Slashdot Mirror


Inside the Lego Master Builder Search

blackdefiance writes "As most self-respecting geeks know, Lego is currently searching for a new Master Builder to hold the enviable position of building with Lego all day and getting paid for the privilege. One applicant describes the nerve-wracking experience of going through the first-round interview."

296 comments

  1. Hrm by gasaraki · · Score: 5, Funny

    They should look at hiring this guy. The comedy more than makes up for any lack of technical skill.

    1. Re:Hrm by alexatrit · · Score: 1

      That is seriously disturbing. Cool that the "Reverend" (real or not, I don't know) decided upon a childhood medium, but still disturbing.

      --

      Nothing but the finest in meaningless drivel
    2. Re:Hrm by The+Only+Druid · · Score: 1

      Did you notice that there's also a printed copy of this available? I nearly bought it in Urban last month...(for a mormon friend of mine who, undoubtedly, would have died of blasphemy)

      --
      "Stumble before you crawl"
    3. Re:Hrm by Zog+The+Undeniable · · Score: 3, Funny
      I love that site - especially the Lego pirates recycled as disciples, and the occasional spot of hot raunchy plastic nookie.

      I don't think The Reverend is a *real* Reverend though.

      --
      When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
    4. Re:Hrm by mattdm · · Score: 1

      What "lack of technical skill"? A lot of the creations in the background are very nicely constructed.

    5. Re:Hrm by Flabby+Boohoo · · Score: 1

      I would ask about the comedy. I fail to see it there.

    6. Re:Hrm by mattdm · · Score: 1

      Either you're not looking closely enough, or your sense of humor is broken....

    7. Re:Hrm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm mormon, and I think the brick testament is hilarious...

    8. Re:Hrm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Jebus luvs u.

    9. Re:Hrm by The+Good+Reverend · · Score: 1

      I don't think The Reverend is a *real* Reverend though.

      Many many people have ordinations they've obtained through groups like the Universal Life Church. They'll ordain anyone for the asking, and the title/rights/responsabilities are legal and "real" is most states. I'm an atheist, and I've performed 2 weddings with mine.

      That said, I don't know if the The Rev. Brendan Powell Smith is really ordained, but there's no reason to think he hasn't.

    10. Re:Hrm by TheTimoo · · Score: 2, Informative

      check out the last question on the faq :

      9. Is he really a reverend?

      'Reverend', when used before someone's name, does not imply any particular position in a church. There is really no such thing as 'a reverend'. The adjective is used by people such as ministers and priests, to show that they are revered members of their community. So the question really is, does anybody really revere The Rev. Brendan Powell Smith?

      --
      "Be careful or be roadkill" - Calvin
    11. Re:Hrm by Zapraki · · Score: 0

      Ya, I used to have fun taking pictures of Lego "scenes" back in the day... can't say I ever did anything like that though. And his Moses looks nothing like Charlton Heston, nothing.

  2. Is Lego even alive? by tuxette · · Score: 5, Informative
    I heard on the news yesterday that Lego has a 1,4 billion DKK deficit and that the vice administrative director Poul Plougmann was fired with immediate effect.

    They also interviewed a bunch of little kids who were all very uninterested in Legos. What a shame...

    --
    People say I'm crazy, I got diamonds on the soles of my shoes...
    1. Re:Is Lego even alive? by Mengoxon · · Score: 5, Informative

      yes, they are alive, but they are going through restructuring and repositioning. I hope they succeed.

      http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/a p/ 20040108/ap_on_bi_ge/denmark_lego_1

    2. Re:Is Lego even alive? by lordmoose · · Score: 3, Funny

      Yeah, their strategy is to replace all the the yellow bricks in their building with green ones. Also, all employees must give up their black plastic hairpieces.

    3. Re:Is Lego even alive? by jabberjaw · · Score: 3, Interesting

      They also interviewed a bunch of little kids who were all very uninterested in Legos. What a shame...
      It really is a shame. Legos got me interested in a career in engineering, which in turn got me interested in the sciences at a rather young age. Hell I still consider Legos to be pretty cool especially the mindstorms kits and I am 19.

    4. Re:Is Lego even alive? by tcopeland · · Score: 2, Interesting

      If you're doing Lego-Mindstorms development, consider the Ruby Lego-Mindstorms development kit.

      Ruby's a nifty language and is (I think, anyway) well suited to stuff like this.

    5. Re:Is Lego even alive? by CaptainAlbert · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Didn't hear about the firing, but I did hear about the financial trouble. Sad, because I used to love Lego in all its forms. (sigh)

      So I started thinking, "I wonder what happened to all that lego?", and it turns out that my mom still has all of it, in some big plastic boxes in the attic. A quick survey reveals that this is the fate of all lego - it's never thrown away! It just gets kept because everyone remembers how cool it was and wants to keep it for their kids. (Or in my case, my little sister got it as hand-me-downs.) I bet it's one of the few toys of which this can be said, although I don't plan to trawl through landfill sights comparing the frequencies of Barbie-parts and lego-bricks. Anyone?

      So, that's my theory as to why it's not selling. Plus it all went downhill when they started cashing in on franchises. I had spaceships and castles and that was good enough for me, dammit!

      --
      These sigs are more interesting tha
    6. Re:Is Lego even alive? by Zocalo · · Score: 1

      The BBC covered this yesterday as well, you can find the story here, but it's mainly financial news. It very sad, but a lot of the toy comapanies I grew up with (and in some cases my Dad too) are really struggling in the Internet age. Hornby seems to be the latest one trying to adapt, with an Internet enabled version of Scalextric. And I mean, *Internet enabled*, it's not just F1GP with model cars on your computer - you use the track and everything. That could be *sooo* cool!

      --
      UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
    7. Re:Is Lego even alive? by mark-t · · Score: 1

      It's almost a forgone certainty that LEGO is dropping the Mindstorms series as part of their plan to abandon the miscellaneous themed sets and go "back to the core concept of the building brick" except perhaps in the educational venue.

    8. Re:Is Lego even alive? by sosegumu · · Score: 5, Funny

      Harrrumphhhh...real men build with Lincoln Logs or Erector Sets.

      --
      It's easier to wear the spandex than to do the crunches. --David Lee Roth
    9. Re:Is Lego even alive? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Isn't part of the beauty of mindstorms is that once you have the core system you can use regular lego and even the old technic stuff with it? There is also a ton of open-source initiatives relating to it that it is pretty certain that it will never die completely.

    10. Re:Is Lego even alive? by molafson · · Score: 4, Funny

      What LEGO needs to do is reposition itself to compete in today's marketplace. Currently, the best strategy for doing so is:

      (a) Fire anyone who produces anything and dump your whole production line. (b) Hire a large team of lawyers to work on contingency. (c) Shore up your IP. (d) Sue anything that moves. (e) ??? (f) Profit.

      OR

      (a) Launch a branded online music store with excessive DRM and no price advantage. (b) Compete directly with Apple. (c) Hide under a pile of coats and hope everything works out for the best.

    11. Re:Is Lego even alive? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      AMEN! I'm sick of all the harry potter and star wars and galidor crap! They should go back to the cool ass stuff, like the old school 70's/80's Space sets, and maybe Ice Planet 2002 and Blacktron (The OLD ones with the badass suits, not those stupid new ones with the big B in the octagon)

      -- vranash

    12. Re:Is Lego even alive? by kisrael · · Score: 2, Interesting

      It's also durable as heck...only the pieces I used as chew toys to help me focus on building (kind of like gum, but much grosser) are any the worse for wear over the years.

      When we were kids, really, Lego was one of the few ways kids had of making stuff in 3D...sort of like a physical CAD system. (Which is why I liked having space sets w/ lots of cool wings and engines and ain't one of those people longing for the days of basic bricks only...and I liked space because while we know things today and stuff in castles of yesterday aren't generally covered with little dots, in the future, they might be!)

      Now a days I suppose kids have more options, like modelling stuff on computer...not that many do that, but I know a few.

      --
      SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
    13. Re:Is Lego even alive? by liquidsin · · Score: 1

      I just got a Mindstorms kit for xmas from my girlfriend, and I'm 25. You can build some pretty wacky shit with those things, then program them to do your biddings. Good times.

      --
      do not read this line twice.
    14. Re:Is Lego even alive? by djdavetrouble · · Score: 1

      I have to take a small issue with this,
      I recently visited my parents with my daughter and we had a lego session with the big box o 30+ year old bricks. I found that some of the old pieces had lost their 'snap' and easily fell off of whatever other brick they were supposed to be attached to. It made building tall wobbly buildings more difficult, since the sticking together of bricks is a major structural function of larger creations. Other than that, there isn't much that can break on a lego brick. The old white ones look kind of gross though. I like the look of a new shiny brick much more..... One of our favorite types of lego's during the 8-14 year old period were the ones with holes in them, in conunction with the joinable wheels and tracks. You could build all types of wild bulldozing vehicles, tanks and atv's with those babies.

      My parents saved _everything_. Its pretty cool to see my kids playing with toys that were once mine.

      --
      music lover since 1969
    15. Re:Is Lego even alive? by British · · Score: 1

      And that pisses me off to no end. I'm hard core Technic, and there are no Technic-themed sets coming out any more.

    16. Re:Is Lego even alive? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      My kid is interested in Bionicles, not
      building things with legos.

    17. Re:Is Lego even alive? by kisrael · · Score: 1

      Huh, all I've noticed is some slight discoloring.

      Also, is there any chance that they changed the formula to make it more durable? I remember seeing some super old lego bricks that didn't feel right, even taking age into account...

      Or maybe not. But legos last at least throughout a childhood :-)

      --
      SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
    18. Re:Is Lego even alive? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Is LEGO alive?? http://www.brickfilms.com

    19. Re:Is Lego even alive? by nelsonal · · Score: 1

      I always prefered tinker toys for making wheeled or spinning projects. Now that's a geek holy grail integrating tinkertoys and LEGO.

      --
      Degaussing scares the bad magnetism out of the monitor and fills it with good karma.
    20. Re:Is Lego even alive? by EnglishTim · · Score: 1

      What's that in real money?

    21. Re:Is Lego even alive? by dochood · · Score: 2, Funny

      Oh, yeah!

      My kids are really into Legos and Bionicles! We spend a hefty amount of money on them!

      My son says his goal someday is to work for Lego (or perhaps, Pixar). He'd absolutely LOVE to have this job! When he told me he wanted to work at Lego, I told him, "Well, you know, at Lego, they don't pay you to play with Legos all day long!"

      I guess I was wrong!

    22. Re:Is Lego even alive? by mattkime · · Score: 2, Funny

      They also interviewed a bunch of little kids who were all very uninterested in Legos. What a shame...

      I know first hand that thats not entirely true. On christmas I "played lego" with a young cousin of mine. We put together a basketball court where the lego people stood on a spring platform so you could bend them back, let go, and pray the ball goes into the hoop. While I first saw this as another example of specialized bricks and commericalization of a creative toy, it soon became fun to give people more than one head.

      There will always be room in the marketplace for toys that allow children to make creatures with more than one head.

      --
      Know what I like about atheists? I've yet to meet one that believes God is on their side.
    23. Re:Is Lego even alive? by ClubStew · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I blame the over-use of specialized pieces. Heck, when I was constantly building LEGO assemblies the most specialized piece was the human figures. Now many LEGO packages are made up of human figures, a contoured bottom, and two or three pieces to complete the set. I realize creativety is lacking these days, but who wants to buy LEGOs to assemble a whole 3 or 4 pieces?

    24. Re:Is Lego even alive? by WD_40 · · Score: 1

      I built my own collection of Lego blocks when I was a kid and also added an older friend's collection to my own. When I outgrew them, I gave the whole mess to the neighbor kid, who added it to his collection and passed it on when he got older.

      One of my favorite Lego memories was when the family VCR died and I tore it apart to see how it worked. I found some cool little motors and discovered they ran nicely on a 9V battery. Soon I was mounting them to various lego creations and I had powered inventions, baby!

      Legos are a great toy, they allow a child's mind to explore and create. I really hope Lego doesn't go under, that would be a damn shame.

      --

      "With sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine." -- RFC 1925

    25. Re:Is Lego even alive? by 3terrabyte · · Score: 1
      Wow, a sourceforge site with nothing on it! Great.

      There are plenty of other language interfaces to work with Mindstorms that have actually had work done on it.

      --

      Why are there only 19 people folding@home for slashdot?

    26. Re:Is Lego even alive? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There has to be a joke in there about "real men" needing "erector" sets.

    27. Re:Is Lego even alive? by tcopeland · · Score: 1

      > a sourceforge site with nothing on it!

      Hm. There's a release here with both a RubyCon '03 presentation and the code in there...

