LEGO Brick 50th Anniversary

An anonymous reader writes "'The LEGO brick turns 50 at exactly 1:58pm today. This cool timeline shows these fifty years of building frenzy by happy kids and kids-at-heart, all the milestones from the Legoland themed sets to Technic and Mindstorms NXT, as well as all kind of weird curiosities about the most famous stud-and-tube couple system in the world.'" Of course, it all peaked in 1979 with the space set. These kids these days with their bionacle. bah.

Comments

too many custom parts.

[oliverthered]

Lego now has far too many custom parts, it's a bit more like building some flat pack furniture that a chance to be creative.

Re:too many custom parts.

[Nettogrof]

But you still able to buy some pack with just regular (oldies) parts. I wonder how many of slashdotter had played with Lego.... 100% ?

Re:too many custom parts.

[kryten_nl]

"LEGO, training future IKEA customers since somewhere-in-the-eighties."

Re:too many custom parts.

[CheeseTroll]

Having watched my two boys assemble half a dozen new Lego sets since Christmas (Mars Mission & Aqua Raiders sets, IIRC), my first instinct was to agree with you. But after a few weeks, they're finding ways to build some very interesting custom space ships, towers - you name it. I'm sure that as they get older and no longer care about how much work it took to create the original designs, they'll have even fewer qualms about tearing them apart completely to build more new stuff.

Re:too many custom parts.

[Vexorian]

I think the worst case was that UFO set of (1996?) the ships had these huge spheric parts that would only allow you to make flying saucers, after that it began to improve again. I think though that there are still sets advertised for younger kids that just come with a lot of blocks and wheels, if you really want to force creativity and not just plain sci-fi fun I would recommend those.

Re:too many custom parts.

[jaminJay]

As you can now download the instructions for all kits as PDF from Lego's website, each kit contains a custom piece sold only with that kit to encourage purchase thereof[citation needed].

Re:too many custom parts.

[Paranatural]

Funny this came up, just a few weekends ago I put together my girlfriend's new island and I attributed my speed and skill to my Lego proficiency as a child.

Even after that comment I still have a GF. Weird times, these days, neh?

Re:too many custom parts.

[Pope]

Bollocks. You simply lack the imagination to use the custom parts to their fullest.

Re:too many custom parts.

[sarabob]

Sorry, but I call bullshit on that one.

There's been something of a renaissance in the last few years, what with the modular Cafe Corner (which has a whole blog devoted to it) and the creator houses. Not to mention lego's official 3d modeller which links in to their ordering system - design a model and they'll ship you all the parts for it in a custom box with a picture of your model on the front.

Re:too many custom parts.

[mlush]

Having watched my two boys assemble half a dozen new Lego sets since Christmas (Mars Mission & Aqua Raiders sets, IIRC), my first instinct was to agree with you. But after a few weeks, they're finding ways to build some very interesting custom space ships, towers - you name it. I'm sure that as they get older and no longer care about how much work it took to create the original designs, they'll have even fewer qualms about tearing them apart completely to build more new stuff.

I can't help but feel that people who claim 'Specialist parts have destroyed LEGO' have not watched any children actually playing with them. When my son is choosing a new set one of the key points he looks at are specialized parts as they allow him to build with far greater detail and/or on a far smaller scale then before (He has a very fine collection of minifig scale robots, aliens and monsters)

Re:too many custom parts.

[zoney_ie]

Nonsense. The custom parts simply offer more possibilities (especially considering there is no shortage of traditional and small pieces in most new sets, or indeed you can just buy basic sets). They also allow for less creative kids to simply mix and match Lego sets. It offers the best of both worlds. The only drawback is that perhaps the partly creative but not greatly so may find it more difficult to incorporate custom parts into custom designs, and thus end up underutilising their Lego. However, this can be avoided by the simple rule of buying sets pertaining to the kind of models you are more likely to build from your own designs. Custom vehicle parts for vehicles, custom castle parts for castles, custom space parts for space.

However, the better designs online and from Lego themselves (the collector models) are inventive in using custom parts in interesting ways (e.g. wheel arches as building architectural feature).

One interesting tactic I have seen to create astounding designs is to start with a selection of "interesting" custom parts, and then envisage how they could be used as features, then incorporate most or all of these pre-selected custom parts into one's design that is otherwise built with standard bricks.

Re:too many custom parts.

[Chelloveck]

Lego now has far too many custom parts, it's a bit more like building some flat pack furniture that a chance to be creative.

You know, I had the same thought... My son, now 10yo, has been into Bionicle from pretty much the time they were introduced. Yeah, he essentially went from Duplo straight to Bionicle. In his mind, Bionicle is what LEGO is all about, though he does sometimes break out some of the other sets. And he has my whole collection of bricks from the '70s too, so it's not like he has a lack of standard bricks to play with. He prefers the Bionicle parts.

But you know, it's amazing what he comes up with with those "limited" custom parts. When he gets a new Bionicle set he first builds it according to the directions, and plays with it for half an hour or so. Then he rips it apart, adds it to the rest of the parts, and starts building new things. I don't think all the custom parts are hampering his creativity in any way. No, it's not the same as when we were kids, but it's still LEGO and it's still fun for kids to build new things.

(BTW, I was entering high school when the Space series was released, and I disdained it even then because it had way too many custom parts compared with the regular sets. So, all you young punks who think the Space series was the pinnacle of LEGO... Get off my lawn!)

Re:too many custom parts.

[AceJohnny]

Lego now has far too many custom parts, it's a bit more like building some flat pack furniture that a chance to be creative. You do realize how cliche that saying is? I said it already back in the 80's. It's been said ever since they made something else than the basic 2 by 4.

Bah, I'll return to my Meccano.

Re:too many custom parts.

[dragonfire5287]

I loved playing with my lego bricks when I was younger. I'm busting them out when I get my new place. Don't have room for them in the place I'm at now.

Re:too many custom parts.

[Viceroy Potatohead]

A couple of years ago, I was playing with a friend's kid and wanted to change the directional plane of what I was building, so I took a "plate" type piece (the 1/3 thickness ones, or skinny ones or whatever) and stuck it edgewise on the face of what I had already built. (I'm not sure that I've explained very well, but I'm sure most people used to do this). The kid was pretty excited to use this new trick, and started to incorporate it into what he was doing.

The kid never needed to figure out how to change the building plane because of all the L-brackets, hinges etc that exist in modern Lego. There is still plenty of creativity and problem-solving possible, for sure, but it's now rarer for a kid to have to figure out fundamental solutions with limited materials. IMO, that's what earlier Lego taught kids: fundamental problem solving. Mix that 'teaching' with a kid's creativity, and interesting creations are bound to happen. It's an important skill to be able to create something with the wrong tools, or no tools at all.

It reminds me of a bit in Zen In the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. The main character wants to fix a loose throttle with a shim made from an aluminum can, and his friend wants to use factory shims, which would be basically the same thing, but not currently available and costly. There's no basic understanding of the problem, and the solution is to buy some product to correct it. IMO, too many 'ideal' Lego pieces promote the same mindset.

Re:too many custom parts.

[CastrTroy]

What percentage of the general population have played with lego. I imagine it would probably be quite high. Probably around 75% at least.

Re:too many custom parts.

[ConceptJunkie]

Buy the Star Wars sets. They don't suffer from the "specialized" parts problem. My son has a bunch of them. He builds the "official" model once and then spends all his time building and customizing his own spaceships and stuff. The Star Wars sets are classic Lego in that regard and are everything to product should be. But much of what they sell as Lego really isn't...

My youngest son like Bioncles, but he does plenty of "real" Lego play thanks to his big brother's example.

Actually, I got my first Lego set when I was 3, which was 40 years ago this March. Yeow! I feel old.

I had that space set from 1979 and it totally rawked. So did the "expert" Lego that came out around that time or a little later. The product went through some less-than-great phases in the late 80s or 90s but I think it's still as vibrant and good as ever, with the option of choosing more "formulaic" play if that's what you want.

Re:too many custom parts.

[Rhys]

From what I've seen of the bionicle that has invaded my collection in bulk brick buys, the parts aren't actually custom. They're standard parts, just a different standard than old time NxM brick'ers are used to.

