Slashdot Mirror

The joy of lego bricks is that you don't need a set:

http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=220541
http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=209444

I didn't do either, but it is awesome anyway.

The joy of lego bricks is that you don't need a set:

http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=220541
http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=209444

I didn't do either, but it is awesome anyway.

... is this a lego convention with attractive models?

Here are more random Lego creations made without the aid of kit instructions.

Here are more random Lego creations made without the aid of kit instructions.

Here are more random Lego creations made without the aid of kit instructions.

Here are more random Lego creations made without the aid of kit instructions.

Here are more random Lego creations made without the aid of kit instructions.

HKLUG's photo album

It would seem you haven't spent any length of time browsing the web or reading the fanzines. If you had, you'd see that there's a marginal interest in the fan world for building the sets as they come. The larger interest is in building whatever comes to mind. (Brickshelf http://www.brickshelf.com/ is a good place to start)

I like to think of the pre-packaged sets as Lego's "Hello World". It only take a few seconds to think, "This car would be much cooler as an airplane."

When hawking can finally talk I think his first words will be, "Put me back in the spinny":

Spinny Spinny

BTW Funny.

at least we have support groups for it nowadays.

Nothing is stopping you playing with Lego now, and the AFOL community (Adult Fans Of Lego) is one of the friendliest communities to be a part of. Visit Lugnet to see what's going on, upload your models to Brickshelf to share what you do with everyone else, check if there are any Lego shows in your area, and maybe join a local user group. Have fun.

Every time there's a Lego article on Slashdot, someone says basically the same thing. While Lego does make extremely specialized pieces from time to time, most of the pieces they make, new or old, are very versatile. I'm still buying and playing with Lego as an adult, and I probably would have tired of it long ago if it was just bricks. The Star Wars sets got me back into Lego just when I thought I had outgrown it, and not just because of the theme. The Star Wars sets have had a very good track record when it comes to the pieces involved. Most of the sets have very solid construction, and use a lot more of the standard pieces than some of the themes from the mid 90s. Star Wars also kicked off a new trend of color variety--brown, orange, dark gray, green, and tan all became common colors.

Kids who have a bunch of specialized pieces and nothing else will admittedly be starting at a disadvantage, but having some of each opens up so many more possibilities than before. Even the most specialized pieces can be used in novel ways with a little creativity.

Check out some of these creations and see if they change your mind about the usefulness of specialized pieces: http://www.mocpages.com/moc.php/18131
http://www.mocpages.com/moc.php/6942
http://www.mocpages.com/moc.php/18117
http://www.mocpages.com/moc.php/21943
http://www.mocpages.com/moc.php/6049
http://www.mocpages.com/moc.php/7004
http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=13 3999
A few notes: I intentionally chose small creations. None of them bear much similarity to any specific sets released by Lego, nor were they made by people working for Lego. Each one was made by a different person, and none of them are mine.

Finally, a slightly larger one. This is one of my favorite Lego creations ever (again, not made by me). The color scheme and tons of the little details would not have been possible with even the Legos that were available ten years ago: http://www.mocpages.com/moc.php/13715

http://www.maj.com/ seems to slip under the wire of popularity all too often.

IIRC, it was originally just Brickshelf, but spun off into general image hosting.

You could certainly say that... http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=72 836
I'm surprised no one posted that yet, heh.

Now neither of these are entirely true, and the Lego vs MegaBloks case highlights it well.
Both companies are able to manufacture the same product, but now they are competing on Price, Quality and creativeness. By creativeness, I mean the kind of sets they are using the blocks for. If Lego want to get bogged down in what are now becoming repetative movie licenses and sets that integrate badly with the rest of the system while MegaBloks go all out on fun and interchangeable sets then Lego will feel the pinch. If Lego go back to good basic, technic and mindstorms sets, and go more for general themes than movie licenses, we all know the quality of peices are better then MegaBloks, and MegaBloks will feel the pinch instead. What we may then end up with are more of the sets we like, MegaBloks in proper ABS and more reasonable pricing. Lego want to highlight their quality difference over MegaBloks - I am sure some they could go for the "cheap shot" advertising with children crying over half-built generic brand models crumbling while the shining real Lego one shows them up. Lego would do well to have advertising showing interviews with adults who grew up on Technic and Mindstorms who are now engineers (software, mechanical or electrical) and put some of their success/interest down to playing with Lego as a kid- a claim that I am really not sure MegaBloks could compete on. Lego could (and it would be welcomed) exploit the AFOL community a little and ask permission to use a raft of AFOL models in advertising with a slogon about taking their products and creating. http://www.brickshelf.com/ would be a good start there.