    28. Re:Is Lego even alive? by Kulaid982 · · Score: 0

      Don't forget Construx! I built some kickass jets and robots and airplanes and tanks and TMNT weapons (used a belt to hold my pillow on my back so I'd have a "shell"), and blasters, and grappling hooks, and all kinds of cool shit!

      --

      Isn't it interesting how you come to recognize posters based solely on their sigs???
    29. Re:Is Lego even alive? by Bob+McCown · · Score: 1

      And the advantage of mom's storing it in the attic is... YARD SALES! Ive picked up more piles of lego for $1-$5 in the past couple of years.. Got a Ft Legorado set, complete for $2 last summer, and boxes and boxes of lego bricks for around the same price. Good stuff

    30. Re:Is Lego even alive? by Basehart · · Score: 2, Insightful

      If they sold big boxes of plain, straightforward assorted bricks I'd be happy, but all I can ever find are the kits, which rarely contain any actual Lego bricks.

    31. Re:Is Lego even alive? by Bombcar · · Score: 1

      The very early Lego (manufactured in the US by Samsonite) was made from Cellulose Acetate. I have some, and certain pieces are very difficult to get togther, and others are so brittle they will snap. Back then, and even after Lego changed to ABS, the colors were partially made by using different mixes of plastics. This caused the bricks to age differently for different colors.

      Since then, the formula has been improved so that the bricks last a very long time.

    32. Re:Is Lego even alive? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Depends what you think is "real money".. But this might "help" you:

      http://www.xe.com/ucc/

    33. Re:Is Lego even alive? by whittrash · · Score: 1

      True, they last forever. Me niece and nephew got a ton of garage sale legos. They have a huge tub of them now, in addition to their new ones. I was a little bit jealous, I have to say, even though I am 30 years old, I still like to build. My occupation...architect. Legos helped me get me interested in building.

    34. Re:Is Lego even alive? by mooman · · Score: 1

      Or Fischer-Technik! I had a complete set of these and found it much more stimulating than Legos. These are high-quality components with all sorts of motors, gear and chain systems, other mechanical tidbits. They might even explain why I ended up getting an engineering degree. ;)

      --
      In the Portland, Ore area and like card games? Check out: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/portlandgames/
    35. Re:Is Lego even alive? by RackinFrackin · · Score: 1

      You should look for the Creator series. They are sold in the plastic stackable buckets, and contain mostly standard bricks and plates. In my opinion, the blue bucket number 4028 is the best deal. It's normally $20 or less at Toys R Us, and contains a ton of the 2x4 bricks that are the staple of most large lego creations.

    36. Re:Is Lego even alive? by sl0ppy · · Score: 1

      less funny than you think. lego just changed some of their colors -- to much outcry from adult fans.

    37. Re:Is Lego even alive? by istewart · · Score: 1

      I was very interested in Legos when I was small (granted, this was about 10 years ago). When I was very small, about 5, my grandfather would build all the sets for me, but I quickly worked up the courage to tackle the building myself. My attempts at custom Lego creations were only half-serious and lackluster, but I thought the sets themselves were really creative.

      The distinct themes they had (emphasis on had) were excellent for what you could do with the bricks. Castle, space, pirates, generic city/town stuff... Very few of these required any custom parts, merely reprints or recolorings of existing pieces. The most obvious customs I can think of are the bases for boats and castles (as well as other smaller figure stuff, like dragons and skeletons, but those I found permissible). The diversification of themes as time wore on was really creative as well... Fright Knights/Dragonslayers, UFO, even time machine sets! Now, though, walking down the Lego aisle at Wal-Mart or similar is hardly inspirational... A vast majority is merely Star Wars (and not the cool Star Wars sets like the SSD), with other weird springloaded junk that de-emphasizes the building such as sports legos that feature some kinda whack soccer game. And Bionicle? WTF? Looks like Technic, but marketed as some kind of action figure?

      The only new Lego set I would consider dropping money on is a little $15 ISS model. I never was a big custom builder, so the sets themselves provided a lot of my inspiration... but lately Lego has lost that creativity in my mind. They're trying to become some sort of regular toy company, building bizarre action figures and spring-loaded sports toys. That's just not Lego. The little bricks have always been about the building, and it seems they've been losing that inspiration lately.

    38. Re:Is Lego even alive? by G-funk · · Score: 1

      ...only the pieces I used as chew toys to help me focus on building (kind of like gum, but much grosser)

      Haha, that reminds me of my misspent youth, back in the days of "running around rooms munching pills and listening to repetetive electronic music", I came across the discovery that the best thing in the entire world for "the grinds" is a lego tyre. All my pac-man buddies loved me for that. Old squinto the magnificent even complained about not having a lego tyre on new years just past :)

      Oh cummon, it's on topic!

      --
      Send lawyers, guns, and money!
    39. Re:Is Lego even alive? by Jebediah21 · · Score: 1

      It's not even a good value any more. I can remember getting a LEGO Model Team Formula race car model and assembling that for days for a little bit every day before and after school. It was great and filled up a lot of time. Now the kits can be put together in 5 minutes.

      --

      Everytime you look at porn a devil gets their horns.
    40. Re:Is Lego even alive? by bar-agent · · Score: 1

      I had Construx! It was cool. I'd build all kinds of vehicles. Unfortunately, it's really only good for vehicles and buildings. Maybe guns.

      --
      i'd hit it so hard, if you pulled me out you'd be the king of britain [bash.org]
    41. Re:Is Lego even alive? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Used bricks! I hope you put them in boiling water, because who knows how many mouths they've been in.

  3. LEGO CAKE FOR LEGO BOI'S AND GIRLS by RecipeTroll · · Score: 5, Interesting

    LEGO CAKE

    Like a lot of kids, 9-year-old Katie Lemberg loves LEGOs.
    In honor of her favorite locking blocks, Lemberg and her mom developed an ingenious concept, the LEGO party.

    "It was great," Katie recalls. "None of the adults knew what it was--and all of the kids did."

    Materials
    1 13- x 9- x 2-inch sheet cake
    8 cupcakes
    White frosting
    Food coloring (your choice of color)
    Toothpicks

    Step 1:
    Turn the cake upside down and place the cupcakes on top as shown. Hold each cupcake in place with a toothpick.

    Step 2:
    Frost a bright color such as blue, red or yellow.

    1. Re:LEGO CAKE FOR LEGO BOI'S AND GIRLS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      That's true, but the sad fact is that anybody who has "Troll" in their username gets modded down, even if what they write is insightful, interesting, or funny.

      Then you get moderated down for replying to them, and I get moderated down for replying to you.

    2. Re:LEGO CAKE FOR LEGO BOI'S AND GIRLS by mlush · · Score: 1

      Cool we made our boy a LEGO bionicle mask cake for his 5th brithday.. very easy to do 2 sheets of iceing cut the top sheet to make the raised details and use a food spray dye to colour. It helps to choose an easy mask !

  4. Whatever happened to... by dafoomie · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...Zack, the Legomaniac? I think he's available.

    1. Re:Whatever happened to... by orbit0r · · Score: 3, Funny

      His name is Harley Cross and he can be found here. As well as being zack the maniac, he also played ten year old Martin in "The Fly II". And he is available, just Send Harley fan mail at:

      Harley Cross c/o William Morris Agency
      151 S. El Camino Dr
      Beverly Hills, CA 90212-2775

      and no, I'm not affiliated with this chump

    2. Re:Whatever happened to... by Kenja · · Score: 2, Funny
      --

      "Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
    3. Re:Whatever happened to... by ThrasherTT · · Score: 1

      GREAT... now I have that GOD FORSAKEN ditty stuck in my head. I think I'll have to go listen to the intro to Knight Rider to get it out of my head.

      --

      All Your Memory Are Belong To Java
    4. Re:Whatever happened to... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I have to admit, I don't laugh out loud reading slashdot much, but your post just did it. Bravo...

    5. Re:Whatever happened to... by ivan256 · · Score: 2, Funny

      Whatever you do, don't think about the theme song to "Charles In Charge"!

    6. Re:Whatever happened to... by Sideshow+Coward · · Score: 0

      I hear that he has a sexual addiction problem, and now goes around singing "Zack, Zack, he's a nymphomanic"

    7. Re:Whatever happened to... by einTier · · Score: 1
      I had the misfortune to be named Jack, and about the time that the commercials came out, I was in sixth grade. Which placed me at that awkward age where I still really enjoyed playing with my LEGO bricks, people remembered that I'd had quite the collection a few years back, and it was completely uncool to be interested in any kid's toy. LEGO bricks included.

      For years, I was taunted with "...he's a LEGO maniac". Damn near made me throw out my entire collection. But no worries, I found out years later that my evil stepfather accomplished that task for me shortly after my mother put them in the attic. For 'safekeeping'.

      --
      -------------------------------------------------- $665.95 -- retail price of the beast.
  5. Re:Recipe Troll??? by acxr+is+wasted · · Score: 0

    lol... that's hilarious

    --
    "Come on, let's go drink till we can't feel feelings anymore."
  6. One Big Advice for LEGO by superpulpsicle · · Score: 3, Funny

    Ok, enough with those bionicle, tenticle, barbie Lego sets. They need to release a line of Lego toys like no other. Call it "Lego gun set", when you get to assemble M-16, AK-47 and rocket propell grenades with Lego blocks.

    Of course they don't actually fire, but wouldn't some kid feel great loading clips and clips of ammo and tweaking with sniper scopes. Hey you can even have belts of ammo so kids walk around the living room feeling like Rambo.

    1. Re:One Big Advice for LEGO by slim · · Score: 1

      Call it "Lego gun set"

      Lego used to have a policy of no militaristic themes. I don't know whether it still stands... those pirates and spacement sometimes look a bit violent.

    2. Re:One Big Advice for LEGO by mark-t · · Score: 1

      actually, according to a press release at LEGO (see the PR archive at http://www.lego.com/eng/info/default.asp?page=pres sarchive), they are making a return to the basic building brick this coming year and doing away with all those bizarro themes.

    3. Re:One Big Advice for LEGO by Simulant · · Score: 1

      Lego Guns?!!! Get 24" ruler or similar flat stick. Tape a clothespin to one end. Tape a nice strong rubberband to the other. Pull rubber band back and clip it with the clothespin. Insert lego block in front of rubberband, next to clothespin. Release rubberband. We used to shoot the crap out of each other with these when I was kid.

    4. Re:One Big Advice for LEGO by quigonn · · Score: 1

      I used to build a lot of guns using those big Lego bricks (I don't know the exact name anymore). Then, me and my brother, played soldiers, wearing my father's helmets (he's a soldier in the Austrian army). Oh, those were the days of being a kid, innocently "shooting" your brother and your friends for fun. ;-)

      --
      A monkey is doing the real work for me.
    5. Re:One Big Advice for LEGO by JOW · · Score: 1

      You might not know this

      Lego has never made any modem guns or other gun like toys, it simply company policy
      Not to do so, Danish way, and it makes me happy to be Danish,

      --
      I just hate bit SPAM, (www.netnoise.com.kh)
    6. Re:One Big Advice for LEGO by condensate · · Score: 1

      I built Airwolf (TV series), well the thing that for me came close to it: I added some more guns and two rocket drives. Why not having guns. You can train on shooting before the army has to. That would save costs. The AK47 however is much too old. How about a BFG2004? Well, the hunt is on...

      --
      Black holes were created when god tried to divide by zero
    7. Re:One Big Advice for LEGO by Bios_Hakr · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Like this:
      Lego Beretta

      --
      I'd rather you do it wrong, than for me to have to do it at all.
    8. Re:One Big Advice for LEGO by netsharc · · Score: 1

      Ah yes, the Airwolf, I built one too, showed it off to a friend, and then destroyed it a few days later, because it used so many of our (me and my brother's) bricks..

      Those were the days, being 10, where you just spend your day watching TV and making Lego models, instead of worrying about work and money..

      --
      What time is it/will be over there? Check with my iPhone app!
    9. Re:One Big Advice for LEGO by Jaysyn · · Score: 1

      Kings & Knights? Space vehicles (those aren't sensors on there)? Pirates? (I think they even had a "British Navy" type set to set against the pirates.)

      They must mean no *modern* military themes.

      Jaysyn

      --
      There is a war going on for your mind.
    10. Re:One Big Advice for LEGO by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They haven't made any sets that were guns, but they also haven't made any sets that were 'life size'. They've made made plenty of weapons for the little figures to hold including firearms. They've also produced the little figures with guns and knives painted on them.

    11. Re:One Big Advice for LEGO by einTier · · Score: 1
      Like you can't build your own war machines.

      Just because LEGO said I shouldn't didn't mean that I didn't. I had many seige machines, most vehicles had nice machine guns and looked like something out of Mad Max.