Re:too many custom parts.

[cnettel]

As you can now download the instructions for all kits as PDF from Lego's website, each kit contains a custom piece sold only with that kit to encourage purchase thereof[citation needed]. Those damn HW dongles!

Re:too many custom parts.

[KDR_11k]

I've done that way of changing the plane even though I've grown up with the angle pieces, there's just never enough of those damn things (especially for a sturdy connection) and sometimes different shapes require different mechanisms. Besides, I seem to recall official sets using that approach too.

Re:too many custom parts.

[unityofsaints]

Lego now has far too many custom parts, it's a bit more like building some flat pack furniture that a chance to be creative. Not necessarily true. The mainstream stuff has been simplified in recent years, but look at the Lego Star Wars Millenium Falcon, 400+ pieces of lego the way it was when we were young ;)

Re:too many custom parts.

[The Queen]

I can't help but feel that people who claim 'Specialist parts have destroyed LEGO' have not watched any children actually playing with them.

I'll step up to that...

My boyfriend's 8-year-old got the Mars Mission set this xmas, and the three of us built it together. I would start rearranging things and goofing off and she would get very upset and tell me I was "playing with it wrong" - her goal was to get everything precisely assembled, and then give the astronauts names and complex social hierarchies (this guy is the grandfather of that guy and they're fighting over some family thing having to do with capturing the aliens, etc.). Basically it's not so much a Lego set to her as it is a small-scale all-male Barbie set in space. *ducks*

Seriously though, she has also built other sets with her dad (including the Millennium Falcon - drooooool) and enjoys the rules and the right-ness of putting things where they go. I had the old Lego sets at her age and I built all kinds of weird stuff - because the parts were basic and had no specific purpose...she does not (in her mind) have this opportunity with these sets, though I'm sure the ability is there. I have seen this same child turn a plastic drinking straw and 3 empty spools of thread into a family of woodchucks.

Ahem. Yes, woodchucks.

Re:too many custom parts.

[oldhack]

It's the vast trans-baltic conspiracy. Boycott Lutefisk.

Re:too many custom parts.

[STrinity]

You're just jealous that they didn't have computerized robots that you could program in BASIC when you were a kid.

Re:too many custom parts.

[geekoid]

I'm sure in your day build a 3 foot 'tower' out of 6x2a was all the rage, but the more parts the more things children can build.
You are foolish to think adding more piece types would stop a child's imagination from building something else with those parts.

Re:too many custom parts.

[Anonymous Coward]

Heheh... I remember that trick. That's how I did all the vertical stabilizer bits on my airplane models.

Re:too many custom parts.

[geekoid]

"..to figure out fundamental solutions with limited materials."

NO it is not. The child's imagination will always go beyond what any amount of material can do. My 9 year old son was in a LEGO robotics competition. I saw those kids do some pretty cool stuff and come up with unique solutions to problems.

With just square bricks, how did you make a transmission?

Re:too many custom parts.

[VanessaE]

I can't say that specialized parts have destroyed LEGO or even hurt it that much, considering they still seem to be doing well, but I'm one of those who prefers fewer custom parts. When I look at most newer parts, I don't see new possibilities like I probably should. Instead, I see parts that just look out-of-place next to regular bricks, plates, (studded) beams, and so on.

I'm sure many of us remember seeing pictures of a (really well-done) model of some guy's church that he'd built to minifig scale, or that other guy's working grandfather clock. Those things are *creative* and have inspired me to do the same (or at least, try). I want to build a scale model of my house of worship, and G*d knows I'll have to pour everything I know about LEGO physics into building it. But is it really that creative, since I'm essentially just doing what someone else has already done?

At what point do we, as adults, draw the line between "being creative" and just following someone else's lead?

Re:too many custom parts.

[morari]

I would tend to agree. However, all of the basic pieces are still there and being used, many sets simply see a once-used custom piece to increase the visual flair and/or recognizability. The chance to be creative is still there, perhaps even more so if you don't use these over-specialized pieces for their intended purpose. I think what is hurting LEGO more than anything is their newfound reliance on iffy movie licenses. Star Wars was interesting enough, but Harry Potter, Spider-Man, and Batman don't even hold a candle to the classic Pirates and Knights. I did always like the tone of the Western sets however, even if Native American LEGOs were the only ones with noses. :\

Re:too many custom parts.

[Zagadka]

This reminds me of a study I'd read about a few years ago that found that children fell into two different groups based on their behavior when playing with building blocks:

1. build something and then preserve it
2. build something, wait a while, destroy it, and repeat

I suspect that your experience has nothing to do with how specialized the pieces were, but rather the fact that your boyfriend's 8-year-old falls into the first camp: once something is built it is preserved. An interesting experiment would be to get her some building blocks or some basic (unspecialized) Lego bricks and see what she does with them. Does she build one thing and then try to preserve it, or does she tear it down after a little while to build something new?

Re:too many custom parts.

[morari]

I remember learning that trick from seeing a few Megablock sets. Let me tell you, that's the only good to have ever come out of Megablocks. Even their own pieces didn't fit together correctly, let alone when mixed with LEGOs. Furthermore, they were cheap and broke easily. Eventually my brother and I went through our entire block collection (about ten of those big plastic storage tubs you'd get at Wal-Mart) and purged it of Megablocks. That era was henceforth known as the Block Inquisition throughout our bedroom-sized LEGO city.

Re:too many custom parts.

[Ant P.]

Lego itself isn't perfect either.

To this day I still have one of those yellow octagonal pipes from the underwater set with a 2-unit-long x bar wedged in the top. I think it's somehow become welded at the molecular level. _Nothing_ I tried will get it out of there.

Another thing I found is that Lego blocks don't handle being left unattended near a fan heater very well.

Re:too many custom parts.

[Anonymous Coward]

I just wonder is that behavior doesn't have more to do with the kid's personality than the specialization of the parts. For instance me and my brother had completely different playing styles using the same parts - a mix of generic bricks and specialized sets. Whenever I got a new set I would immediately build it according to the directions - I remember suffering greatly once because I had lost a few parts behind the couch and could not *complete* the structure. I would also go on to invent the complex social systems. I would eventually cannibalize the buildings for custom building, but even then I would often take a picture of myself with the finished set before I destroyed it.

My brother, on the other-hand, almost never built according to directions, and was completely obsessed with the physical structures rather than the potential for creating an story for his set. And he seemed to enjoy destroying his creations at least as much as he enjoyed making them, whereas I regarded it as a grim sacrifice for the greater good of future customized building.

Re:too many custom parts.

[Hognoxious]

I think they did bring out a bracket-brick (like a pair od 2x2s joined at an edge) but I was already a bit old oor it then. For small things (like gun barrels) there was a 1x1 brick with a stud on the front - it was supposed to represent a lantern, I think.

Re:too many custom parts.

[Hognoxious]

Lego blocks don't handle being left unattended near a fan heater very well.

Or being peed on by your cousin and then bleached/disinfected by your Gran. It didn't destroy them but it changed the colour slightly and they never fit right afterwards. Making a virtue out of necessity, those were eventually used for cargo, since they were easy to detach from the ship or truck.

Re:too many custom parts.

[Hognoxious]

If you look at the one of the pub, the second tier appears to be made mostly of giant chocolate bars. Apart from masonry and out of scale confectionery, what use are those pieces?

Re:too many custom parts.

[Bit101]

I sure know I have. Heck, I probably still have a big box of them. Ah, good times, good times.

Re:too many custom parts.

[beav007]

"LEGO, training future IKEA customers since somewhere-in-the-eighties."

It's been a while since I've been to school, but being the 50th anniversary, I would suggest that we would looking somewhere in the late 50s.

Re:too many custom parts.

[kryten_nl]

Yeah, that only made sense if you had read the parent and have had some experience with LEGO. Unfortunately, as you so adequately have proven, neither is a prerequisite for posting on Slashdot ;)

Re:too many custom parts.

[mlush]

I can't help but feel that people who claim 'Specialist parts have destroyed LEGO' have not watched any children actually playing with them.

I'll step up to that...

