, and the minority among the general population (those magazines wouldn't be at the front counter of every grocery store in the U.S. if they didn't sell). Which was my point. Internet-denizens (many of us, anyway) take a (justified) dismissive or disdainful attitude toward such celebrity news. In that light, I find it amusing to see a forum contingent of a largely internet-based fandom so pumped about two of their own "celebrities" (or the closest thing we have) getting together.

Apparently I am really bad at this "humor" thing.

Eh, celebrity news....zzzzz...

Sorry, it's just boring

From Pixiv with :3

edited 7th Feb '13 9:33:17 PM by AceOfScarabs

@ crowfall

I'd care more about celebrity news if they were actually celebrities I'm familiar with.

Like Sibsy.

I don't care about celebrities much either.

Moving on to a topic that will hopefully involve less fail from me:

Here's my question about the Documentary/Piracy thing: did they base that decision upon "too few digital sales, " or "too much observed pirating?" That'll be a serious factor in whether I think their decision was justified, and they don't seem to specify. Also, based upon the Kickstarter post, the hard copy isn't on the shelves yet, nor are the Amazon and iTunes digital versions available, so they can't be basing their decision on total sales to date.

I also question the wisdom of this move: "Lesson learned, we are moving on and focusing on distribution to the mainstream public." - http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/257527888/bronycon-the-documentary/posts/400952

They are aware that piracy is rampant among the mainstream public, too, right?

For the record, I think piracy ultimately hurts everyone, and I don't do it. No, seriously, I actually don't do it. I think I've torrented maybe five copyrighted works in the last year, and with one exception, all of those were things I'd already bought that I wanted in a format I could actually use (I'm looking at you, iTunes). And I still need to buy the legit copy of the last one I torrented (needed it on short notice), but I keep forgetting to do so. Might go do that now, actually.

But I generally think overblown responses to piracy frequently do more harm than piracy itself, and I suspect — I don't know, but I suspect — this might be one of those times.

They are aware that piracy is rampant among the mainstream public, too, right?

They're all too aware of this. They've scaled back on what the home video will include, for this very reason.

Wait, maybe I'm having a stupid day, but how does that help combat piracy at all? The argument could be made that if the product is of lesser quality, people are less likely to think it's worth pirating, but that argument is stupid, because if that's the case, they'll *certainly* think it isn't worth buying. Are they planning on releasing the cut material in some form that can't be pirated? They can't be, because no such form exists. Am I just missing something fundamental here?

edited 7th Feb '13 9:57:52 PM by Hsere

I think it's unfortunate, but at the same time I can't say that I'm surprised. Piracy isn't going to vanish within a particular fandom, and as pointed out, the vast majority of people who would be interested in spending money on the documentary already donated to it. There just isn't a huge market for it; most of the existing market basically paid up front.

It's more that they can't justify putting the time and effort into creating more content when they aren't going to make any of it back because people will get it for free. They aren't cutting the content to combat piracy, they're doing it to cut their losses.

But enough of that. Have Rarity and Sweetie Belle being adorable.

And now I sleep.

edited 7th Feb '13 9:59:44 PM by JapaneseTeeth

I've never heard of it, so I can't say.

Yeah while the decision makes sense and what not, the tone of the notice was just horrid.

1. I know several people that torrented it, only because they had issues trying to download it legitimately, due to the rather outdated and less then amazing method they used for distribution. Limited downloads, not letting people retry past that if they had the download interrupted etc... They could have used a better system to distribute it that didn't make torrenting it simply easier.

Second, most of the first attempts at putting it on youtube were done by haters trying to do so specifically because they were asked not to. Trying to stick it to bronies.

Yeah there was a lot of people just being stupid about it. "WAAAH They been paid for it, they just being greedy!? WTF 350K and they want MORE!? Yeah those types are in the wrong. But simply labeling the whole issue as due to something wrong with the community as a whole, after we gave so damn much to get this made in the first place.... and not figuring, most of the people that were interested in this already "bought" a copy by backing the thing.

I know they had to do this because they had to give it to the backers, but they did it backwards, releasing it to the brony community, before getting out where the general public will even stand a chance at knowing it exists. Not saying piracy wasn't an issue, but there response comes off us rather petty and juvenile.

My little UBOAAAAAA

Yume Nikki ponified

@ JT: Eeyah-noosht.

Well at least Rarity likes it.

Okay, hold on, I think I'm getting confused here. Sydxelia, are you saying that they're actually reducing the amount that's going to be in the main documentary? Or are they just axing the proposed side-projects, like the announcement says. Because if it's the latter, then yeah, it makes some kind of sense, if you assume (as they do) that they won't make enough sales to pay the staff because of piracy. But if they're actually removing material from the main documentary, that makes nothing resembling sense.

edited 7th Feb '13 10:09:12 PM by Hsere

@ Hsere: They've decided against including any of the originally planned bonus material on the DVD, because the pirates will just copy and post it on YouTube, as well. Pirates suck.

Pirates do suck.