      In fact, after getting a new kit a few years ago, the first thing I did was build a tank. With rotating turret and elevating barrel.

      --
      -------------------------------------------------- $665.95 -- retail price of the beast.
    12. Re:One Big Advice for LEGO by LeftOfCentre · · Score: 1

      As a kid in the late eightees to mid ninetees I built a LEGO cannon, which had a clip from which it would load (using the LEGO motor) small 6x1 pieces. Hitting the FIRE button would propel the object at least a few meters and sometimes a significantly greater distance, if there was no friction (like if you shot straight into the air). I used it to shoot down LEGO men. It was fairly big and used one of those relatively large thick green 34x20 or so bottom pieces and super-cool, and it used only LEGO parts except for two rubber bands. For a while I experimented with hooking it (and other creations) up to my Amiga 500 (using the Tekno Amiga set). I built quite many fairly complex devices like this and it's a big part of the reason I got interested in technology and engineering. Sigh, those were the days...

  7. get started now folks! by Guano_Jim · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The best way to get a job like this would be to get some experience building stuff.

    Legos are CHEAP on eBay available in bulk lots or even Complete mindstorms sets

    And if not for you, buy them for your kids. Beats letting them rot their brains out watching TV all day.

    Just watch out, stepping barefoot on a 2x2 lego in the middle of the night is worse than medieval caltrops.

    1. Re:get started now folks! by techiemac · · Score: 1

      I hear that! Well actually my mom. When I was younger ( 10 years old) my dad used to bring home dead circuit boards for me to play with. You know, the kind with the socketed ICs. Well combine that with Lego, a bunch of ICs with razor sharp leads, a messy bedroom floor, and my mom walking into my room in the dark...
      Yup, she claims that there are _still_ scars on her foot from my childhood years.

    2. Re:get started now folks! by tsangc · · Score: 2, Insightful
      The best way to get a job like this would be to get some experience building stuff. Legos are CHEAP on eBay available in bulk lots or even Complete mindstorms sets


      This is the Slashdot mentality that also thinks management jobs are easy.


      Building Lego professionally is one of the most difficult tasks out there. The amount of material needed to build displays for shows, events and parks goes beyond what you can buy off Ebay because "Legos are cheap".


      Imagine someone saying that writing code or administrating a LAN is easy because gcc is free or network hubs are cheap.

    3. Re:get started now folks! by mattdm · · Score: 1

      Lego sets haven't been cheap on ebay for years. Notice that the reserve isn't even met on the collection you link to. And complete mindstorms sets are going for over what I paid for them new. No thanks.

    4. Re:get started now folks! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I was going to say that one can do a "completed items search", but eBay now forces you to register first. Are they afread of the truth?

    5. Re:get started now folks! by r_j_howell · · Score: 1

      I didn't see him say that it was easy, just that to do some building is the best way to start. I'd rather have a LAN administrator who had spent some time playing with chea hubs and linux than someone who just went out and bought a MCSE cert any day.

    6. Re:get started now folks! by HeghmoH · · Score: 1

      Good lord, what an overreaction.

      What he said was the equivalent of, "If you want to write code or administer a LAN, you have to learn. The best way to learn is to get some free tools like gcc and linux and start practicing." Incidentally, that is the best way to learn, for both. He never implied that it was easy or quick.

      --
      Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
  8. Well now... by locutus_borg · · Score: 2, Funny


    "The top model builders from each city will be invited to Legoland California in Carlsbad for a chance to become the eighth Lego master model builder and build and maintain the huge Lego sculptures in the park. The winner will be paid $13 to $15 an hour."

    Thats pretty good pay for doing something you were do at the age of 5, or for some of us still doing today.

    Clicky (Washingtonpost.com)

    --
    - It is easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them. - Alfred Adler -
    1. Re:Well now... by mankey+wanker · · Score: 1

      That level pay for California qualifies this job for submission to Fuck That Job!. Why do such companies think that people should work for them for near poverty wages? Oh right, it's sooooo cool to be poor...

  9. Already Slashdotted by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative
  10. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  11. I hope they get someone good by Denver_80203 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Seems like I have witnessed the downfall of my only childhood toy (save a bike). Once legos involved hours of building.. stacking little peices together to form only the boat's haul. Now you get a boat and it comes with the haul peice, the mast peice and the rudder peice. Oh yeah the little figure with the 5'oclock shadow and eye-patch.

    Where's the imagination and ability to shift around that? I loose the freedom to go my own direction. all the set levels have gone this direction over the years and I miss the old 40 page manuals and endless posibilities you could do on your own after that.

    1. Re:I hope they get someone good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0


      But you can still trade pokemon cards!

      seriously, I agree. Even the kits with just random parts have almost nothing in them, for like $30... it's crazy for a bunch of plastic pieces.

    2. Re:I hope they get someone good by darthscsi · · Score: 1

      I use to feel this way (though the starwars sets are great). But what lego was realizing was that not all children (or even most?) express their imagination by building. Many express imagination by role playing and such. Thus the more themed and simpler sets.

      Recently I was releaved to see mostly basic sets making a comeback; check out the "LEGO Designer Sets" for some good old fashon building sets with mostly basic peices.

    3. Re:I hope they get someone good by MoneyT · · Score: 1

      A little bit of theme for role play isn't a bad thing, I had some of the ice planet, some of the space and a handful of the robot sets, but even those pieces were mostly adaptable to the other sets. No, most of the sets barely have 3 blocks that you could concieveably add to another set.

      --
      T Money
      World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
    4. Re:I hope they get someone good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "tacking little peices together to form only the boat's haul. Now you get a boat and it comes with the haul peice, the mast peice and the rudder peice."

      You keep using this word, but I do not
      think it means what you think it means.

      HTH, HAND,

      Tels

    5. Re:I hope they get someone good by iainl · · Score: 3, Informative

      Seriously - go look at the Designer range. Sensibly priced, and all 'proper' Lego. Plus, rather than just one model to build, they have suggestions for like 10 more you could do with the bricks; its Lego like it used to be.

      --
      "I Know You Are But What Am I?"
    6. Re:I hope they get someone good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      The same thing has happened with Lincoln Logs, too. Where you used to get to build your own roof, now the roof comes as a single piece of plastic. It also constrains the size of whatever you wanted to build to the size of the prefab'ed roof.

      They also come with plastic doors, windows, farm animals, and other nonsense now.

    7. Re:I hope they get someone good by Unoti · · Score: 1

      Most of the children I've observed today express their imagination neither through building nor roleplaying. They express their imagination by watching TV and playing video games.

    8. Re:I hope they get someone good by stry_cat · · Score: 2, Informative
      Seems like I have witnessed the downfall of my only childhood toy (save a bike). Once legos involved hours of building.. stacking little peices together to form only the boat's haul. Now you get a boat and it comes with the haul peice, the mast peice and the rudder peice. Oh yeah the little figure with the 5'oclock shadow and eye-patch.
      Yep when Lego started moving to these kinds of sets I stopped buying legos. The last set I bough was a Blacktron command base and even that had some rather single use pieces (nowhere near as bad as they are now).
    9. Re:I hope they get someone good by vinton · · Score: 1

      That's a really good point. The move toward a Playmobil-like construction set (which, by the way, I think are excellent toys) makes sense for the reasons you mention. And I'd prefer these over some cheaply-made TV show/movie merchandise.

      I haven't seen the designer sets, though I must say that one great thing about the old sets was that I really felt I learned something constructing them. After building enough spaceships piece by piece, seeing how the blocks could be used to build a complex structure, I had the tools to visualize a finished vehicle and build it from the basic blocks. While not for everyone, I think that's a valuable experience.

    10. Re:I hope they get someone good by jsebrech · · Score: 1

      When I was a kid I was a lego addict. I can assure you that for myself it was both about the building AND the roleplaying. I was very much into space (before I found out how outdated our space tech really is), and built lots and lots of spaceships and robots. Then I had imaginary wars. My point is that if you take away the building aspect it makes the roleplaying aspect less important, because roleplaying for me was the payoff after creatively building. Every battle was different because every ship and every robot was different.

      What I liked about the space sets in my day was that the pieces were specialised for building spaceships, but not for building a specific spaceship. So you could build great-looking yet different-from-the-original spaceships without having to buy extra bricks. Imho this is mostly gone from modern lego sets.

      The only set I would consider buying now is the empirial destroyer set, because it's just so freakishly huge. But, it's too expensive and I don't have the room to display it anyway.

    11. Re:I hope they get someone good by Reziac · · Score: 1
      A couple years back, I wrote a small rant which touches exactly that subject. Note that I reference original Legos -- as you note, the current Lego sets do the playing for the child.

      I never had Legos (they were too expensive for us) but I had their poorer cousins: minimal sets of Lincoln Logs, TinkerToys, and American Bricks (the old wooden ones that didn't stick together by themselves, so one had to be conscious of load-bearing structures). Part of the challenge, and a great educator in itself, was figuring out how to create what I envisioned, using only my very limited supplies and their very limited capabilities.

      My other major toy was a sandbox, where everything was my own creation, limited only by what one can coerce sand into doing. A bike is somewhat the same sort of toy, in that it does nothing on its own, but can be used in ways beyond the obvious.

      Toys which do the playing for the child effectively limit a child's imagination, and thereby stunt their personal growth. Parents should consider whether a toy fosters creative play, or merely channels the child's mind into a pre-determined conduit.

      Worst case, toys which control how the child plays could be used to raise a generation desperately in need of individualized tinfoil hats. I've actually seen this done to some extent, in preschools aimed toward a particular cultural training.

      --
      ~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
    12. Re:I hope they get someone good by iainl · · Score: 1

      "The only set I would consider buying now is the empirial destroyer set, because it's just so freakishly huge. But, it's too expensive and I don't have the room to display it anyway."

      With the Star Wars stuff I've actually gone in the opposite direction. There is a Star Destroyer in the 2004 mini range that looks stunning (though they haven't hit shelves yet), and the 2002 and 2003 ranges were both brilliant. They are only like $10 little things, but to get something the looks right using almost entirely standard parts is probably even more of a challenge for the designers than the huge models in the collector series.

      --
      "I Know You Are But What Am I?"
  12. Hmm... by fafaforza · · Score: 1

    Anyone get a weird vibe looking at the picture for the forum member 'tims300'?

    1. Re:Hmm... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      December 2nd, 2003

      Subject:
      yeesh

      Time:
      02:10 pm

      last night while working out i had an encounter...

      as i stood up from the machine i was using and turned around, much to my surprise, i came face to face with a stunning boy - he was using the machine across from me and surprised me so that i actually jumped back a little bit.

      i stared for much longer than i normally would should have

      must..... look...... away....... but damn he was so gorgeous

      whew. somebody warn me the next time.

    2. Re:Hmm... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      a weird vibe? hahahaha...

      it's just me and and my boyfriend being goofy at a party.

      tim, aka tims300

  13. What happened to old lego ingenuity? by shuz · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This last christmas I was buying legos for a young cousin of mine. I wanted to just get common or plain pieces so that he, my cousin, could design his own things. I remember dumping out a large container of legos, mostly 8, 4, and 2 connector pieces. I would be able to create just about anything I could imagine. Now Lego seems to sell more specialized kits. In that I mean they have a lot more preformed large plastic pieces that are only good for that specific set. They also have been pushing a lot more advertising type sets based on movies, tv shows and what not. What ever happened to Race day set or giant pirate ship made out of 8,4,2's and a flat base? /rant off

    --
    There is or can be built a machine that can simulate any physical object. -Church-Turing principle
    1. Re:What happened to old lego ingenuity? by quigonn · · Score: 3, Interesting

      About 10 years ago, I used to build real swimming ships out of those really old Lego bricks and plates (the plates aren't available anymore) my mother and my aunt used for playing when they were kids (the bricks must be at least 35 years old). And now, those ships with those specialised bricks don't swim anymore. This really sucks.

      --
      A monkey is doing the real work for me.
    2. Re:What happened to old lego ingenuity? by shuz · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I don't think any of my designs would float for long but I am only talking 20 years ago for myself. Did they actually make lego bricks with a sealed bottom?

      --
      There is or can be built a machine that can simulate any physical object. -Church-Turing principle
    3. Re:What happened to old lego ingenuity? by Deanasc · · Score: 2, Informative

      The trouble with some of their sets is that licensing agreements with their movie tie-ins prohibit them from offering generic sets. There are no more Lego castle sets because of Harry Potter. They had to ditch the space sets when they whored themselves up to George Lucas to use Star Wars themes. Then there's always sets like this one that Lego will never release.

      --
      I've hit Karma 50 and gotten a Score:5, Troll... I win!
    4. Re:What happened to old lego ingenuity? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah. They were flat and upwards of 10x20 large. I used to make floating things all the time. Can't do it any more though..