My boyfriend's 8-year-old got the Mars Mission set this xmas, and the three of us built it together. I would start rearranging things and goofing off and she would get very upset and tell me I was "playing with it wrong" - her goal was to get everything precisely assembled, and then give the astronauts names and complex social hierarchies (this guy is the grandfather of that guy and they're fighting over some family thing having to do with capturing the aliens, etc.). Basically it's not so much a Lego set to her as it is a small-scale all-male Barbie set in space. *ducks*

OK were on Slashdot... but What is not creative about storytelling and creating complex social hierarchies? She is not minoring in 3D design:-)

Seriously though, she has also built other sets with her dad (including the Millennium Falcon - drooooool) and enjoys the rules and the right-ness of putting things where they go. I had the old Lego sets at her age and I built all kinds of weird stuff - because the parts were basic and had no specific purpose...she does not (in her mind) have this opportunity with these sets, though I'm sure the ability is there. I have seen this same child turn a plastic drinking straw and 3 empty spools of thread into a family of woodchucks.

Ahem. Yes, woodchucks.

I'll hazard a guess that she can't be bothered dealing with the constrained 'pixilated' options LEGO provides when and is treating it like an 'Airfix' kit, but when given the chance of dealing with an analog set of three spoons and straw sees many more options.

Perhaps I should criticize LEGO for forcing them Kids work within the system... Ducks

Re:too many custom parts.

[beav007]

I've had Lego since the mid eighties myself and I fail to see how

<brickquote>Lego now has far too many custom parts, it's a bit more like building some flat pack furniture that a chance to be creative.</brickquote>

helps to make any sense of the time-frame. It must be some weird sort of American Thing then?

Re:too many custom parts.

[kryten_nl]

In my experience, the addition of custom parts to LEGO has taken flight since "somewhere-in-the-eighties". YMMV. FYI, the "_nl" in my user name doesn't stand for Northern-Louisiana. If you've posted your last comment in your morning coffee break, it shouldn't be to hard to figure out what it does stand for. Concluding: you questioned my math skills, while I was making a statement about the products of the company in question.

Re:too many custom parts.

[zoney_ie]

They're 2x1 flat tiles, used for just about anything, and mounted to "headlamp" 1x1 bricks, used all over the place for mounting bricks sideways.

Admittedly, 60+ of those headlamp bricks in brown is a tad excessive, but having so many flat tiles is fantastic.

Re:too many custom parts.

[Hognoxious]

Good spot! If you zoom in to the max just above the fan shaped ornament[1] you can see it. I used the same trick to make triple-A guns (with a flagpole as the barrel), so I'm annoyed for not seeing it myself! Though in my defence, they did go through a phase of doing things like I said. I'm pleasantly surprised to see them back on track. Sometimes it's nice to be proved wrong.

[1] Is that made of skis? In my day, skis were a thin 4 x 1, with a thin 2x1 at the front, if you were lucky. Uphill both ways, and without any snow.

Re:too many custom parts.

[zoney_ie]

Well, I do own the set in question :) The fan is indeed made of skis (part first appeared in Ice Planet back in 1994 or so, in transparent orange). They are mounted on a tube (technic pneumatic part, same diameter as Lego "pins", e.g. aerials, that the skis have holes for). There is some clever use of custom parts, e.g. the alcoves with the frog "gargoyles" are made from wheel arch bricks.

I think the problems Lego had (and still do in some sets, e.g. Mars Mission) are not due to custom parts, or even large custom parts. The poorer sets were, and are, sets where they use large parts to "bulk out" the set and make it look larger on the box. It isn't even about simpler construction for kids, it's about having sets "look big". Some sets that looked good despite this would then of course be priced too high (for those who could judge based not on the "size" but the bricks etc), Harry Potter being an infamous example (those had the licencing cost too). Having bought many of those second-hand, they are actually great parts in a lot of the sets, as well as capturing the feel of the books and some being quite well thought out sets. Of course, the less said about Town Junior and Jack Stone the better, those were indeed "juniorisation" with the complete vehicle chassis pieces that included the wheel pins and all manner of other horrors. Nevertheless, many custom parts, even large ones, are perfectly reasonable and even very useful (e.g. rock pieces, pillars).

Re:too many custom parts.

[Hognoxious]

Here's a good use of custom parts in an unexpected way

Anonymous?

[suso]

This was my story. Stupid slashdot.

Re:Anonymous?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, I sent it.

Re:Anonymous?

[suso]

Now that was funny. Sorry to be a whiny brat. I'm just a bit annoyed by some other things today.

The space set was awesome!

[nurhussein]

I guess it was a time when the space race was still on, and space exploration was the cool thing in the hearts and minds of the public. Oh those lovely space sets...

I wish they still made 'em like they used to. I still have my all my old Lego, and I wish I had more parts from the Space set. I seem to have an overabundance of red bricks (I wonder if that's common for everyone?).

Re:The space set was awesome!

[tgd]

Yeah that Galaxy Explorer set was definitely my favorite. I got it for Chrismas in 1980... I can remember being so excited and putting the thing together that morning.

I probably still have it (or at least my parents probably do) in a box in their storage unit. One of these days I'll have to have them ship them to me and put it together in time for a 30th anniversary of the kit.

(Holy crap, 30th anniversary? I'm soooo old.)

Re:The space set was awesome!

[SailorSpork]

I had all the Lego space sets when I was a kid. They had more than one iteration of Space Police, the ice planet one, the one with the magnets... I remember saving up to get the base set, the bases were always the coolest. My little sister always wanted to play with her Littlest Pet Shop, but when I showed her that her pet toy hamsters and mice fit in the cockpit of the space ships, we found a common plaything.

And yeah, I had a log of red bricks. The magnet space set was red themed, for one...

Re:The space set was awesome!

[CaptainAvatar]

Oh yeah, I got the Galaxy Explorer too -- maybe even for the same Christmas! Probably the awesomest present I've ever received.

Re:The space set was awesome!

[cvd6262]

I probably still have it (or at least my parents probably do) in a box in their storage unit.

I was at my parents' house for the holidays and my son (6) got some new Lego sets for Christmas. As he was putting them together he commented, "Dad, I'm better at building Legos than you are."

Now, I've heard some pretty insulting things in my time, but this one cut straight to the bone.

So, I walked (as calmly as I could) down to my parents' basement, found the two HUGE bins labeled "Lego," and dragged them up the stairs. I put down a blanket (so they'd be easy to spread out and clean up) and DUMPED out 15 years of disassembled creativity.

My son just stood there gawking for a few seconds. Yes, words can fail even a six-year-old. "I... I... I don't even know where to start!"

Re:The space set was awesome!

[93,000]

I had a ton of the space set stuff, though no abundance of red bricks. Mostly gray and blue.

I still have them all, and now my 5 year old plays with them -- along with his new-school star wars legos as well.

Re:The space set was awesome!

[zoward]

That's awesome! My 4 year old son recently received the LEGO recycling truck as a gift. It took me a half hour to build it for him via the directions, and the first thing he did was rip it apart, and put together his own version of it (far less sophisticated, but a running car nonetheless). This was a learning experience for both of us! Meanwhile, he has a huge bin full of all the large-size basic building blocks (2x2 and 2x4's mostly), and after playing with the truck for an hour or so, he went back to building pyramids, stairs, planes and robots with the big blocks. Good times.

Re:The space set was awesome!

[zoney_ie]

The Space theme has definitely not returned to either the nostalgic "moon exploration" style of the old Space, or the fantastic themes of the early 1990s (M-tron, Blacktron, Space Police, Ice Planet). However, there's a simple reason. Lego Star Wars. The recent Mars Mission theme is deliberately arranged to be dissimilar to Star Wars, and thus, lacks the "feel" that a space theme should have. Ideally, a Space Theme relevant to today's kids should allow you to create the Star Wars environment, or any other such space fantasy, for oneself.

So for now, best just to enjoy the new Castle theme, that just in that way provides the generic "feel" that you need for creating ones own fantasy castle environment, with undead, dwarves and orcs! Sure slightly less useful for mediaeval building, but considering that was the focus for so long in the 80s/early 90s, I think it's a reasonable change. (The less said about the Knight's Kingdom themes, the better).