In the realm of software, one brand could come up with a product very similar in fuctionality than someone elses, but then they can compete on quality (bugs/exploits), ease of use (menu design etc), and cost. Not in terms of IP. It takes time to program features, it also takes time for another team to program the same features, even IF they can reverse engineer the new features from yours. And if there code base is fairly different from yours, then it is no trivial matter of integrating the diffs (I admit that this has become a damnsight easier with .Net IL than any other technology - and is one good reason not to use it). It also means it is unlikely that they will be easily able to reverse engineer it. To be fair - they would do better reimplementing their own versions, and if they happen to do it in a more bugfree, or cost effective way, then tough - time to improve your processes.

What applies to physical manufacture can apply in other areas quite well. Now while I do think an initial cretor should have some very LIMITED time to recoup their investment, like a couple of years, after that, its time they actually compete. This directly benefits consumers and governments. Lets not forget - the concept of time limited government granted monopolies were originally designed on the condition that they benefited people and state eventually.

http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=17 3

Generally cheap, easy to reconfigure, easy to upgrade, color-customizable, and can be made portable, but generally not very drop-proof.

Actually, several of these projects have already been finished.
this is a photo of a Lego car factory: an automated plant made out of Lego (27 RCX computers) that produces Lego cars.

I am an AFOL (Adult Fan of Lego), and I think that they are the coolist thing ever. Check out some of the more interesting LEGO sites on the net:

http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/recent.cgi A massive gallery of uber cool models made by AFOLs. There are some really amazing models posted here.

http://www.brickset.com/ A lego set refrence that has just about every lego set ever made. Want to get a list of every classic space set made in 1978? This is the place.

http://www.bricklink.com/ Want 150 tan 1x3 bricks? Buy them individually from fellow collectors all over the world.

http://www.lugnet.com/ LUGNET is the Lego User Group. It has an interface to all all of the Lego USENET groups, and is an easy way to keep on top of all the relevant lego news.

http://shop.lego.com/ Of course there is LEGOs homepage. Online shopping, and all sorts of other interesting stuff. They just released a program on the lego site that allows you to build virtual lego models. That isn't really amazing, since LEGO cad programs have existed for years. However, they seem to be ramping up to allow people to build virtual models, and then order the parts to build them online! Every lego fan's dream come true...

There is much more, but that is a quick rundown of some of the major sites. Indulge yourself, you know you want to....

Screw the DeLorean! Get yourself one o' them Warthogs?

That's because the images are hosted at brickshelf.com Which has withstood many slashdottings over the years.

here. I found it by accident when looking up Anti-Insectoid to find any ant-related items. :)

Actually, long, long before Mindstorms came out (it may have pre-dated Blacktron/Space Police), they released a handful of Space sets that include several of these. The flats have metal contacts running underneath and going up into the side of the studs. To these, you could attach bricks with LEDs and a simple little sound brick (which made a couple different siren noises). It ran off a 9-volt in a 4x8x2 (two bricks tall) battery case that had a 2x7 row of contacts down the middle.
Here's a picture of the sets; I'm not sure any others were released.
I had 6783. Last time I checked, though, it wasn't working. I'm gonna have to dig it out again and do some real testing.

I don't even know what it was called. :\

Look for it here.

(Just try not to /. them too much)

Go build it!

Pedantic [LEGO]Geek mode on

A: Lego Army men
Many fine examples already exist for filling units in most era's.

B: Lego Star trek
Trek is often done. Tho Blake's 7 is more hip.

C: Lego Warhammer 40k
A whole[all units] Dark Eldar army and ideas for modeling units for other powers can be found.

D: Lego D&D
Players of D&D[with LEGO] and other game systems are legion. As are the armies. Several rule-systems for play are also out there.

E: Lego Half life
There are CAD models[in easy format for conversion] for many of the parts go nuts. Sprite based(using POV to render frames) has also been done for a few games over the years.

F: Lego programming department
Cluster em.

PDG mode off [/;-)

Go build it!

