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Stealing Legos for fun and profit?
Mad_Rain writes "Every nerd I know had (or still has) a fairly extensive Lego collection. But I don't think most would go so far as to steal $200,000 worth of Legos. When police arrived to carry away the evidence from his home, they needed a 20-foot-long truck. They found in the car of the accused a laptop computer that had a list of Target stores that he was planning to defraud along with the mapping software on how to get there."
So I guess the charges STUCK? :)
Find a job you like and you will never work a day in your life.
A Target security guard stopped Swanberg at a Portland-area store on Nov. 17
And he would have gotten away with it too... if it weren't for those meddling kids and their dog!
I'm completely and utterly confused as to its worth and merit. And for me, that's a first here.
You're obviously new here.
and the evidence will just keep stacking up against him.
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So that's like, what, four starwars sets?
But I don't think most would go so far as to steal $200,000 worth of Legos. When police arrived to carry away the evidence from his home, they needed a 20-foot-long truck.
Why do you need a truck to move 10 lego sets?
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
I just realized why there are so few replies to this story so far: everyone here is out trying to figure out how they can get their hands on $200,000 worth of legos. I could build my own home addition with all those; that would be awesome.
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
"...a list of Target stores that he was planning to defraud..."
Can you really blame him? The store's name is Target. Their logo is that of a target. Their mascot is a dog with a bull's-eye encircling one eye, looking as though it's in an abusive relationship. Oh, and those damn commercials. Clearly, this company is just asking for abuse.
The guy didn't exactly steal the legos (or LEGO bricks, for the anal-retentative). He pulled the ol' UPC-swap trick on the store. What do you want to bet the retail market will use cases like this to try to push for RFID tagging of products? "If we only had RFID tags in all of the products we sell this never would have happened, and we would have saved our shareholders tons of money."
So THIS is really what went wrong with Lego Mindstorms... this guy has been stealing all the sets!
Federal and state authorities will move aggressively to ban mapping software.
Sheriff Clancy Wiggum noted a sharp increase in teenagers and middle management types who have been recently arrested with print outs of maps taken from online sources like Google.Com and Yahoo.Com. "Easy access to information like this has to stop!" said Sheriff Wiggum, noting that from now on only donut stores and brothels should be shown on maps.
I wonder if this is what he looks like now...
You could use some sort of jamming device to block all RFID tags in a small area, but if the store can't read the RFID tag they'll have to do the equivalent of "Price check on aisle 5!", which will reveal the actual price of the item, thus nullifying all of your efforts.
no the url is there so when people type it they will get the message that they don't want to be called legos, but LEGO. http://legonotlegos.ytmnd.com/
if i'm not immortal, what's the point of living?
...te?
The story says he has sold $600k worth of legos. Damn, he's just a run-of-the-mill crook, in it merely for the profit. I was hoping the story would explain what kind of totally insane thing he wanted to build that needed $200k worth of legos. Like he was building a whole house or something. Drat.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
And the word "ninja" comes from Japanese, which lacks plurals (sort of). The correct way to talk about multiple of the assassins would be "lots of ninja attacked me". Doesn't stop me from saying "ninjas", though.
(shudder) You'd better watch out for the Grammar Ninja.
Need that one elusive piece? Just whip out the home RFID reader and point at your cases! Now you know right where it is, and can even do quick binary searches on piles of legos.
I wonder how many RFID tags a reader can pick out? Does a mass of different ones swamp a reader? Kind of an interesting question all by itself.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I actually worked in Lego's packaging plant in Enfield, Conn. USA for awhile. Apparently, the summer I was working there someone was stealing a bunch of new Star Wars sets off of the line and selling them on ebay. They found out soon after, of course, because he was using an ebay account with his home phone number.
CowsAnonymous: We're here to help moo.
Is use of Mapquest now prima facie evidence of intent to commit a crime?
With all those lego bricks, they surely could've just built one. ;)
"Was it a millionaire who said 'Imagine No Posessions?'" -- Elvis Costello
The article falsely states:
"Records of the Lego collector's Web site, Bricklink.Com, show that Swanberg has sold nearly $600,000 worth of Legos since 2002, said Dolyniuk"
Some people sell stolen goods on ebay, but ebay is not THEIR website.
Bricklink is a marketplace to buy/sell new/used lego kits, parts etc, but having an account on bricklink doesn't make it YOUR website.
Grr.
I'm a perfectionist but I'm trying to cut back.
Hey, the Mountain Dew on my desk in front of me says "Mountain Dew" right on the can. I guess I can't talk about drinking two Mountain Dews, can I?
... I don't have three plastics.
But you can't say Mountains Dew... um... any way.
Look I have a two plastic boxes and a plastic bag
I have three plastic objects. or a pile of plastic crap.
I have 1500 Lego Bricks, 100 Lego men and 20 lego horses.
What have I? I have a lot of lego.
One lego brick.
Two lego bricks.
"a lego" makes no sense. like a red, or a round.
"Pass me that red bit of lego."
"I need two more of those 2X3 bricks to finish my ninja maze."
"Chuck me half that pile of lego"
At this point I think that people are just using Legos to troll people, and dispite the fact that the word brings me almost physical pain*, I'm never going to bother correcting any persons about this online from now on.
It's just a huge waste of time. From now on I'm only going to correct people about this in person... I almost winch every time I read or hear legos.
*(unlike when people say Sheeps, Fishs or Euros)
Is that one Grammar Ninja or multiple Grammar Ninja?
Required reading for internet skeptics
What's a Legos?
http://www.bricklink.com/feedback.asp?u=swanberg
my password really is 'stinkypants'
Or maybe the slashdot coders could again give karma for Funny mods... The number of jokes modded Insightful should tell them something...
Oh great, so every LEGO brick will have it's own RFID tag ... and roll on IPv6 and every LEGO brick can then have it's own IP address, and a website with a picture of itself.
Eclectic beats from Leeds, UK
handmadehands.co.uk
The missed point here is: Lego is now so expensive that it is worth stealing. When child's toy bricks get into the same crime bracket as alcohol and tobacco, something is wrong.
This isn't a case for RFID. This is a case for making Lego less expensive.
Andrew Oakley - www.aoakley.com
Of course you can. It's a free country. You could even say 'cat' to a dog. But a difference between Mountain Dew and Lego is that the latter explicitely request not to refer to their product as 'legos'.
From Wikipedia:
Please always refer to our bricks as 'LEGO Bricks or Toys' and not 'LEGOS.' By doing so, you will be helping to protect and preserve a brand of which we are very proud and that stands for quality the world over.
You're SO right. Now you'll have to exuse me while I install Linux on all my boxen. I mean, I don't want to get virii.