I suspect many of today's kids are pretty happy with the Star Wars lego. The sets are for the most part very well done, and offer great inspiration and parts for one's own creations. Just a pity they are higher priced because of the licensing, although despite that, Lego is cheaper than ever before.

Re:The space set was awesome!

[0racle]

Ya, you sure put that punk ass kid in his place.

Re:The space set was awesome!

[thedohman]

I think that was about when I got my Galaxy Explorer, too. Or maybe it was Christmas '79.

Anyway, I still have every space set from 1980-1983 (released in the US). I'm missing one that was only available in 1978 and '79 (Moon Radar Station #926). But I found a site with all the instructions not too long ago, so I think I could build it if I wanted to. http://www.hccamsterdam.nl/brickfactory/ It is in English. Turns out there were a couple space models released in Europe that we didn't get, but that's par for the course with Lego.

For the last month or so, my children (11 and 4) have been playing with them... And I've been modeling them with SketchUp, brick by brick. Galaxy Explorer was my second Shetchup model, first was, I think Space Shuttle (no relation to the real thing.) It's a blast! My 4 year old was amazed when he saw the actual model next to the monitor with the virtual one.

Re:The space set was awesome!

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the Lego version of the snowball fight from the movie Dumb and Dumber.

Re:The space set was awesome!

[kramulous]

I especially liked the "just ... stay ... calm"

Re:The space set was awesome!

[mcvos]

I thought 4 years was a bit young for Lego. I recently gave my niece a big lego box for her sixth birthday. It included designs for lots of different models, and she wanted to build the most difficult one: a fire truck. So I spent all day coaching her in how to follow the instructions, but she did all the work. I don't know if she's disassembled it again and built something else out of it. I hope she did, but since she's living on the other side of the country, I don't see her very often.

Google has also noticed

[tpheiska]

Another commemmorative logo. http://www.google.com/.

Re:Google has also noticed

[LiquidCoooled]

They noticed, but there is no click to a site like they usually do.
Perhaps they are afraid of DOS'ing lego servers.

Re:Google has also noticed

[Slashidiot]

Did you really have to put a link to google? I guess most slashdotters here know how to get there, and are acquainted with the company itself...

Re:Google has also noticed

[tpheiska]

Yes, I really had to. I usually use Google through the browser address bar or a search field, I very rarely use the front page. I assumed that I must not be the only one and saved people from wasting several seconds when they'd have to type the address. This saved time can then be used to read insightful comments here on ./.

Re:Google has also noticed

[Anonymous Coward]

My guess is that there's no click-thru because of MONEY. The top link for q=LEGO would, of course, be lego.com. LEGO is a commercial entity and Google is all about making bucks. Why would they provide millions of hits of free advertising to LEGO? New Google is not a charity.

Re:Google has also noticed

[Slashidiot]

Sorry I was a bit rude, I just found it funny, to provide a link to the most visited page on teh internets. Just in case. Not hard feelings?

Re:Google has also noticed

[tpheiska]

None whatsoever. And, come to think of it, it is really funny.

Re:Google has also noticed

[Anonymous Coward]

Well this is LEGO we're talking about. Surely they could withstand a DoS by simply plugging more server bricks on.

Re:Google has also noticed

[HiggsBison]

Well this is Slashdot. Given the popularity of Lego bricks amongst the slashdotters, a good slashdotting would likely brick Lego's servers.

Before the idiotic "legos" starts appearing...

[ratbag]

See Question 18 of http://ericharshbarger.org/lego/faq.html. A pre-emptive strike.

Re:Before the idiotic "legos" starts appearing...

[PortHaven]

Actually the fact is wrong: You see, it's just like the bricks. You can use the name in many different ways...

You can use LEGO to refer to a single piece, or as a reference to the entire system.

You can also use LEGOS. Which represents a contraction of "LEGO Bricks" simply shortened to LEGOS Some will object to this use. They just failed to understand the spirit of LEGO and are failing to play well.

Just, whatever you do, don't Eggo your LEGO... ;-)

All other questions should be referred to Zack the Lego Maniac

Re:Before the idiotic "legos" starts appearing...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes but on the other hand, piss off you pedantic bastard.

Re:Before the idiotic "legos" starts appearing...

[San-LC]

Oh my god, when I go down to that link, it sends me back to slashdot.org. I've been trying to find the end link for the last two hours, and I just can't do it! Arrgh!

Re:Before the idiotic "legos" starts appearing...

[mattgoldey]

I don't give a rat's ass what the official stance is. They're Legos. They have always been Legos. They will always be Legos.

Re:Before the idiotic "legos" starts appearing...

[Anonymous Coward]

Idiotic?

To quote your link: "This is all a matter of protecting the trademark of 'LEGO' for the company (using it otherwise degenerates the strength of the trademark)."

I have absolutely no interest in using a clumsy, unintuitive wording just because the company in question would like so. Do you seriously write all your Microsoft-related text like this? I don't think so. Admittedly I have more respect for the Lego Group than Microsoft. Nevertheless, there's a limit where convenience overrides their wishes of trademark protection. It was their choice not to give a proper name for the actual product line. If they don't offer a usable one, people will make it up. Tough.

In my very humble opinion people who use "Legos" have more common sense than those who violently want to defend a form which doesn't fit into common language at all. Sacrificing fluent everyday speech to protect some random company's trademark is more idiotic to me. I most certainly know what they want. I simply don't care. It's their job to protect their trademarks, not mine.

Re:Before the idiotic "legos" starts appearing...

[Anonymous Coward]

A contraction would be LEGO's, and it's still wrong.
I'm playing with my LEGO. - see, doesn't that look tidy.

Re:Before the idiotic "legos" starts appearing...

[Anonymous Coward]

You're wrong, they've never been referred to as Legos in any sane country but yours.

Re:Before the idiotic "legos" starts appearing...

[ps236]

Only in the USA.

Everywhere else it's just plain 'Lego' or if you refuse to believe it's a mass noun, use 'Lego blocks'. 'Legos' is wrong everywhere in the world apart from the US.

Re:Before the idiotic "legos" starts appearing...

[Anonymous Coward]

No one calls it a "Ford car"; it's a "Ford".
No one calls it a "Dell personal computer"; it's a "Dell".
No one calls it a "pair of Nike shoes"; they're "Nikes".

So it goes for Legos.

Re:Before the idiotic "legos" starts appearing...

[VanessaE]

While I'll admit to having called them "legos" in the past, today I just use the word "LEGO" like any other word that is self-plural, like "fish" or "deer", at least when the subject comes up. I mean, one might just as well say it right since it takes no measureable effort to do so.

Besides, overpricing issues aside, the company deserves the respect of just about everyone here, and you know it. So do them a favor and respect their trademark, just like you'd expect someone to respect the various OSS-related trademarks.

Re:Before the idiotic "legos" starts appearing...

[Anonymous Coward]

Very tidy. It's hard to make a mess with ONE BLOCK.

Re:Before the idiotic "legos" starts appearing...

[ratbag]

I couldn't really care less about the trademark side of things, although the FAQ I pointed to does make a valid point. I call it idiotic because it's like calling a group of sheep "sheeps". LEGO, lego, whatever, but "LEGOS" or "legos" (with or without a trademark symbol) make no sense and sound dumb.

Finally, this isn't an important enough argument to post AC, surely? Have the courage of your convictions, my friend.

Re:Before the idiotic "legos" starts appearing...

[Anonymous Coward]

I couldn't really care less about the trademark side of things, although the FAQ I pointed to does make a valid point. I call it idiotic because it's like calling a group of sheep "sheeps". LEGO, lego, whatever, but "LEGOS" or "legos" (with or without a trademark symbol) make no sense and sound dumb.

Interesting...

I can accept this stance too but surely it's not what the linked FAQ says. "Sheep" is an irregular noun. There's no logical reason why in English language there are two cows but two sheep_. These irregular plurals are typically either old or borrowed. They're just random conventions, just like the plural of "goose" is "geese". Which would be the correct plural for the noun "lego"? According to the FAQ and the Lego Group's recommendation the answer is "none, wrong question". It's not a noun at all but an additional description used like an adjective. In "Lego bricks" brick is the noun whereas "Lego" should be read like "Lego brand bricks" or "bricks made by Lego". (Or maybe the same in all-caps but it hurts my eyes.) It's the company, not an item.