      Me and my brother made a boat that was over 3 feet (FEET!) long.. and it floated too. We really *REALLY* had to press some of the pieces together to make a seal, and some of the "walls" were 6 units thick to prevent leaks, but it floated damnit.

    5. Re:What happened to old lego ingenuity? by UnanimousCoward · · Score: 1

      I was afraid of the lack-of-ingenuity thing too when I started getting my son sets, but it's not as bad as you think--he still likes creating his own things from the non-specialized bricks and incorporates the (as you call them) preformed pieces. In other words, the preformed sets are not stifling ingenuity--kids don't just make the Millenium Falcon and leave it...

      --
      Twelve-and-three-quarter inches. Unyielding. This wand belonged to Bellatrix Lestrange.
    6. Re:What happened to old lego ingenuity? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I remember filling up a bath tub and holding contests to see who could build a boat the floated longest. One of the grown-ups managed to build one that never, ever, sunk, but in retrospect he probably cheated by including cork in a sealed compartment or something like that.

    7. Re:What happened to old lego ingenuity? by devjoe · · Score: 1

      The reason why you see the specialized kits more is because Lego makes more money on them, and the licensed names (Harry Potter, Star Wars, etc.) sell more kits to people who might not otherwise buy them. They sell these kits for somewhere around 10-15 cents (US) per brick, and many of the pieces are very small.

      On the other hand, there are still big tubs, like this one which may be what you were remembering.
      These kits sell for more like 2 cents a brick. However they replaced this a couple years ago with the "creator" 1000 piece tub, which apparently has a far inferior selection of pieces (see review).
      And still, there are only a few tubs like this but dozens of those specialized sets, so you need to look in a store with a good selection of Lego and hunt for it! Or do like other responders already suggest and buy in bulk on ebay.

    8. Re:What happened to old lego ingenuity? by Humba · · Score: 1
      The trouble with some of their sets is that licensing agreements with their movie tie-ins prohibit them from offering generic sets. There are no more Lego castle sets because of Harry Potter. They had to ditch the space sets when they whored themselves up to George Lucas to use Star Wars themes.



      Not sure what your basis for that claim is. Lego had/has Life on Mars, has Discovery Space which is all US Space equipment themed, and has the Classic Castle theme.


      For those of you who want to just DIY, the best bet is to go to one of the Lego retail stores and use "Pick-A-Brick" to buy bulk bricks by the cup-full or by the kg.


      --H

    9. Re:What happened to old lego ingenuity? by bluegreenone · · Score: 1

      Lego has been going down the road of specialized pieces that can't be used for building other things for a while. Fortunately they recently have released the Designer Sets. I got one of these as a birthday present a while ago and they are just like the sets I used to play with in the 80s in that all the pieces are general enough to be used for other creations. If you are a Lego enthusiast or supporter I highly recommend you buy some of these sets and even write Lego to tell them to releaes more sets like these.

    10. Re:What happened to old lego ingenuity? by bracher · · Score: 1

      True, there are more 'specialized' pieces in modern lego sets, but they tend to not be restricted to just one set. Many times I will see a new piece plainly molded for a new set, and figure that it can't possibly be re-used.

      But they always seem to find a way to make new uses out of weird pieces. Little ocean plants become muzzle flashes, that's the one that brought this re-use phenomenon home to me.

      All that being said, I do have fond memories of my childhood with 'regular' legos. Big fun!

    11. Re:What happened to old lego ingenuity? by bar-agent · · Score: 1

      Oh whatever. Just go to a toy store, and you can buy a bucket o' pieces, cheap.

      --
      i'd hit it so hard, if you pulled me out you'd be the king of britain [bash.org]
    12. Re:What happened to old lego ingenuity? by einTier · · Score: 1
      There were some specialized ship pieces made in the 70's. Think of a front piece, a rear piece, and some middle "spacers". They made all ships look like thin supertankers and didn't float exceptionally well (it's nearly impossible to seal LEGO bricks).

      However, they did float, and provided you didn't want them to float for hours on end, or take a trip down the local creek, they floated passably well, and there were still plenty of things you could on top of the basic ship blocks.

      I know I miss mine.

      --
      -------------------------------------------------- $665.95 -- retail price of the beast.
    13. Re:What happened to old lego ingenuity? by Maechtig · · Score: 1

      I have had a great experience buying standard Lego pieces at http://www.bricklink.com . Especially when looking for specific types of pieces and specific colors, including rare colors, this selling venue is terrific. It once was known as brickbay, until the ebay lawyers asked them kindly to change its name. These days, it is my store of choice for Lego.

      --
      Gee, it's so tough to find a place to park around here!
  14. no LEGO guns by RMH101 · · Score: 1

    The original inventor specified that he didn't ever want guns or even military camoflage in LEGO products. They're stretching it a little now, mind but you wouldn't ever get anything overtly military with LEGO.

    1. Re:no LEGO guns by Chilly+Willy · · Score: 1

      That's pretty funny. I guess he never talked to my son or his daycare pals. One of the first things he ever learned to build with Lego was guns.
      Of course, he used to chew his Pop Tarts into a gun shape, too...

    2. Re:no LEGO guns by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Which will your son get first: pubes, or an NRA membership?

    3. Re:no LEGO guns by afidel · · Score: 1

      Are you on crack?
      I'm 25 and one of my first LEGO sets was in fact a cammo bucket set which was military themed. Of course I mostly used it for making bridges, bases, and other engineering things for my action figures but LEGO most certainly sells and has sold for a long time military themed kits. Of course that stuff pales in comparison to Technicks and Mindstorms (I had the Technicks 4' working car!)

      --
      There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
    4. Re:no LEGO guns by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Are you sure it was lego and not megablock? Cuz lego has NEVER had camo sets, and I speak with 20 years of experience in this.

      And on the off chance they do, could you provide a link, because I'd be really amazed to see that they did.

      -- vranash

    5. Re:no LEGO guns by REBloomfield · · Score: 1

      I just picked up a big Megablox SWAT set, on the basis that the nazi looking men with their missile truck just looked *so* cool. But there are some really really cool huge models of Megablox, like a battleship that's half the size of a small child with the side cut off (the ship that is, not the kid)....

  15. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 1, Funny

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  16. Damm by CompWerks · · Score: 0

    My geek meter is pegged!

    --
    If you can read this sig - the bitch fell off.
  17. Where lego has been by Saven+Marek · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This is, ok a bit off topic but the current mars lander has lego on board, with a photo of it here as part of an experiment

    1. Re:Where lego has been by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A bit off topic? You mean completely off topic and not releated in any way to the subject at hand. Welcome to moderation down.

    2. Re:Where lego has been by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Um what's offtopic about LEGO dickface?

    3. Re:Where lego has been by iainl · · Score: 1

      So what if its offtopic. Its just too bloody cool to not mention. Thanks for that, I completely forgot about it (my name is on the DVD, like about a million others).

      --
      "I Know You Are But What Am I?"
  18. This job sounds so cool... by foxtrot · · Score: 4, Interesting

    But I've been to two Legolands, and I knew better than to even consider applying.

    Let me give you some background: an entire room of my domicile is devoted to Lego. (Well, it's a walk-in closet, but it's a big walk-in closet...) Just my unsorted Lego fills 50 gallons of storage tubs, plus some. Sorted, I have organizers with well over five hundred small drawers of little parts, so I can always find what I need. I'm pretty ridiculous when it comes to Lego. I can build some pretty cool stuff.

    But after going to Legoland in Windsor, I realized the master builders are so out of my league it ain't even a contest. I'm not worthy to carry these guys' baseplates. The stuff these people do is mind-boggling. Stunning. Amazing.

    Every self-respecting geek may know about it, but almost all of us are gonna have to settle for ooohing and aaaahing at whoever does get the job and the spectacular stuff this person can build.

    1. Re:This job sounds so cool... by mark-t · · Score: 4, Insightful
      ... I knew better than to even consider applying.
      You "knew better"???

      If you really knew better, you'd have applied anyways... and let the chips fall where they may.

      The worst they can do is say no, or not call on you at all.

      Why turn down or reject yourself for a position that you aren't even making the hiring decision for? I know that when you apply for a job you really want, it's difficult to avoid getting your hopes up, and when it doesn't pan out there's a sense of disappointment, but in the end you are really no worse off... in fact, you would still be better off than before because you exhibited the self confidence in the first place to dare to even apply, which is a highly transferrable skill and will make it that much more likely that you'd be able to land your dream job in the future.

      Don't sell yourself short.

    2. Re:This job sounds so cool... by Washizu · · Score: 2, Insightful

      "Don't sell yourself short."

      Plus, they might be out of your league for now, but what about when you're spending 50 hours a week building the damn things?

      --
      OddManIn: A Game of guns and game theory.
    3. Re:This job sounds so cool... by aardwolf204 · · Score: 1

      I was 17 years old and applied for a job as a network administrator. I didnt get the net admin job, instead I worked my way up from desktop publishing (powerpoint ugh), to web developer, and now as I am on the verge of turning 21 I am finally net admin (kinda obvious, why else would I be posting to slashdot at 10:30 am?). Dont short change yourself dude, give it a go and see what comes of it.

      --
      Im dreaming ofa big bndwdth, That can resist the /.crowd.May ur days b merry & bright & may al
    4. Re:This job sounds so cool... by kisrael · · Score: 2, Insightful

      One thing is, a lot of the jobs at Legolands seem to involve using Legos as 3D pixels, essentially, with a lot less chances for clever "small" work.

      I have been more impressed with the creativity shown in whoever designs the sets...the new designer stuff w/ all the joints, some of the Mechs from the Mars series, and the tiny-scale Star Wars stuff are all very cool. (Admittedly the tiny-scale Star Wars stuff I'd seen on the web before, but its definately a nice contrast to the usual minifig scale works)

      --
      SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
    5. Re:This job sounds so cool... by b1t+r0t · · Score: 1
      Anyone with 50 gallons of Legos should apply anyhow. Especially if you have any talent in 3D scuplting (since the big stuff esentially uses regular bricks as voxels).

      The stuff these people do is mind-boggling.

      The stuff these people do is possible because they get paid to do this for a living. Full-time.

      --

      --
      "Open source is good." - Steve Jobs
      "Open source is evil." - Microsoft
    6. Re:This job sounds so cool... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What are you, a highschool guidance councilor?

    7. Re:This job sounds so cool... by Bazzargh · · Score: 1

      But I've been to two Legolands, and I knew better than to even consider applying.

      Like the other guy said, why not? When I was applying for my first graduate job, Biddy Baxter retired - if you're not from the UK or don't remember, she was the producer for Blue Peter and for years came up with all the crappy toys they'd show you how to build with yoghurt pots and sticky back plastic. Her job was advertised in the Guardian so of course I applied....never had a hope in hell of getting it but it makes a change from going for crappy office jobs.

    8. Re:This job sounds so cool... by teamhasnoi · · Score: 1
      You realize that this attitude lets me know that all I need to do is raise my hand and say, "Bitch, make me a Turkey Pot Pie!" and you'll get right on it.

      Have some faith in yourself. Best trite thing that a boss ever said to me was, "Fake it 'till you make it."

      You have more legos than most people will ever see. Use the force, Luke. And quit with the self-defeating attitude. There is no standing in the way of someone who has something to prove.

      Sincerely,
      Dr. Phil

    9. Re:This job sounds so cool... by einTier · · Score: 1
      The Star Wars Destroyer Droid set (8002) was an amazing piece of work. Not a single 'classic' LEGO brick in the set, but not one unique piece either. It was all fairly standard non-brick Technic pieces, with a few special standard and Technic bricks thrown in -- but nothing you can't find in another set.

      It's one of the most fiendishly difficult kits I've put together, but watching how it all fits together and works is nothing short of incredible.

      --
      -------------------------------------------------- $665.95 -- retail price of the beast.
  19. Best way to lose your dream job? by stuffedmonkey · · Score: 5, Funny

    Post about it, including detailed notes about the process and interviewers, on the internet. Then, just to make sure it gets maximum attention, send the link to a large news page. Seriously - this is not going to help the guy get the job.

  20. slashdotted lego... way to go, guys. by 4sheez · · Score: 0

    Now I'll never be a master builder... I'll just have to stick with being a master-debator.

    --
    Down, down, down. The Red knight's goin' down.
  21. Job rating by Orion442 · · Score: 4, Funny

    This has got to be in the top 5 Coolest Slacker Jobs...right up there with "Beer Taster" at Budweiser.

    1. Re:Job rating by MadShark · · Score: 3, Funny

      I would think beer taster and Budweiser would be more like torture. Of course jobs aren't supposed to be fun...