Pedantic [LEGO]Geek mode on

A: Lego Army men
Many fine examples already exist for filling units in most era's.

B: Lego Star trek
Trek is often done. Tho Blake's 7 is more hip.

C: Lego Warhammer 40k
A whole[all units] Dark Eldar army and ideas for modeling units for other powers can be found.

D: Lego D&D
Players of D&D[with LEGO] and other game systems are legion. As are the armies. Several rule-systems for play are also out there.

E: Lego Half life
There are CAD models[in easy format for conversion] for many of the parts go nuts. Sprite based(using POV to render frames) has also been done for a few games over the years.

F: Lego programming department
Cluster em.

PDG mode off [/;-)

Go build it!

Pedantic [LEGO]Geek mode on

A: Lego Army men
Many fine examples already exist for filling units in most era's.

B: Lego Star trek
Trek is often done. Tho Blake's 7 is more hip.

C: Lego Warhammer 40k
A whole[all units] Dark Eldar army and ideas for modeling units for other powers can be found.

D: Lego D&D
Players of D&D[with LEGO] and other game systems are legion. As are the armies. Several rule-systems for play are also out there.

E: Lego Half life
There are CAD models[in easy format for conversion] for many of the parts go nuts. Sprite based(using POV to render frames) has also been done for a few games over the years.

F: Lego programming department
Cluster em.

PDG mode off [/;-)

Go build it!

Pedantic [LEGO]Geek mode on

A: Lego Army men
Many fine examples already exist for filling units in most era's.

B: Lego Star trek
Trek is often done. Tho Blake's 7 is more hip.

C: Lego Warhammer 40k
A whole[all units] Dark Eldar army and ideas for modeling units for other powers can be found.

D: Lego D&D
Players of D&D[with LEGO] and other game systems are legion. As are the armies. Several rule-systems for play are also out there.

E: Lego Half life
There are CAD models[in easy format for conversion] for many of the parts go nuts. Sprite based(using POV to render frames) has also been done for a few games over the years.

F: Lego programming department
Cluster em.

PDG mode off [/;-)

Go build it!

Pedantic [LEGO]Geek mode on

A: Lego Army men
Many fine examples already exist for filling units in most era's.

B: Lego Star trek
Trek is often done. Tho Blake's 7 is more hip.

C: Lego Warhammer 40k
A whole[all units] Dark Eldar army and ideas for modeling units for other powers can be found.

D: Lego D&D
Players of D&D[with LEGO] and other game systems are legion. As are the armies. Several rule-systems for play are also out there.

E: Lego Half life
There are CAD models[in easy format for conversion] for many of the parts go nuts. Sprite based(using POV to render frames) has also been done for a few games over the years.

F: Lego programming department
Cluster em.

PDG mode off [/;-)

Perhaps the Super Street Sensation? With shifting transmission?

Or try browsing LugNet

I would love to get my hands on that original black knight's castle.

Do you mean either one of these?

I would love to get my hands on that original black knight's castle.

Do you mean either one of these?

Well, it's gotten him some action, She's Hot!

pics

Yeah, the Lego company cheats.

Most of the things you'll find on Brickshelf however, are built without glue. And there are some impressive things, too. Search for "bridge," for example.

If you just want to look at the pictures, you can bypass the PHP and use his gallery.cgi...

http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/seankenney/

Now that I've seen it, of course :)

All of Sean's work

If you ask nicely, I might put up a mirror :)

Here's a backup of the WTC page in the wayback machine.

Here's another guy with a lego WTC

--I prefer the term "Karma Slut"

NYC - WTC - Empire - Empire2 - bleh

NYC - WTC - Empire - Empire2 - bleh

NYC - WTC - Empire - Empire2 - bleh

NYC - WTC - Empire - Empire2 - bleh

NYC - WTC - Empire - Empire2 - bleh

hehe - http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=40 1825 - it's a monkey :)

Empire State Building

World Trade Center

Empire State Building

World Trade Center

See for yourself. He depicted Ground Zero in Lego, months before the real attacks.

Paging John Ashcroft...

After seeing the side view, another image sprang to mind... there is another object that would seem to be capable of extended hovering.

Coincidence, or inspiration?

...and they are using child labor to build it!

This is a traveling exhibit of Lego Master Builders; it started in MA, has been to MD and NY. I see that it was just assembled in Chicago and will be there for another week.