So what are you actually suggesting? "Lego" used like "sheep" is just as wrong as "Legos" if you ask the Lego Group and follow the mentioned FAQ. If you don't care about the trademark and consider a single brick "a lego" and multiples of them "many lego", you're actually acting entirely against the guideline provided in the link. Using an irregular form doesn't really change anything. Maybe it sounds less stupid to you but that's only an opinion. The real issue is completely different.

Do you think "Lego" is only the company or is a single brick "a lego" too? Or is "lego" a mass noun like "flour" or "cattle"? That would be possible too but in that case the sheep example does not work.

That another AC's point about "Nike shoes" vs "Nikes" illustrates the actual issue better.

What would I use in everyday speech? Funnily enough, none of these. English is not my native language. In my own language there are no irregular nouns with identical singular and plural forms. Therefore I can skip that part altogether. The options would be comparable to "Lego bricks" and "legos". One of them is formal and clumsy, another informal but handy. In common talk I use the equivalent of "legos". In English it could be either "lego" or "legos", used as a noun. The plural suffix is irrelevant. In any strictly formal context I'd revert to "Lego bricks" to respect the trademark. After all, their own suggestions are quite friendly and reasonable. Calling someone an idiot for using another variant of a noun without a strongly established form is not - especially if your own arguments are somewhat contradictory.

Finally, this isn't an important enough argument to post AC, surely? Have the courage of your convictions, my friend.

While I read /. daily, I don't post that much. That's why I don't have an account. I'm not really a coward, just lazy. Should I create an account and post more frequently or refrain from posting altogether?

It's a honest question, BTW.

Re:Before the idiotic "legos" starts appearing...

[Anonymous Coward]

'Legos' is wrong everywhere in the world apart from the US.

It's wrong even there.

Re:Before the idiotic "legos" starts appearing...

[Hognoxious]

These irregular plurals are typically either old or borrowed.

Since "lego" is Latin and the company is Danish I'd say it qualifies.

It's not a noun at all but an additional description used like an adjective.

But you can use adjectives like nouns, if the noun is implied: the rich, the poor.

What's more you get nouns that are neither plural nor singular - air, grass, wood. If saying sand (omitting "grains of") is OK then why is it wrong to say Lego (omitting bricks)?

Technic's!

[afidel]

The height was Technics, just enough customization to build useful real world stuff without being so specific that it hamstringed you into just one thing.

Re:Technic's!

[hcdejong]

The Technic range is still going strong, with (still) a good mixture of custom elements and lots of generic bricks and beams.

Re:Technic's!

[afidel]

I had read that they were discontinued. Reading through wikipedia it appears it might have been TechPlay a subline of Technics, not the entire range.

Re:Technic's!

[sk8king]

The local toy store carries several sets worth > $100 from the 2007 lineup...all Technic. Heck, I purchased the big yellow mobile crane myself. I do not believe Technic is discontinued.

Re:Technic's!

[rHBa]

My favourite set was the red car chassis sports car with the blue seats, my (younger) brother was more in to the train LEGO though. I remember he pulled the plastic bit off the end of a motor spindle and used it to drill holes in Luke Skywalkers head!

Re:Technic's!

[Anonymous Coward]

And before they were called "Technic" they were "Expert Builder", which IMO were better than Technic.

Re:Technic's!

[Madsy]

Yeah, I love LEGO technic as a kid. I had a clusterfuck of bricks, as well as 4 motors. I used to make different mechs and belt-vehicles to scare the bejesus out of my two cats. I would still be building if I could find it. I lost it all when I moved in 1994 :-\

Story Explains

[grimflick]

the google home page

Re:Story Explains

[Anonymous Coward]

So does mousing over the image.

Damn you Lego

[stokessd]

I blame lego and heathkit for my PhD and for enabling me to make a nice living.

Sheldon

Lego is for kids.

[Ihlosi]

Real geeks use Fischer-Technik. They had a full array of boolean logic blocks (at truly outrageous prices) in the early 80's, and robot kits, pneumatics, remote control, etc, long before Lego ever got around to doing such stuff. And who needs colors, anyway ? Grey and red is colorful enough.

Re:Lego is for kids.

[xaxa]

I remember when my dad brought back all the Fischertechnik models his school owned and asked me to assemble them all to check they were complete (beats loading the dishwasher!) -- I think we realised the Fischertechnik was worth more than the car he'd brought it back in...

You could make an optical drive from Fischertechnik using a light sensor and a piece of paper with black and white squares on it and a suitable turntable and motor arrangement, including a disc head that moved in and out. Great stuff!

Re:Lego is for kids.

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course, the problem with Fischer-Technik is the manuals. If you can't read German, you are SOL.

Re:Lego is for kids.

[Chrisje]

If you really want to get hard-core about it, you should mention Meccano. My brother had some of that stuff, and it was cooler than shit. But the trouble was that I *was* a kid back in the day, and not a geek. A geeky kid, yes. And so I loved my space LEGO sets. I had a whole bunch of the gray and blue sets. They were so cool.

Another thing I remember were Fleischmann model trains. We had whole bunches of them. We laid yards and yards of intertwined railroad in the attic, with stations, "rangeerterreinen" and whatnot. Extraordinarily cool toys. To cut a long story short I have the sneaky suspicion that all manner of "building" toys are simply good for you.

...lego peaked -

[Anonymous Coward]

- with the original expert-builder sets and classic legoland prior to the late-eighties advent of set-specific pieces...

Re:Lego people

[Gloy]

Uh... they're yellow.

Re:Lego people

[shish]

If you ever see a "white" person the same colour a lego model, I suggest you refer them to a doctor ASAP...

I Miss My Lego

[EsonLinji]

I was made to give up my collection of lego (maybe .25 cubic meters worth) around the time I started high school. I really wish I still had it. It would make it so much easier to justify shelling out for some of the cool new stuff like the robot kits. On the other hand bionicles are an abomination to the lego name.

Re:I Miss My Lego

[mwvdlee]

My parents still have the roughtly 1.5 cubic meters of lego my brother and me used to play with. As soon as we have kids that are old enough, they're going to have the most awesome collection of lego known to mankind (or atleast compared to their friends, for the first few years). It's just a sin to sell it off, especially with the two-piece kits they sell in stores nowadays; a "robot body" piece and "robot head" piece does not a kit make.

Re:I Miss My Lego

[Emetophobe]

I also miss my Lego collection. My mom sold all of my Lego at a garage sale 10-15 years ago. I think I had over $5,000 worth of lego at the time. I mainly collected the Lego City sets, but I also had some Space, Medieval and Technic sets. Before Lego, I was playing with Tinkertoys. I also had some Meccano, Capsela, Fisher Technic, Straws and Connectors, Marble Runs and K'Nex.

Lego was probably my favourite toy as a child. During my lego years (5-12 years old), I wanted to grow up to be an architect or an engineer (I ended up becoming a computer programmer).

Get off of _my_ lawn.

[Minwee]

It's spelled "bionicle". Not Bionacle.

I think you're getting Lego confused with Tentacle pr0n somehow.

innovation? assembly?

[apodyopsis]

by selling a set with a plan to building the shape/figure on the front surely they are removing the element of innovation.

we used to get it by the box and be forced to think from day one about what we could build with it.

my civil engineering degree started with a room full of teenage would be engineers faced with huge amounts of Lego and a semi-serious challenge. whoever could build the lightest bridge out of the least bricks that would allow a 2kg train roll over it won the box of chocolates for their team. it broke the ice and got everybody talking to each other, lots of bridges collapsed in the testing zone that day.

and it got to engineers used to a career of sitting at a desk thinking about consuming chocolate.

Re:innovation? assembly?

[Von Helmet]

by selling a set with a plan to building the shape/figure on the front surely they are removing the element of innovation.

Not sure how you leap to that conclusion... It's not like you're obliged in any way to only build what's on the box. You can build that, then build something else, or never build it at all. It's a supplement to innovation, not a limitation.

Re:innovation? assembly?