    2. Re:Job rating by strike2867 · · Score: 1

      Not all jobs you may want are actually good. Who here never screamed

      "God Damn I wanna be a PORN STAR".

      Only to read later in the job description that you have to jack off 10 times, and then go have sex for two hours. All while taking loads of pills, blood tests, and getting payed 1/5 of what the women get(feminism at work).

      --

      Vote for new mod!!! Score:-2,Imbecile
    3. Re:Job rating by Gudlyf · · Score: 1
      "...right up there with "Beer Taster" at Budweiser"

      "Top Coolest Slacker Job"?!? Methinks instead we found a new addition to this year's Popular Science Worst Jobs in Science article.

      --
      Trolls lurk everywhere. Mod them down.
    4. Re:Job rating by Unoti · · Score: 1

      Actually that sounds a lot like the description of what would go on in the lego master builder job! (Oh and it's not feminism at work on the gender salary gap in porn.)

    5. Re:Job rating by Space_Nerd · · Score: 1

      You got your words confused, it's "Piss" Taster at Budweiser

      --
      Everybody has a purpose in life, maybe mine is to lurk in slashdot.
    6. Re:Job rating by Orion442 · · Score: 1

      No, that would be piss taster at Coors. ;)

    7. Re:Job rating by mudshark · · Score: 1

      Ehh, whatever. Still prolly better than beer taster.

      --
      In other news, astrophysicists have announced that they now know what all that dark matter is: it's stupidity.
  22. Sounds like a dream job, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    the enviable position of building with Lego all day and getting paid for the privilege

    Glurmo: He has to party all night long, every night, or he gets fired.

  23. Funny anecdote by Zathrus · · Score: 5, Interesting

    When I was in college taking my technical writing course (required, which I think is a good thing) the teacher gave us a in class project. She handed out a small baggie of lego, maybe 10 pieces each, and told us to make whatever we wanted in groups of 4. We then had to document what we made and how to reassemble it. Then take it apart, hand the baggie and instructions to another group, and see how they do.

    Nobody got anywhere close.

    The funny thing was that she had previously taught an English 1001 course. One of the first writing assignments she gave was to ask "What was your favorite childhood toy?"

    She'll never give that assignment again. Not at an engineering college. She got to read 30 essays extolling the virtues of Lego, how they inspired creativity and building, and how all the newer sets suck because they have overly specific pieces.

    I wasn't in that class, but I suspect my essay would've been similar. Lego just rocks. My first child is due in a month and we already have some of the newborn Lego stuff. My sister gave me a bag full of Duplo blocks (many of which came from me) since her kids have outgrown them, and I'll give them to my kid when she's capable of using them.

    Honestly... I'd much rather see a kid playing with blocks or lego than with most of the electronic toys nowadays. For one thing, they're far quieter... and they don't need batteries (although you can some sets with them nowadays -- which I only dreamed of when I was a kid).

    1. Re:Funny anecdote by Hagakure · · Score: 1, Funny

      yeah, great 'toy'.. just wait until you step on one of them sharp LEGO creations in the middle of the night..

      --


      If this is Heaven I'm bailin out! I cant tolerate this ol tin-tub, so fulla trash and rats...
    2. Re:Funny anecdote by bp17 · · Score: 1

      Ditto for me, man. I've got a kid due in about 6 months and I'm already digging up all my old Lego from my parent's basement.

      Sweet Lego.

    3. Re:Funny anecdote by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      not noisy?

      depends on the kid's imagination... I gave a duplo kit to a friend's kid for his birthday, and one week later I ask my friend what kind of stuff his kid is building.

      he said he had to put the duplos away, because his kid kept throwing them around randomly, and scratching the paint off the drywall in his home.

    4. Re:Funny anecdote by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      reminds me of how my and my lil bro used to play "Spaceship Crash Landing" with legos when we were kids.

      The Game: Build the most bad-ass spaceship, and then throw it downstairs to see who gets the most spectacular crash-landing.

    5. Re:Funny anecdote by raddan · · Score: 2, Funny

      Yes, but will your love for Lego persist when you howl in pain after step on an overlooked block left on the floor by your Lego prodigy? My dad threatened, multiple times, to throw all my toys away if I didn't clean up, and he actually succeeded once. Being a kid sux.

    6. Re:Funny anecdote by 91degrees · · Score: 1

      My sister gave me a bag full of Duplo blocks (many of which came from me) since her kids have outgrown them, and I'll give them to my kid when she's capable of using them.

      This illustrates that one of the problems for Lego is that their product is just too damn durable:) People just don;t need to replace it.

    7. Re:Funny anecdote by Kredal · · Score: 3, Funny

      One of my friends and I did exactly the opposite. We would build super-indestructable cars (they had to roll, and had to have a mini-fig inside them). Then we'd crash them together drop them on pavement, throw them down stairs.. and whichever one could still roll, and still had the mini-fig in it the longest, won.

      I didn't know legos could get so dented until we did that. (:

      --
      Whoever stated that signature sizes should be limited to one hundred and twenty characters can just go ahead and kiss my
    8. Re:Funny anecdote by proxima · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Then take it apart, hand the baggie and instructions to another group, and see how they do.

      High School Science Olympiad competitions have something similar, except they give you a prebuilt model (which often includes but is not limited to LEGOs), and you have to describe it in detail. You're given 15 minutes to do this. Then you pass it off to your partner who gets 15 minutes to reconstruct it. Since the rules are known beforehand good teams will practice a few times, and the winner (as our team was one year) is usually perfect or quite close.

      --
      "The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent." --Carl Sagan
    9. Re:Funny anecdote by Unknown+Kadath · · Score: 3, Funny

      I'd much rather see a kid playing with blocks or lego than with most of the electronic toys nowadays. For one thing, they're far quieter...

      My mother encouraged us to play with Legos because she thought it was better and more "family-oriented" than television. This lasted until the next Christmas, when my brother and I received 4 or 5 big Lego sets apiece, and within and hour were banished to our rooms when playing with them. There aren't a lot of household sounds louder than a bin of Legos being dumped out onto the floor and rifled through (except maybe the sound of Dad stepping on a stray 2x2).

      -Carolyn

      --
      Like Daddy always said: if you can't dazzle 'em with brilliance, baffle 'em with bullshit.
    10. Re:Funny anecdote by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Those are not exclusive. With my brother we did, oh 25 years ago (shit am I so old ?):

      Build space ship. Build space ship base (cosmos 1999 alpha base, generally). Ask dad to bring his camera. Throw space ship into base. Have fun.

      Build 2 indestructible car with a little figure inside. Throw them together until the figure goes away.

      Build boat with *all* the brick. Take it to bath, make him float. Wreck the boat.

      Now, my 2 sons (4 and 5 years old) have maybe 40 lb of lego), and, well, they probably don't play anything else.

      And I confess that the modern kits are quite okay (I used to despise anything that was not pure orginal generic lego brick), even if the bricks are sometimes more specialized. When the kid look into one of the lego box, he get a specialized part which gives him an idea at the same instant. He them goes "in the zone" and come back with some kind of spaceship.

    11. Re:Funny anecdote by cr0sh · · Score: 1
      In a similar vein, as a kid I used to play something I termed "jump car" - I would build this insane nearly vertical (so I could get good air, but still have some forward momentum) quarter-pipe type construction using large books and a piece of cardboard or something, all held together with tape and such. The object was to build a "car" with a minifig inside that could be launched (ie, hurled with rapid force down the hallway) toward the ramp, up and over it, and survive landing in the hallway, hopefully still rolling.

      Needless to say, I busted many wheel hubs on that game, plus a few lego pieces. The most spectacular "failure" (it was all about failing) I had the car launched and landed perfectly, but then in a slow but quickly building cascade effect fell apart into many individual lego pieces scattering across the floor. The fate of the minifig? Instant death it was declare: head/torso/legs all separated - not a pretty way to go at all...

      --
      Reason is the Path to God - Anon
  24. best of both worlds!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    d00d... http://drew.corrupt.net/bp/

  25. advertising, and the future by mattdm · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Have you been to a movie recently? Every one I've been to in the past couple of years has been prefixed with a Lego ad of some sort. Before, they were mostly Bionicle(*spit*) ads, but recently it's been for their new creator / designer / inventer sets.

    These new lines make me feel more secure for Lego's future -- for a while, they were very distracted by "action toys", instead of focusing on the one thing they do better than anything else: making supplies for *creative* building. It looks like someone inside has finally realized that if they're trying to be just another action figure company, they're going to die, and that the emphasis must be on *actual building sets*.

    As for the prices -- yeah, they're a pretty expensive toy, but the quality is much higher than one gets with clones.

    1. Re:advertising, and the future by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Do what I do, go and hit KB every once in a while and keep track of prices, hell, for christmas this year, I got that Modeller's Edition Yoda or whatever it's called that retails for 99.99 for under 39.99 (label was 39.99 plus like a 20 percent pre-x-mas discount).

      Also if I hadn't missed the sale by a day, Toy's R Us had a ton of the hundred dollar lego sets for like 40 percent off day after thanksgiving. So if you know WHEN to look, their 'overpricing' becomes less of an issue :)

      -- vranash

    2. Re:advertising, and the future by maccw · · Score: 1

      Bionicles are actually very cool. its all the movie tie ins and theme'd legos that took the magic out of it.

      --
      My karma is getting better everyday.
  26. I have a 5 year old at home... by cblguy · · Score: 2, Interesting
    And OH YES, Lego is alive. At least at my house.

    I have Jurassic Park legos strewn all over my office. My ofc has become a part time dinosaur preserve.

    Last year it was Star Wars. Now it'd Dinosaurs.

    My wife ONLY buys Legos when they're on clearance though. They drop to about 40% of their original price ($7 vs. $20, by waiting a few months).

    1. Re:I have a 5 year old at home... by iainl · · Score: 1

      If you're still buying space stuff, take a look over on the lego shop website (shop.lego.com) - the actual NASA sets are just stunning. Plus, the nanofig scale Star Destroyer for 2004 is pretty cool, too.

      --
      "I Know You Are But What Am I?"
    2. Re:I have a 5 year old at home... by Shadwhawk · · Score: 1

      Oh, if only it were minifig scale.
      There's about 2.8 studs to a meter (for minifig scaling), which would mean a minifig-scale Star Destroyer would be 4480 studs long. At about .3125 inches for 1 stud, that would mean that a minifig-scale Star Destroyer would be 1400 inches long. 116'8".
      The 37" model Lego produces isn't quite to minifig scale. :)

  27. The sure did make a mess... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Back in my day, I used to have legos all over the damn place! Before going to bed I used to have to clear a little path from my bed to the door. I think legos started to become more structured and lazy-boy oriented when they came out with the 'lego-cleaner' a little wheel powered vacuum that cleaned the sea of legos off your carpet...Lazy kids.

    With that out of the way, did anybody ever play with Duplos? They are like legos but about 10 times bigger, I made some cool monsters with those bad boys...

    ~Snit

    1. Re:The sure did make a mess... by MoneyT · · Score: 1

      Duplos were cool, but if I had to pick another great building toy other than lego, I would have to say bristle blocks were the best.

      --
      T Money
      World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
    2. Re:The sure did make a mess... by dubbage42 · · Score: 1

      I LOVED Legos... I had those at home (as well as Lincoln Logs and "American Bricks") but Bristle Blocks... I had almost forgotten about those!!

      When I was about 7 the elementary school I went to had Bristle Blocks in the library. Good Times!!! I used to make neat "robot dudes" and they would have battles and wars. (I was a weird little girl :)

      Ok, that was about 25 years ago. I'm feeling old now. :*(

  28. Tedious? by Zog+The+Undeniable · · Score: 2, Interesting
    When I see some of the giant sculptures they have at Legoland, it makes me wonder whether building something half life size might get just a tad repetitive. Or maybe the master builder does the initial plan and supervises while his minions get on with placing 10,000 red bricks?

    Kind of reminds me of Herb Ritts (the late fashion photographer). As well as lighting technicians, reflector holders and makeup artists, he had an assistant simply to raise his heavy Pentax 6x7 to his eye - all he had to do was squint through it and take the shot. Now *that's* when you know you're at the top of your profession.

    --
    When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
  29. My greatest lego triumph by Vilim · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Would probably be when I was 7 or 8 my neighour and I made an entire city out of lego, at the time I was also ripping apart anything electronic that I could get my hands on so the city had working street lights (leds I got from an answering machine), a loudspeaker in the middle of the square (some speaker I got from somewhere that we played music to the plebes on) and ...... a monorail! the monorail was the triumph. Of course it was more like a bus (it had wheels) which rode on a track which was supported on posts, it was still a monorail.

    --
    History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it - Sir Winston Churchill
    1. Re:My greatest lego triumph by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Monorails have wheels too...so do trains...the difference is that monorails only have one rail instead of two...did you maybe have just an elevated train, like the early 20th century cities?