[zoney_ie]

The set designs do offer some inspiration and a starting point. Plus they offer a more customisable play set for kids who aren't interested in building their own creations (and plus, they may end up doing so at a later stage). They also offer a useful way to get the right "kind" of bricks for one's creations. Space Lego sets are full of parts that are great for ones own creations. Castle sets are the same, even just down to having lots of grey bricks.

I think it is a positive thing that Lego sells to more of the market these days. The Lego Racers theme is a case in point. These can be just regarded as Lego matchbox cars and playsets. But for the more creative, they offer the joys of matchbox cars with the versatility of Lego. I had both Lego and matchbox cars as a kid, and I would have loved it for the latter to be constructed out of Lego bricks. I had Lego bricks to build cars, but they were just too clunky to drive around road layouts etc. like matchbox cars (they were of course great for Lego town play with minifigs, but that was a different universe to matchbox cars). These new Lego racers have the smaller pieces and custom parts that allow little car constructions as streamlined as matchbox cars.

Re:innovation? assembly?

[Smidge204]

I don't agree with that. Especially with the more advanced kits which have more unique parts.

When I got LEGO sets, I usually spent time building the models from the included instructions... which not only was awesome because the models were great, but it also helped me understand how any new parts worked.

For example, one of the most advanced sets I ever got was a moderately large rescue helicopter model (alternate was a hovercraft/swamp boat thing... not quite as cool). New parts for me in this set included (as I fondly remember) a ball joint, universal joints, and flexible cables with ball and socket joints.

Here's a pic I found of it... http://www.chem.sunysb.edu/msl/LEGO/8856a.jpg

The joystick in the cockpit actually tilted the main rotor while it spun, the winch on the side worked, and the landing gear retracted. It was awesome.

The point is, this kind of model easily demonstrated how these various parts are used, and building them provides a lot of useful practice for when you inevitably disassemble them and make something of your own imagination. Just about the only parts from that model I never really used anywhere else were the seats.
=Smidge=

Re:innovation? assembly?

[mac_mcgrew]

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

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

Re:innovation? assembly?

[MaXMC]

In the end there will be cake!

Timeline is wrong!

[cvd6262]

The gray castle pictured as the first (1984) castle set is incorrect.

It should be this yellow one: http://guide.lugnet.com/set/375_2

Why do I remember this? Because I was so green with jealously as I watched my older brother assesemble the one he got for his birthday. Oooo, how I hated that castle.

Re:Timeline is wrong!

[denalione]

I had that one. It was my favorite for many years. Like all of my kits I learned to assemble it without the instruction. I think (hope) it is still in my mom's basement. I'd like to give it to my kids one day.

Re:Timeline is wrong!

[eric9]

I agree. The grey castle pictured was my first lego set, and not the first castle set. The one pictured on the time line swings open from the middle, converting from a castle to a semi-fortified wall fort. On a side note, I never saw a LEGO castle with the swing open feature again.

Re:Timeline is wrong!

[steveo777]

I have had the 6080 for quite some time now. My parents snagged it at a garage sale back in '88 or so and gave it to me for my birthday (which was in December, we live in MN... that was a long wait). The funny thing is that until today I never knew which set it was. It sits very proudly in the bookcase by my fire place today. The portcullis is broken and needs a lot of new pieces and I've got to replace some of the gray bricks as well. But I've always loved that set. For some reason, in my imagination, castle Legos could take down both space Legos, and G.I. Joes.

Re:Timeline is wrong!

[flamdrag]

My original yellow castle is still at my parents house. I got it for my birthday and still remember the big deal that was made about it because it cost *gasp* $40. I played with it all the time. Now my 6-year old daughter plays with it when she visits grandma and grandpa.

Re:Timeline is wrong!

[RotsiserMho]

Actually, the one pictured (6080) is indeed the first LEGOLAND castle. The yellow castle did not belong to any coherent theme. 6080 ushered in the era of themed castle sets. And it was awesome.

Re:Timeline is wrong!

[MazzThePianoman]

I have that castle in storage. It was my first Lego set of many.

Re:Timeline is wrong!

[Acer500]

Wow, I remember looking forward to my dad's trips, because he would bring me and my younger brother sets of Legos... and once he brought a grey castle (probably further down the road, 1987 or so, but we had all of the Lego brochures with all the new sets, we got to wonder which of those he would bring, it was fun :) )...

No, it did not turn into an Engineering degree for me (though I did start it), but my brother used to build sets and imagine movies with the Lego pieces as actors... 15 years later he actually studied film directing (until reality settled and now he makes ads like most of them :P )

Re:Timeline is wrong!

[mcvos]

You're right. I remember that yellow castle, but I've never owned it. I had the grey one, which was still great. I'm still not sure whether I think the large grey wall segments are a good idea or a bad one, though. They're a good example of the shaped custom elements that you can only use for one particular function (wall in this case), but any building needs walls, and I've built an enormous number of different castle designs with them that I probably wouldn't have built from the yellow set. Seemingly restrictive custom elements can definitely stimulate creativity.

So what if you can't build a car out of them? I loved building castles. Still do. In fact, if I'm ever rich enough to design my own house, it's going to look a bit like a castle.

Re:Lego people

[daninspokane]

Jaundice...? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaundice

Re:Lego people

[91degrees]

Having proportions where you're roughly twice as high as you are wide and hands that rotate 360 degrees is also a little freaky.

Happy Anniversary!

[HeavensFire]

On this auspicious occasion, let the Horn of Eternity cut a thunderous blast!

pht-pht-pht!

Timeline was funny!

[PrescriptionWarning]

Who cares how accurate it was with an awesome entry like this: "1945 Germany Surrenders, Hitler kills himself, he never got to play LEGO or invade Legoland (take that sucker!)"

Re:Timeline was funny!

[Amorymeltzer]

Funny, but definitely crass. I'm a firm believer of Serious Business, but it's just weird to see my childhood toy sound like George Bush.

Re:Timeline was funny!

[Ed Avis]

Yeah, they should release a special Occupied Europe themed Lego set featuring cars with blacked-out headlights, posters saying 'VERBOTEN' and a little Lego-man Hitler with tiny plastic moustache.

Re:Timeline was funny!

[FusionDragon2099]

Yeah, they should release a special Occupied Europe themed Lego set featuring cars with blacked-out headlights, posters saying 'VERBOTEN' and a little Lego-man Hitler with tiny plastic moustache.
Well, http://peeron.com/inv/parts/3626bpx11/one out of three ain't bad.

Re:Lego people

[The Second Horseman]

That would be one phenomenal case of jaundice . . .

Some of the neater Lego people sets is available through the Lego education line - stuff like the community workers set: http://www.legoeducation.com/store/detail.aspx?CategoryID=169&by=9&ID=420&c=1&t=0&l=0

or some of the Duplo people stuff like the "world people" set: http://www.legoeducation.com/store/detail.aspx?CategoryID=155&by=9&ID=1370&c=1&t=0&l=0

Happy birthday lego

[xtracto]

Although some of us played the not-as-expensive Tente alternative. It was really cool. I think that it is still possible to buy generic sets of Tente for a quite affordable price these days :)

Of course, the quality of Tente made me maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad, because each time you sticked one piece, another would drop at the other side of your creation. grrrr

Galaxy Explorer!

[AmicoToni]

I agree, the space sets were fantastic. You can still buy them on BrickLink. New in their box those sets sell for thousand of dollars.

LEGOogle

[LinDVD]

I like it how Google has their corporate logo modeled with Lego bricks right now (January 28, 2008), in honor of the 50th anniversary. In my personal experience, many engineering types played with Lego bricks at some point in their past. Hell, in my own cubicle, I have a Lego tank (Exo-force), with the "Technic" tank treads with the appropriate gear pieces, and not the one-piece rubber tread that comes with it...I actually would have bought the $500 Star Wars Millennium Falcon model, but when I found out that the inside didn't have the virtual chess table and anything at all, it didn't seem that special to me, so I decided to pass. I do regret not getting the Star Wars deluxe Rebel Blockade Runner-that was a cool Lego Star Wars model.

bricked again

[jollyreaper]

I find Lego bricks more useful than iPhone bricks. I suppose it's just a matter of time until someone builds an iPhone out of Lego's but does that mean it will already be bricked?

Re:bricked again

[mac_mcgrew]

Been Done. http://www.brickartist.com/smaller-sculptures/iphone.html

Legos Passed on to the Next Generation

[gabebillings]

Did you know the company actually doesn't want you to call them Legos? I think they prefer something like 'Lego bricks'. They get all uppity when it comes to trademark names. Anyway, I had a pretty good stash of Legos when I was younger. Currently my sister and I are both in our mid-thirties with two kids each, and our Legos were sitting alone in some boxes in our parent's basement. One day my dad decided that those Legos should be in the hands of his grandchildren, so he set to work. He could have just roughly split them in halves and sent them to us, but he's far too anal retentive for that. No, first he organized all the bricks by color. Now this wasn't a ridiculously large collection like some people probably have, but it's still maybe 4-5 cubic feet of Legos. Then once he had that done, the real fun began. He pulled out all the instruction sheets we'd saved and started pulling out the blocks for them. I'm not sure what he sent to my sister, but I got one big set and three smaller ones, all nicely segregated in their own little Ziploc bag. Of course that was along with the other six bags of bricks, neatly organized by color. Whether it was luck, or maybe him remembering that it was my favorite, I ended up with the Galaxy Explorer. Just a few weeks ago my 3 1/2 year old was bored, and I told him about this cool rocket ship we could build, so I pulled it out and started putting it together. The instruction booklet has all these cute little check marks next to all the pieces; my dad marking off what he'd found. Occasionally there's an 'X'; something that was missing that I needed to go find a substitute for. As it was, my finished Galaxy Explorer had some odd white plates underneath and a few other out of place bricks, but it was good enough. My son played with it every night after our youngest went to bed. (Didn't want him eating any carelessly dropped bricks.) It didn't take him long before he'd progressed to a new favorite method of play: pulling the heads off of all the minifigs and making neat little stacks of them, along with little rows of legs and torsos. I'd think there was something wrong with him, but I distinctly remember making little stacks of minifig heads myself. Much to the chagrin of my wife, I've used this as an opportunity to start buying more Lego sets, which is great, because he can't really follow directions yet, so I get to put them all together.

Re:Legos Passed on to the Next Generation

[FinestLittleSpace]

"They get all uppity when it comes to trademark names." ...and just generally a bit more logical about user of grammar, wouldn't you say? Lego sell products, made by Lego. 'Lego' is a brand for a collection of products, not any single product that can be put into a plural. I think it makes sense grammatically not just on a trademark level; interestingly, I never hear it in the UK said as 'legos', it only seems to be said on american sites. Maybe this is where I'm supposed to grumble about the breakdown of the English language?

It is also a plain and simple trademark issue; you'd get uppity if you knew if you were a money-hungry company who stopped defending that trademark that in a few years time people could sell 'Lego' products without buying any sort of license.

Can't say I blame them!

End of boring post.

Re:Legos Passed on to the Next Generation

[mabhatter654]

give the crying kiddies a kleenex, tell them to google for some rollerblades and play out side!

Re:Legos Passed on to the Next Generation

[ShadowsHawk]

My first is on the way and I'm already anxious for the day when he/she will be able to play 'legos'. I have two siblings, but was fortunate enough to have the first child, so I inherited the entire collection.

Because I'm not enough of a geek yet...

[cvd6262]

Most of the large castles of that period swung open.
6080 King's Castle http://guide.lugnet.com/set/6080
6085 Black Monarch's Castle http://guide.lugnet.com/set/6085
6073 Knight's Castle http://guide.lugnet.com/set/6073
6074 Black Falcon's Fortress http://guide.lugnet.com/set/6074

But, after that, they went to the molded baseplate for castles, so swinging open wasn't an option.

computer case

[Davenport Spiff jr]

I just finished building a case for my new computer out of legos. If I wasn't so lazy I'd put pictures somewhere. Hard drive and power LEDs are mounted in clear bricks, USB port behind a door, little lego guy with helmet and battleaxe guarding the power switch, and of course the whole top of it can be rebuilt at whim. Ah, leggos! No I just need to raid my nephew's stash so I can build a bigger castle on top!

Re:computer case

[Anonymous Coward]

Pics or it didn't happen.

Re:computer case

[kramulous]

Agreed. One additional vote to see said masterpiece

Missing feature.

[SharpFang]

Lego is a really great toy but it lacks one serious feature: SAVE.

Re:Missing feature.

[everphilski]

Lego is a really great toy but it lacks one serious feature: SAVE.

Digital Camera. Notebook with a part count if you are truly anal.

Re:Missing feature.

[zoney_ie]

Less of an issue with digital cameras and even cameraphones. Just about everyone has the means now to photograph one's creations as many times as one wants, and indeed then photograph at intermediate stages of construction, or perhaps more useful for step-by-step reconstruction, during deconstruction.

Plus it's awesome that nowadays you can share your creations far and wide for all time by publishing the photos online.

I mean, this is something that wasn't in many people's grasp 10 years ago, maybe even as little as 5 depending on the price-point for digital cameras that one considers facilitatory and how important one considers the advent of more widely available broadband.

Times are changing so quickly.

Re:Missing feature.

[thedohman]

I have a bajillion Legos, and a Save feature as well.

I've modeled many individual bricks in SketchUp, so I can create the models and SAVE them. Of course, it's a lot easier, and far more fun, to model using real bricks, and then virtualize them.

News for Nerds! I say NOT today

[way2trivial]

1:58 PM- in what time zone? sheesh.. how can I have a momment of silence, if I don't know when!

Re:Lego people

[Jesus_666]

Let's not forget the fact that you can't remove your pants without complete amputation of everything below the navel...

Custom parts expand creativity

[lag00natic]

With every new Lego set my son gets we first build the kit as per the directions. However, a few weeks later he's ripped it apart and built some completely original piece. The important thing as a parent is to encourage your child to experiment and mix-match pieces. I know some people that build the kits and then put them on a shelf - what a waste - where's the fun in that? Some of the stuff my son builds is some abstract I don't even know what it is, but so long as he's having fun and being challenged and creative - that's all that matters.

Re:Custom parts expand creativity

[nschubach]

I built some of my later kits and set them on the shelf. Notably, a Technic car and Star Wars Driodeka. But I don't have much time to play with them, so they have become "trophies" of my youth.

Re:Custom parts expand creativity

[Shemmie]

I remember as a kid (25 now) getting the pirate ship for Christmas. It was fantastic - spending time sat with my Dad as we made it to the instructions. I believe it had about 4-5 custom 'hull' pieces. The number of "space pirate" ships that were made from that, after I'd taken it apart and put it back together again... those were indeed, the days.

Re:Custom parts expand creativity

[StarvingSE]

3 best Christmas lego memories:

1) Space monorail system
2) the train set
3) the pirate ship (my brother and I each received one of the two ship models so they could battle)

No other toy or video game has captured my attention or imagination quite like lego has. My brother and I would build towns or space stations that would take up the entire floor of our bedrooms.

I also remember the christmas that my parents got me an erector set out of the blue... I had no idea what it was before then and had never asked for it. I immediately fell in love with it. It was like lego for big kids. I still kick back and play with those old toys now and then. They will never get old and you are never too old.

Re:Custom parts expand creativity

[houghi]

A few weeks? With me that was a few minutes. And that was if I got a kit, which was very seldom. Also I seldom left anything over night. The dolls did not even exist, so I had to mae them myself.

Sometimes I would build stuff just so I could destroy it. Mmm. Nothing has changed.

Re:Custom parts expand creativity

[MagusSlurpy]

I know some people that build the kits and then put them on a shelf - what a waste - where's the fun in that? I have to disagree with you, at least as far as the Star Wars kits go.

And I also have a MegaBloks model of Shuttle Endeavour, of which I am very fond (the only MegaBloks set I've ever bought).

Re:Custom parts expand creativity

[Doggabone]

I have a fairly dim memory of this story, but it's become a Christmas tradition to tease my Dad with it. One year, I received for Christmas an 18 wheeler truck set. I think the only custom pieces were the windshield and the hinge piece that connected the cab and the trailer. I was, I've been told, so excited I couldn't stop waving my arms. My Dad and my Uncle opened the instruction book and assembled the truck - I wasn't allowed to interfere. I remember hovering over them and making a helluva fuss about it. Then, once they had built the truck without me, they started pushing the truck around the carpet and didn't let me play with it until my mother stopped laughing enough to whip them back to the couch.