      ~Snit

    2. Re:My greatest lego triumph by SirASCII · · Score: 0

      I built a replica of my block. Houses, Streetlights...(of course in mismatched colors) and added the monorail to it! But I had the airport set... I took the airplane hull pieces and invert it for the track and added a technic motor + wheel to the back... I can not tell you how many times I had to change out the C batteries for that...

    3. Re:My greatest lego triumph by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      IIRC, you can make a single 4-wide rail with the middle two bits raised by one unit to guide your monorail train. It works better than two rails with a down-hanging middle guidance section of the train, because there is much less friction. But if you use round pieces for a down-hanging guide for the train, you could probably more easily make a track with turns etc.

      I made similar things in my youth, but I thought of them more as roller coasters than monorails. At this point I have little recollection of how they actually worked.

    4. Re:My greatest lego triumph by Overly+Critical+Guy · · Score: 1

      Goddamn.

      When I was 8, I was peeking at the neighbor's daughter as she played in the pool in her bathing suit. You're fucking building cities.

      --
      "Sufferin' succotash."
    5. Re:My greatest lego triumph by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There was evidence to prove thatOverly Critical Guy is a lying cocksucker, but he deleted it. Think independently.

  30. I think the marines... by ajagci · · Score: 1

    Yes, the makers of Lego hold interviews to see who can create entire buildings and sculptures by snapping together little rectangular pieces of plastic. I think the marines are also holding interviews for the enviable job of cleaning entire barracks with nothing more than a toothbrush. Both jobs seems pretty similar to me--if you don't get the first, apply for the second.

  31. Full Text by rcatarella · · Score: 2, Funny

    So the interview with LEGO was Saturday...

    Ugh, my nerves were all over the place. I ended up re-writing my cover letter prolly 6 or 8 times Saturday morning before finally heading up to Boston with my belly full of butterflies--and Smores Cereal :)

    The setup for the whole event was pretty cool. They had very impressive LEGO models all over and filled the place with people wearing LEGO shirts. It was nearly impossible to tell who was from LEGO and who worked at the college hosting it.

    So I show up and register and am told to go into this room where I can mingle with some of the other applicants and LEGO folk. They had two buckets of brick which they explained could be used if I needed to "warm up" for the building challenge which was about to take place. OMG, if only they knew that I had been up the whole night before building like a bandit, trying to prepare for anything they could throw at me...lol

    I ended up swimming my hands through the pieces anyways. At first it was just for a soothing moment of Zen, but then it ended up turning into a full-blown building event once a little kid that someone had brought along started building with me. We had a blast. He had a modified foam beer can holder over one of his wrists which he said helped him build. It's always fun to see Budweiser helping to foster children's imaginations.

    As we're building, one of the LEGO shirts comes over and joins us. Then this other girl in a LEGO shirt stands behind him and watches too. Then another applicant sits down at my table too and began to build. We all had some small talk and smiles and then another LEGO shirt comes out of the blue and asks me if I'm ready for my building challenge. Oh, ya betcha!

    I get escorted with applicant #10 to another room. (They gave us all numbers during registration-I was #9. Damn, I wanted to meet #2 so badly!) There were two chairs at a table with two separate covered buckets each containing 2000 basic bricks.

    "Don't worry about color--We're more interested in how you build and what you build rather than how well the colors match up" announced Pat who was in charge of the competition. He then says "The theme is sports. You have 45 minutes-Go!"

    Sports?!?! Of all the frikken topics, I get SPORTS???

    #10 immediately lights up and starts feverishly building away. Again, I start swimming my fingers through the bricks before me-but this time I'm swimming like I've just been shipwrecked with my fingers searching for a lifesaver of an idea to build.

    I had to have wasted 5 minutes of my time just thinking. I looked down at the green base plate and immediately thought about building Fenway Park. I mean the baseball diamond was already there. All I'd need to do was build the walls around it. That was too easy, though and I knew it would be tough to make it interesting given the bricks I had to work with. So scratching my head and kinda sneaking out a smile and a laugh in the otherwise sterile room, I figured why not build a mascot. I have lots of yellow and black brick--I'll build a bumble-bee mascot.

    Ok, ok, I know you're prolly thinking who the hell are the Bumble-Bees??? I have no idea either, but I figured it had to make sense somewhere in the country. Maybe it was an expansion team along the Mexican Boarder. I didn't care-it was going to work! :)

    45 minutes later, Pat comes back in and starts talking to #10 about his creation:

    "So, it looks like you made a baseball park-is that the green wall here at Fenway?" LOL...OMG, I thought that was too funny that he had actually built what I almost built. It was pretty decent, but again, the details were hard to make out and with the exception of the green monster the colors definitely worked against it. He asked a few questions and then invited the guy to head back to the mingling room where he was welcome to check out some more of the models before he could head home. He says "will be in touch soon." #10 leaves relieved.

    Then Pat

    1. Re:Full Text by Altrag · · Score: 1

      I think this might be the first time I've seen a full-text repost moderated as "funny".

  32. Not for $7/Hour by raverbuzzy · · Score: 4, Informative

    I met someguy a few years back on an cms implementation project who told me he used to be a professional lego builder building the various large scale models found in their stores.

    I (thinking it was a dream job) replied: "Wow. What a dream job. Why did you stop?"

    To which he replied "Try living on $7 bucks an hour"

    1. Re:Not for $7/Hour by Zathrus · · Score: 3, Interesting

      To which he replied "Try living on $7 bucks an hour"

      Well, it's gone up since then at least -- it's $13-15/hour now. See here or here.

      That said, $13-15/hour isn't going to be a whole lot of money if you're living in So. Cal. -- it's livable, but you're not going to be buying a lot of toys (except lego obviously) or live in a big house (unless you make it out of the aforementioned lego).

      Based on the "Lego Master Builder" FAQ page (here's a Google cache, since the main is toast) there are decent benefits as well, plus some travel (which probably means a good bit of travel, for which you'd be paid extra).

      Whether or not you can live on that money is obviously dependant on lifestyle and other income, but, hey -- it still is a dream job (if you like Lego).

  33. Laziness by MURD3R3R · · Score: 0, Offtopic
    LOL, OMG.. Prolly cuz frikken Lego!

    Isn't this rather sloppy writing by this guy in the article? At first I was enjoying hearing his story about lego building, but I couldn't help but to get annoyed by his choice of words. Is this what were teaching kids today? Probably is spelled prolly, because is spelled cuz. It is just a lazy way of saying what you really want to say.

  34. MOD PARENT IN SOME DIRECTION by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This is really unfairly moderated right now.

  35. I started bouncing. I was literally bouncing!! I c by aardwolf204 · · Score: 1

    I started bouncing. I was literally bouncing!! I couldn't contain my excitement.

    /me Imagines a lego model of Spirit Rover bouncing around mars. Woohoo, I want what this guys on.

    --
    Im dreaming ofa big bndwdth, That can resist the /.crowd.May ur days b merry & bright & may al
  36. That doesn't sound so cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "Beer taster" at Budweiser sounds no better than "urine confirmer" at the drug testing lab. Slackers would probably prefer "bud wrangler" at the medical marijuana farm.

  37. OMG LOL :O) by Hrothgar+The+Great · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    OMG... ROTFLMAO ;)

    Jesus, I am going to build a baseball bat out of legos and bash that fucker's skull in if he says LOL just ONE more god damn time.

  38. My first task as Master Builder... by 3Suns · · Score: 3, Funny

    My first task as Master Builder would be to reinstate the Hard Core lego set. Makes a great gift!

    --

    -3Suns

    ~~~~
    The Revolution will be Slashdotted
  39. Re:Is livejournal a gay site? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Yes, indeed, he is a flame. Read the rest of his journal. But at least he is cute, as are most of his friends. Mmm.

  40. 5 minutes wasted by Inda · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I had to have wasted 5 minutes of my time just thinking.

    I find this statement strange. These 5 minutes of thinking probably scored him double with the interviewers.

    When I was a Patternmaker I would typically spend 8 hours (1 whole day) thinking about the job before I started it. Most jobs would take 400 hours so this was still a small amount of time in my mind.

    Rushing to start a job just leads to mistakes when you are building something big and complex like a Lego model or a set of 50 tonne press tools.

    --
    This post contains benzene, nitrosamines, formaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide.
    1. Re:5 minutes wasted by DerekLyons · · Score: 1
      When I was a Patternmaker I would typically spend 8 hours (1 whole day) thinking about the job before I started it. Most jobs would take 400 hours so this was still a small amount of time in my mind.

      Rushing to start a job just leads to mistakes when you are building something big and complex like a Lego model or a set of 50 tonne press tools.
      The same attitude is mirrored in Gene Krantz's exhortation to the techs in Mission Control, "if you don't know what to do, don't make it worse by guessing!".
  41. Lego is no longer about imagination... by addie · · Score: 3, Interesting

    We went out to shop for my little cousin's birthday a few months ago, and figured Lego was a great idea. I had been raised on it, and we all know it's the one toy that never gets old because of the endless possibilities.

    But now it seems it's impossible to buy a set that isn't "themed" with dozens of proprietary parts that only really work within their designated set. Any attempt to mix sets now results in even more of a Frankenstein creation than I remember being possible when I was a kid. We eventually gave up, realizing that (as other posters have pointed out) the only way to get a real good "set" of Lego is to buy bulk on e-Bay.

    Moral of the story, whatever you do, DO NOT throw old Lego away. The primary color simple blocks don't come in regular sets anymore, but are probably the most valuable pieces around (and I don't mean in terms of cash value).

    1. Re:Lego is no longer about imagination... by JoshMKiV · · Score: 1

      Sorry but you are wrong - you can still buy buckets/tubs of the primary pieces. The best way to get large numbers of pieces for big creations. http://froogle.google.com/froogle?q=lego+tub Cheers, Josh

    2. Re:Lego is no longer about imagination... by maccw · · Score: 1

      Try target bro. Tons of basic kits. Your wrong about the pieces not fitting together. My son loves the Star Wars kits. When he is done putting the kit together he mixes and matches them with my 33 year old legos without a hitch.

      --
      My karma is getting better everyday.
  42. As a parent to a two year old by edremy · · Score: 1
    Normal Lego is a bit small at first. While I hate endorsing a copy, Megablocks are way cheap and a lot larger- Adam was able to put them together at barely a year, although even now he doesn't really "build" objects, just sticks things at random. You can buy 100 piece buckets for ~$14 where I am, and they are often on sale. My wife and I often have more fun with them than he does. (We really enjoy the Thomas train sets too, since we do all the track layouts. Toys are fun.)

    Avoid Baby Lego: they don't stick together at all, which ends up frustrating the kid.

    --
    "Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
    1. Re:As a parent to a two year old by sunhou · · Score: 1

      We really enjoy the Thomas train sets too, since we do all the track layouts. Toys are fun.

      My sister's kids (2 and 4 years old) love Thomas too, but wow that stuff is expensive. I mean, $90 for one little piece like a crane or a building or something! It's insane. Small track kits can easily run $150 from what I saw.

      I got the 4-year-old a couple of Thomas PC games, which he likes playing. It took him a while to learn how to use the mouse, but now he's quite good at it. He can build tracks in the game, fly Harold the Helicopter, and other stuff (it doesn't take away from his enjoyment of the "real" Thomas toys either -- not trying to turn him into a little video game addict).

    2. Re:As a parent to a two year old by edremy · · Score: 1

      My sister's kids (2 and 4 years old) love Thomas too, but wow that stuff is expensive. I mean, $90 for one little piece like a crane or a building or something! It's insane. Small track kits can easily run $150 from what I saw.

      With a few tricks it's not too bad, although like any well built wood toy it's not going to be cheap.

      • Buy a starter kit like the figure 8 set. A bunch of track + trains is about $40. Get a few switch/curve/straight sets and you can get enough track to cover a big floor for $75 or less.
      • Avoid accessories like the stations, water towers, etc. They are way expensive.
      • Go to Sam's club and buy the video+train car sets. VHS is ~$12, DVD ~14. The cars alone are often more than that in toy stores. The videos are pretty good too: far better than most of the kiddie video dreck.
      • Check offbeat places. Grandma buys Adam his stuff at a craft store that gives ~50% off list.
      --
      "Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
  43. Look at the grammar! by anomaly · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I know that there's a whole cultural experience around blogging that includes acronyms, but the inapproriate punctuation and grammar shows that this candidate lacks communications skills.

    Will this disqualify him from this particular job? Perhaps, perhaps not. What it means is that it is unlikely that this candidate has what it takes to grow beyond that role.

    Communications skills and people skills are what determine the influence that you can have within an organization.

    Have you been the victim of unfair promotion within the workplace? Have you seen people with lesser skills move ahead?

    It's probable that the reason behind this "crazy" promotion is that your written and verbal communications combined with your ability to get along with and/or lead people are somewhat less than those of the person promoted past you.

    The "Big Lie" that we geeks tell ourselves is that intelligence and technical prowess alone are the determining factors in career growth. They are not the most important factors. I'll share a recent insightful quote:
    "The one who knows 'how' will always have a job. The one why knows 'why' will always be his boss." (Maxwell, Thinking for a Change)

    Practice in blogging skills like his is unlikely to help develop skills needed for career growth.

    Respectfully,
    Anomaly

    BTW - God loves you and longs for relationship with you. If you want to know more, please email me.

    --
    But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
    1. Re:Look at the grammar! by UnifiedTechs · · Score: 1

      "Will this disqualify him from this particular job? Perhaps, perhaps not. What it means is that it is unlikely that this candidate has what it takes to grow beyond that role."

      Umm, the position is a Lego Master Builder, 1 of 6 in the world, where exactly is he going to grow to? Sure he probably won't make CEO but otherwise I'm sure he would be more then happy if his career stopped here. Unless there is a Lego Chief Master Builder or Gunnery Builder position I'm not aware of. ;)

      Also writing a Blog that is being read by tons of people sure seems like a good show of communication skill to me. There is alot more to communication skills then grammer. Are you one of those people who feel you need to go to an Ivy League school to be good at anything?

    2. Re:Look at the grammar! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "What it means is that it is unlikely that this candidate has what it takes to grow beyond that role."
      I'm afraid I would have to disagree with that. One blog post is hardly indicative of his entire set of communications skills. I don't know about you, but when I write something quickly and throw it out, I tend to make plenty of silly mistakes. That doesn't mean that the final copy of a report I write will have similar problems.

      Of course, we all know that people take the time to think punctuation and grammar out before posting to a blog, right? Honestly....

    3. Re:Look at the grammar! by anomaly · · Score: 1

      1) According to his profile he's 28. I seriously doubt that acting as the LEGO master builder will be a satisfying position for the next 40 years. It's probably a great job for him today, and I bet he will love it for a while - perhaps even for several years. As time passes we mature and what satisfied us before becomes less satisfying. When we want to move on or move up, we need skills to take us there.

      2) Schools have little to do with education. We must constantly be students in order to grow. As geeks, we must be students of technology, but as people we must be students of people and that means learning people skills and communications skills.

      My primary point is that we cannot believe that geekiness is the sole key to career success. It seems to me that the blogger is showing his ignorance of his native tongue. You don't have to use large words to communicate well. In fact doing so is frequently detrimental to the communications process. However, all of us judge by appearances, and in cyberspace ones writing provides the greatest view of the individual.

      Respectfully,
      Anomaly

      --
      But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
    4. Re:Look at the grammar! by Eklypz · · Score: 1

      So I guess my life-long love of computing and all things dealing with computers. Doing stuff with them at work and then going home and doing more stuff is going to fade away?? That will be a hard sell to the majority of people here...everyone has their niche, maybe lego building is his.

      --
      Life is everything but nothing.
    5. Re:Look at the grammar! by Casca · · Score: 1

      Funny, I enjoyed reading his blog, much more than many of the articles posted here. I'll probably remember much of his story, and likely be able to retell it to people when the subject comes up. Thats pretty good communication if you ask me. Just because his grammar isn't up to snuff doesn't mean his communication skills are lacking.

      --
      Casca
    6. Re:Look at the grammar! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      holy crap are you arrogant and condescending anomaly!

  44. Equal opportunity employer? by Stavr0 · · Score: 2, Funny
    Do they have a Master CLIKITS Fashion Designer position available? My SO is looking for a career change...

    BTW, 'Clikits' is much too phonetically similar to a word that ends with 'oris'

    1. Re:Equal opportunity employer? by technomom · · Score: 1

      Clikits are crap. My daughter got a set for Christmas and they are hard as heck to snap together for 5 year old fingers. She quickly ditched the purse and pieces under her bed and pulled out her regular Legos instead.

      JoAnn

  45. At the top by anomaly · · Score: 1

    Because with the army of assistants, he apparently knew by squinting into the viewfinder whether it would be a "money shot" or not.

    Knowing that is far more valuable than the technical skills needed to set up the kit for the shot. That's what makes the difference.

    --
    But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
  46. Slightly OT, I know... by Chagatai · · Score: 1, Informative
    Many people may think that linking to a Google cache, hosting a copy of information on a personal website, or just copying and pasting an article into Slashdot is a fast and simple way to swipe some karma, but we often forget about the guys like me who have company-installed web blockers and don't have a fast enough connection at home for tunneling. It is thanks to the dilligence and karma grabbing of these individuals that we web eunuchs are able to get the latest news. "WebSense-It's About Productivity." No, Websense, it's about being a gorilla suffering from simian hemmoragic fever trying to communicate to me that it is having a seizure in sign language, saying that needs its epilectic medication, and blocking me from viewing a simple, innocent web page about Legos, for crying out loud!

    Sorry, had to get that out.

    --
    --Chag
    1. Re:Slightly OT, I know... by Echnin · · Score: 1

      Which is why the OP posted anonymously. That makes it _not_ karma whoring.

      --
      Lalala
  47. Pixelblocks - "Legos" for the Digital Age by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    PixelBlocks look kinda like the smallest Lego pieces but build in 3-D - saw them on another /. article a while ago. They look like they'd still cause terrible pain if one stepped on them, though.

  48. Ask, and ... by IPFreely · · Score: 4, Funny
    ... ye shall receive.

    Lego Spirit Rover

    --
    There is nothing so silly as other peoples traditions, and nothing so sacred as our own.
  49. I thought he was fabulous! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I really did!

    1. Re:I thought he was fabulous! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      well, thank you.

      tim, aka tims300

  50. Article by FroBugg · · Score: 1

    There was an article that ran in the Miami Herald a week ago, about a local contestant for the job. Not sure how far he's gotten since, though.

    http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/entertainment /7630288.htm

  51. The original flamewar by IainHere · · Score: 3, Funny

    We've all heard the standard flamewars:

    vi vs Emacs;
    Gnome vs KDE;
    Linux vs BSD;
    Free vs Open;
    Windows vs Anything.

    Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to present the granddaddy of them all...

    Lego vs Meccano

    1. Re:The original flamewar by master_p · · Score: 1

      Hey, I used to build things combined from Lego and Meccano. I used to open holes in legos and bind them to Mechano parts...this was quite an interesting combination!!! it extended the possibilities of play quite more...

      I even threw Playmobil in the mix...We had some really great battles with my friends, and our armies consisted of Lego, Meccano and Playmobil!!!

    2. Re:The original flamewar by globalar · · Score: 2, Informative

      For those who don't know, Meccano was basically Erector in the US. It was first established as toys in the UK at the beginning of the last century.

    3. Re:The original flamewar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Years ago I read a history of Meccano in the Sunday Times magazine, I think it was for the 100th anniversary of Meccano. It was interesting to find out that originally the Meccano company included all these cardboard sheets printed to look like wood, bricks, roof shingles, etc, so that if you built a Meccano house, you could then attach this siding and make it look like a "house". Almost immediately kids seized on the "naked structure" aesthetic, so the parts were discontinued. Meccano's primary difference from Erector is that all the girders are flat, where the Erector sets have the beveled bolt holes. As I kid I vastly preferred the Meccano because you could attach things at any angle, where I remember my Erector pieces strongly favored certain (right) angles. I believe Meccano also predated Erector, but I'm not sure.

    4. Re:The original flamewar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I had both...

      I recently 'rescued' both of these when my parents moved out of what had been the family home.

      I scrounged all the bits I could find and have two tubs of bits waiting to be cleaned and sorted.

      Sara
      A Macgrrl in a n NT World

  52. Best way to GAIN your dream job... by Gudlyf · · Score: 2, Insightful
    In his defense, he posted it to his blog, which is hardly considered a "large news page".

    Perhaps the person who posted the article here to Slashdot is the real genius, pointing the world to the innocent, excited applicant's blog so the LEGO people can dash his dreams away, hence freeing up the job for "ikewillis".

    You're a shrewd one, ikewillis.

    --
    Trolls lurk everywhere. Mod them down.
  53. Another guy's story... by H0NGK0NGPH00EY · · Score: 2, Informative

    I recently read another guy's story at his journey to try and win the Master Builder position. You can find it here.

    --
    Do not read this sig.
  54. Lego CAD package by gefafwysp · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I've been using the MLCAD software for some time now. It comes with almost all the bricks in existence, so if you've got a year or two to spare, you might want to check it out.

  55. All Lego has to do... by Overly+Critical+Guy · · Score: 1

    All Lego has to do is lower the price of their sets. Seriously, that's it. I go to my local Wal-mart and shake my head at the prices of these tiny plastic blocks in a standard, small set. If those things were much cheaper ($50 for a damned pirate ship? Who is the moron at their company who is pricing this shit? Don't they listen?), parents would shell out for those things all the time for their kids. Let the kids build their own toys, and it can be whatever they want!

    It's just like Apple--if they'd lower their prices, people would love to be buying it. But nobody can justify all these prices!

    --
    "Sufferin' succotash."
    1. Re:All Lego has to do... by cowscows · · Score: 1
      Definitely. Lego is hella expensive. I'm 23 and would love to have more lego, but I can't convince myself that they're worth so much money. If they were this expensive when I was a little kid, my parents must've loved me a lot more than I thought, cause they bought me a ton of sets.

      At least Apple has some real R&D costs that they can blame prices on.

      --

      One time I threw a brick at a duck.

    2. Re:All Lego has to do... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If they lower the price, they lower the profit. Lego benifits by limiting suply. Just like the RIAA. That said, I'd buy my legos here, not at the store.

    3. Re:All Lego has to do... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There was evidence to prove that Overly Critical Guy is a lying cocksucker, but he deleted it. Think independently.

  56. MOD PARENT UP by aardwolf204 · · Score: 1

    Yeah, that just rocks

    --
    Im dreaming ofa big bndwdth, That can resist the /.crowd.May ur days b merry & bright & may al
  57. Allow me to troll by Orien · · Score: 1
    Get your mod points ready because I'm about to troll.

    Cheap? When I checked that auction you linked to it was past $100 and the reserve wasn't met yet! If you have that much money to toss around why don't you buy it for me then? For crying out loud! That's like asking why would you bother using an old 386 as a router when you can buy a linksys one for $50. Maybe because I don't have $50?!

    1. Re:Allow me to troll by Lars+Arvestad · · Score: 1

      I don't think ebay is the right place for used lego. Too many legomaniacs seems to be there, or at least too many with deep pockets from what I can tell. Yard sales and other second hand outlets is the way to go. You can definately find very good deals on old lego. I have two children, 6 and 7.5 years old, and they have a pretty decent lego collection. A lot of that was bought used, otherwise we wouldn't have afforded it. And you should always look for clearances of course!

      --
      Reality or nothing.
  58. Mod Parent Up by mekkab · · Score: 1

    Insightful observation on Lego providing a low barrier of entry for those who are role players/dreamers, and a "Designer Set" for the budding engineer/architect.

    I'd say by the quality content of your post "you must be new here!" but your low UID proves otherwise.

    --
    In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
  59. No comedy was found there by jot445 · · Score: 1

    An interesting look at Deuteronomy and early jewish legalisms but no comedy.

    --
    The preceding comment has been reviewed and declared to be compliant with HIPPA Phase II regulations.
  60. Lego vs Meccano by kiwimate · · Score: 1

    Oh, YES, Meccano. Actually, I had both as a kid, but Meccano definitely rocks. I think it's called something else in the States -- Erector Sets, perhaps?

  61. Coincidentally... by Cmdr+TECO · · Score: 1

    I've been thinking recently about how to build a proper Turing-equivalent computer out of Lego.
    It appears fairly straightforward to do so using gears - copying values and addition/subtraction being simple - but gears don't really seem Legologically Correct, in that a gear computer made of Lego is not really much cooler than one made of brass. I think bistables using mini-wheel sets might be the way to go, but the mechanics seem to get awkward quickly unless one 'cheats' using gears again. In any case I doubt I could afford the time and parts to build a complete machine....

    --
    echo 33676832766569823265328479713269.8639857989Pq | dc
    1. Re:Coincidentally... by cr0sh · · Score: 2, Interesting
      You will likely run into same/similar problems that besieged Charles Babbage (as well as earlier/later mechanical computer pioneers) - that of accurately transmitting the power, while still being able to "do it". That is, when transmitting the power among the components, you are able to do so without causing said components to fail (teeth breaking off gears is the most common thing to happen). As well as having the power transmitted accurately so as to allow the machine to function properly (meaning values and data carry through the calculations correctly).

      If you want to pursue this idea, try to get in contact with the guy at this site:

      Lego Computing

      Check out the images album link on the right hand side - this guy at one time was planning/building a lego based computer. He had various components built, but hadn't tied all of it together. The images area shows some interesting details/designs...

      --
      Reason is the Path to God - Anon
  62. I would have applied.... if i had known by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I haver rather few legos, just a box (of a 19' monitor, but still only one). And I'm a little rusty with lego lately... I promissed myself that this january I would start again with lego... and well... i didn't yet. I've never been to any Legoland... though I really wanted to... never got the money... and when I did I spent it in other things. Now I'm just organizing all my legos to start by building the old sets, like the dark ages castle, or the blacktron's spaceship... I used to build all sorts of things... I know I am not even in the same world as the legomasters.. but I would have applied anyway... I mean, with the proper pieces, and well sorted the possibilities are endless.

  63. Legos for girls by q2k · · Score: 2, Informative

    One thing they are starting to do is find ways to sells Legos to girls. They have something called Lego Click-its, which are basically build your own jewerly kits made out of specialized tiny Legos. My daughter loves the things. Stuff like that gives me hope for the company.

  64. It reminds me of the Comic Book Guy ... by CaptainAmerica1941 · · Score: 1

    ...quote from the Simpsons. "I have wasted my life!"

  65. Those were the days by victor_the_cleaner · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Like many of the stories here I used to quickly disregard the instructions for any set and compile all my kits to build bigger and better things.

    Space Shuttles with working bay doors, landing year, robotic arm.

    Guns of all makes, and a working crossbow. I used the lances from the castle kits as the bolts, very cool and would cause some bodily harm if you shot it at your 4 year-old neighbor.

    My biggest creations were always massive submarines. They would have between 4 and 6 torpedo tubes (I would use the shock absorbers from the technic cars to launch the torpedoes) and missile tubes. I would also build primitive propellors and drive them with model rubber bands. The big problem was always flotation. All that air trapped inside the sealed blocks caused a problem. The solution for me turned out to be a coin slot on both ends. I would weight the thing down with various coins just to make it go below the surface (had to have a 'bank' on both ends to keep it level). I build these things up until I was about 14 with the longest one being 5 feet.

    Now I have a 2 year old and I play with his Duplos. Can't wait to get him the regular kits. I still buy the Technic kits of Formula 1 cars (Ferrari, Jordan, McLaren, Williams) even though most of them are the same kit at a different scale and with different colors.

  66. Legos or Lego by tubs · · Score: 1

    Isn't Legos a character out of Lord of the Rings? :-)

    Anyway, does Lego pluralise? It just seems wrong if it does.

    I own many Legos? I own many Lego pieces?

    --

    try to make ends meet, you're a slave to money, then you die

    1. Re:Legos or Lego by tubs · · Score: 1

      Ahha, I answer my own question

      "If the LEGO trademark is used at all, it should always be used as an adjective, not as a noun. For example, say "MODELS BUILT OF LEGO BRICKS". Never say "MODELS BUILT OF LEGOs".Also, the trademark should appear in the same typeface as the surrounding text and should not be isolated or set apart from the surrounding text. In other words, the trademarks should not be emphasized or highlighted. Finally, the LEGO trademark should always appear with a (R) symbol each time it is used."

      http://www.lego.com/eng/info/default.asp?page=fa ir play

      --

      try to make ends meet, you're a slave to money, then you die

    2. Re:Legos or Lego by soxos · · Score: 1

      Legolas is the character

      I think the plural of Lego is Legume

  67. Legos for the Stupid Sex by SubtleNuance · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Yeah, well, if you mean 'simple, shallow-fashion oriented' stuff for girls because Building, Engineering and Design are Men's Work(TM) -- then Lego can keep there shitty crap away from my daughter (who dosnt exist yet...).

  68. Re:Those were the days (Lego box != Cat box) by throbbingbrain.com · · Score: 5, Funny

    Toss the instructions, dump the contents of the new kit into the common bucket, and build away.

    But... make sure the common bucket doesn't look like a cat litter box. I have bad childhood memories of digging around in the lego box only to find the cat had been there first...

  69. Re:One Big Advice for LEGO: WMD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They could advertise weapons of mass destruction on the box, and then just not put any of the parts inside. You could have hours of fun searching for them, just like the grownups!

  70. obligatory Simpsons reference by castleguardian · · Score: 0

    (Cue to "Block-O Land") Homer: "See. I can eat healthy. I just made an apple from these ham cubes." (Rubs ham-apple on shirt which leaves a huge grease stain)

    --
    --- Welcome my son, welcome to the machine.
  71. Makes me wonder if you were in my class.. by scootr1 · · Score: 1

    GT?

    1. Re:Makes me wonder if you were in my class.. by Zathrus · · Score: 1

      Yup. Hell if I recall when I took it or what the teacher's name was though.

    2. Re:Makes me wonder if you were in my class.. by scootr1 · · Score: 1

      Same here. All I remember is that we made a vacuum.

  72. Mmmmmmmm.....aliased toys. by ScaldedTauntaun · · Score: 1

    I completely agree.

    Besides, if you're going to sell a kid a three piece set that can be built in 10 minutes flat, at LEAST make it LOOK better! A half-assed, poorly fleshed-out abstraction of R2D2 doesn't cut it, folks.

    Or maybe that's where imagination comes in. The kid needs to try REALLY hard to imagine what the heck he's built!

    =P

    -ST

  73. The minions use 3D CAD by Gnavpot · · Score: 1

    When I see some of the giant sculptures they have at Legoland, it makes me wonder whether building something half life size might get just a tad repetitive. Or maybe the master builder does the initial plan and supervises while his minions get on with placing 10,000 red bricks?

    My mother is one of the minions you are referring to, and have been so for some decades. She is employed at the main plant in Billund, Denmark and have built some of the sculptures you see in the Legolands in Billund, Windsor and Carlsbad.

    In the old days, a model designer would first build a prototype, and then my mother and her colleagues would build the final version(s) based on this prototype.

    Nowadays, the designer creates a model in 3D Studio Max. The internal steel structures (yes, they are cheating) are created in AutoCAD.

    The models from 3DSMAX and ACAD are then imported into some LEGO-developed 3D CAD software called LEGO Brick Builder (earlier versions were called LEGOizer) which converts the 3DSMAX model into a model of LEGO bricks with the steel structure inserted.

    Then my mother and her colleagues loads the LEGO Brick Builder model on their own workstations and use it as a huge real time assembly instruction while building the real brick model. It is actually a quite good assembly instruction, since it has the normal 3D CAD tools like zooming and freespace rotation, while at the same time being able to act as an old-fashioned printed build manual showing the build steps by adding one layer of bricks after another.

    So actually, the master builder may not even be involved in the creation of those sculptures you have seen. However, I haven't heard of master builders before I read this thread, so I could be wrong.

    Sorry, if this destroyed the magic behind the sculptures for anyone.

    1. Re:The minions use 3D CAD by Zog+The+Undeniable · · Score: 1
      Sorry, if this destroyed the magic behind the sculptures for anyone

      Actually, that's way cooler - I'd mod it informative if I had points and hadn't posted the parent!

      --
      When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
  74. They're going back by Overly+Critical+Guy · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It's already been widely reported that Lego has fired their chief operating officer, the guy responsible for all the marketing ploys, and are returning to basics. They specifically mention that they are reverting to basic building blocks like they used to. I'm looking forward to a revival of the era in the 80s, which was a pleasant mix of both basic building blocks and themed sets that were still composed of generic enough parts to use them for anything else you wanted to build (i.e., simple spaceships, racetracks, and pirate ships).

    --
    "Sufferin' succotash."
    1. Re:They're going back by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There was evidence to prove that Overly Critical Guy is a lying cocksucker, but he deleted it. Think independently.

    2. Re:They're going back by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      what is he lying about?

    3. Re:They're going back by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      About so many things such as not being a troll, supporting open source, etc. Too bad nobody bothered to archive his journal--it was amusing to see him spout off only to find him refuting himself in his own journal (and probably the main reason he deleted it in the first place).

  75. yeah, no shit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    the worse part of this is that it becomes nearly impossible to build anything but the "set" that you get the pieces with. It's kind of orwellian, really... they're limiting the very building blocks (literally) of creativity so that there are fewer opportunities for kids to innovate. Six or Seven years ago, I really thought they had the best mix of specialized pieces and standard pieces. At some level, the specialized pieces are good for inspiring creativity...but you still need those standard 1x4 blocks or 6x10 sheet blocks or whatever. Damn, I wanna go build something now.

    1. Re:yeah, no shit by mlush · · Score: 1
      the worse part of this is that it becomes nearly impossible to build anything but the "set" that you get the pieces with.

      You don't have kids do you? Kids get on fine retasking even the smallest LEGO set There are 102,981,500 diferent ways of combining six eight stud bricks of the same colour, perhaps there is something wrong with your imagination.

  76. Re: LEGO motors? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Anyone know how to fix a seized up Lego motor?
    I have two of them that are now completely seized up. I contacted lego tech support and they didn't bother replying.

    email art_guyNOSPAM at hotmail.com

  77. In related news... by Gudlyf · · Score: 3, Informative
    --
    Trolls lurk everywhere. Mod them down.
  78. Kapla blocks are better. by mentaldrano · · Score: 1

    Kapla kapla kapla! I thought LEGO rocked until I went to a children's museum and got my hands on some KAPLA blocks. They are very simple: 1/4 X 1 X 4 inches, perfectly balanced pine blocks. If you are complaining about how LEGO are too specialized these days, go the other way and free yourself from the need for specialized blocks at all!

    I may sound like a fanatic, but I really do love these things! Check them out here.
    1. Re:Kapla blocks are better. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh, great. Wooden blocks. Wooden blocks - from France. What makes these special? Do they not wear deoderant or something? Are the coated in burnished oil of cheese?

      That'll go over great with the kids on Christmas morning. As in "Punk ass bitch! Watch me build a friction gun that uses these perfectly uniform wood bits as easily fed ammo, and then I'm gonna cap you! Yeah, sucka! You gotta sleep sometime old man!"

  79. eBay-it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    1.legos
    2.50 years later
    3.ebay
    4.profit!

  80. Never trust a programmer... by Rui+del-Negro · · Score: 1

    Never trust a programmer who didn't play with Lego when (s)he was a kid.

    RMN
    ~~~

  81. GO ULC!!! by mudshark · · Score: 1

    w00t!

    I'm proud to be one of the people who created the first ULC website (1995), along with the lovely "click here to be ordained" form. They've redesigned since, but my handiwork is arguably hanging on millions of walls...

    And yes, that's Reverend (and Shaman) mudshark to you.

    --
    In other news, astrophysicists have announced that they now know what all that dark matter is: it's stupidity.
  82. Re:Dear mod by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Don't worry Mr. Karma Whore, we'll deal with you soon enough.

    BTW, this has nothing to do with choosing a new Lego Master Builder, hence the 'Offtopic' mod.

    Fuck you very much!

  83. Blue VS Gray by Seraphim_72 · · Score: 1


    I cant help but look at my little blue "union" soldiers from the frontier set and *wish* they would just do a color change and let me buy the same exact men in gray.... My greatest wish (Yeah, it's wierd get over it) is to do the Battle on Little Round Top in Lego men...and from there "do" the entire Civil War ("War of Northern Aggression" for you folk south of the Mason-Dixon line) in Lego. The cannon are there, the Cavalry ... just gimme the gray soldiers!! (btw PlayMobil already has/had them - they used to have cav and artillary too)

    Sera

    --
    Slashdot, where armchair scientists get shouted down and armchair theologians get modded up.
  84. Just build the set once and then... by Exidor · · Score: 1

    take it apart and put it in a bin with the thousands of other Lego pieces that you've got.

    That's what I started doing almost 30 years ago (I'm 37 now) and it's what my 14 year old son does.

    I saved all of my Legos, directions and box backs and have passed them down to him.

    I have four kids (2 boys, 2 girls ages 7 - 14) and they spend hours building all sorts of great creations.

    Lego's not dead...It just lost it's way.

  85. hello this is a test by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    try this out ppl the mars holey rock

    1. Re:hello this is a test by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      try this out ppl the mars holey rock

    2. Re:hello this is a test by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      hey try the mars holey rock here

    3. Re:hello this is a test by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      hey try the mars holey rock here

  86. So, did the guy get the job? by fongsaiyuk · · Score: 1

    So far the guy referred to hasn't blogged whether or not he received the job

    How did the second interview go?

  87. Re:Dear mod by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'll be sure to have it meta-modded into oblivion. Thanks!! :D :D