Re:Custom parts expand creativity

[Anonymous Coward]

I know some people that build the kits and then put them on a shelf - what a waste - where's the fun in that?

I know, I know. But still I *cannot* rip apart my millenium falcon...

Well, Crap

[gabebillings]

I've been reading Slashdot for years, but I don't think I've posted less than half a dozen times, and think all of those were probably a single line.

Not only did I do something that pisses me off royally when I see other people do it (giant blocks of text with no whitespace), I compounded the idiocy by not using the 'Preview' button.

I'm really annoyed at myself, mainly because this was the first thing I'd read on Slashdot that I actually felt I had something which I could contribute, and then I went and screwed up the posting. I'm guessing a lot of people are like me, and when faced with a giant chunk of text, just skip it and go on to the next post.

Luckily I saved a copy in case the form conked out in mid-post, as has happened numerous times before. So if you skipped the first one, now you can save your retinas and read this properly formatted one.

------------------

Did you know the company actually doesn't want you to call them Legos? I think they prefer something like 'Lego bricks'. They get all uppity when it comes to trademark names.

Anyway, I had a pretty good stash of Legos when I was younger. Currently my sister and I are both in our mid-thirties with two kids each, and our Legos were sitting alone in some boxes in our parent's basement. One day my dad decided that those Legos should be in the hands of his grandchildren, so he set to work.

He could have just roughly split them in halves and sent them to us, but he's far too anal retentive for that. No, first he organized all the bricks by color. Now this wasn't a ridiculously large collection like some people probably have, but it's still maybe 4-5 cubic feet of Legos.

Then once he had that done, the real fun began. He pulled out all the instruction sheets we'd saved and started pulling out the blocks for them. I'm not sure what he sent to my sister, but I got one big set and three smaller ones, all nicely segregated in their own little Ziploc bag. Of course that was along with the other six bags of bricks, neatly organized by color.

Whether it was luck, or maybe him remembering that it was my favorite, I ended up with the Galaxy Explorer. Just a few weeks ago my 3 1/2 year old was bored, and I told him about this cool rocket ship we could build, so I pulled it out and started putting it together. The instruction booklet has all these cute little check marks next to all the pieces; my dad marking off what he'd found. Occasionally there's an 'X'; something that was missing that I needed to go find a substitute for. As it was, my finished Galaxy Explorer had some odd white plates underneath and a few other out of place bricks, but it was good enough.

My son played with it every night after our youngest went to bed. (Didn't want him eating any carelessly dropped bricks.) It didn't take him long before he'd progressed to a new favorite method of play: pulling the heads off of all the minifigs and making neat little stacks of them, along with little rows of legs and torsos. I'd think there was something wrong with him, but I distinctly remember making little stacks of minifig heads myself.

Much to the chagrin of my wife, I've used this as an opportunity to start buying more Lego sets, which is great, because he can't really follow directions yet, so I get to put them all together.

So cool, but nobody mentions LEGOs abuse of IP law

[davidannis]

On slashdot I figured someone would have already castigated LEGO. They blocked them from the Netherlands, http://www.cbc.ca/money/story/2005/07/13/lego-mega050713.html But not from Canada http://www.cbc.ca/money/story/2005/11/17/megabloks-051117.html but in any case their harassment discouraged competition.

Gold brick anniversary?

[razorh]

back in 1998 a bought a 'freestyle anniversary' tub that had a single chrome/silver brick in it. I wonder if we'll see something like that this year?

Re:News for Nerds! I say NOT today

[sukotto]

Perhaps UTC+1 (Denmark) ?

duh? Nasa?

[kahizonaki]

I would like to draw your attention to a few points: 1) "19 billion LEGO elements are produced every year." And then, a few lines later... 2) "40 billion LEGO bricks stacked on top of one another would connect the earth with the moon." WHY HASN'T ANYONE NOTICED THIS YET!!! WE COULD GET TO THE MOON IN TWO YEARS AND FOR A LOT CHEAPER!!! HELLOOOO!?!?! NASA?!?! DUH!?!?!?!

Patent?

[em.a18]

The poster at http://cache.gizmodo.com/assets/resources/2008/01/lego-brick4-timeline.jpg says there is a patent filed in 1958. Does anybody know what number it is? I'm curious to see what they patented (probably the plastic injector?)

- Malcolm

Re:Patent?

[jmac1492]

I don't know the patent number, but what they patented was the method by which the bricks interlock. Real Legos have studs on the top and circular tubes on the bottom/inside. Their competitors use studs on the top and something else on the bottom. (Usually a single bar running parallel to the longer sides.) The stud and tube design allows for more secure models because the bricks can't slide past the tube on the bottom.

Word :)

[everphilski]

My parents bought us Fishertechnik for Christmas when I was in seventh grade (with brothers in 5th, 4th and a sister in 2nd). At first we were a bit disappointed because they took them out of the box and packed them into plastic containers... which were sold to hold LEGOS. We knew this inspecting the Christmas gifts and KNEW for CERTAIN we were getting a load of LEGO's (screw the pendants) for Christmas. Anyways didn't take more than a week or two for them to grow on us.

Next year I won the science fair, built a computer controlled robot arm out of Fischertechnik. I kept playing with them through high school, wound up buying the pneumatics set, etc. Wonderful stuff you can do with all those sets put together.

Wound up becoming an engineer, and now I go home at Christmas and beg my parents to let me take the Fischertechnik sets home with me to play with :P I'm 25, but they keep saying no because they are trying to get my youngest sibling (14) to play with it more ... maybe next year.

Technic mastery

[British]

I remember being around 10 years old, and, out of sheer boredom, built a guitar, with the neck being mostly made out of technic holed beams. I used rubber bands for strings. Later revisions came with whammy bars(that only worked on one string). I took earplug(like earbud on an ipod), and taped it to the body-ends of the strings. Instant pickups. Sounded like crap, but was fun for a kid.

Then moved onto hardcore Technic projects. Helicopter innards, airplanes with working controls(one even had pitch trim using worm gears). Then I moved onto car transmissions, which would occupy me for years.

My holy grail of projects was to make a 4-speed with reverse transmission. I had it drafted on (graph)paper, but ran into some snags finally building it. Many years later I would rebuild the transmission+overdrive on a '79 Triumph Spitfire, and it was like playing with Lego again.

Ah to be a kid again and have tons of free time to complete it and build a working CVT.

I knew my free time was up when I bought a 1.5 Mindstorms set, and it sat untouched for years(still have it).

Re:Technic mastery

[IdeaMan]

I knew my free time was up when I bought a 1.5 Mindstorms set, and it sat untouched for years(still have it). Translation: Just 15 more quests and I can get my epic mount...

How much did I like Lego?

[British]

My xmas present from my mom was the 8880 super car. The be-all-end-all of realistic cars at the time from Technic. 4 wheel steering, 4 speed tranny, all wheel drive. She hid it from me in the coat closet(I never found it).

The embarassing thing about it: I was 18.

Re:How much did I like Lego?

[thomthom]

I was 16! Hah, and I thought -that- was old. ...but I never let anyone hide it. Now, both by brother and I, can't wait for my nephew to to become old enough. While he plays with the basic LEGO kit I'll hog the Technic parts! btw, for the record, it says on the box that LEGO is for 3-99! Still got decades of fun to go!

Re:How much did I like Lego?

[Von Helmet]

You think that's embarrassing? I'm saving up to buy that set off ebay and I'm nearly 26.

Re:How much did I like Lego?

[hanchan07]

I'm in my 30's and still get at least one set every Christmas (always have), and usually buy a few during the year. Im still trying to convince the wife that I need to get the $300 and $500 Star Destroyer and Millennium Falcon sets (^_^).

Don't forget the smuggling sets

[Anonymous Coward]

'Gator Landing' and 'Midnight Transport'. They gave the Lego Police someone to pursue.

Why are they still so expensive?

[clickety6]

Looking at the shops over here in Europe for Lego and Duplo sets for Christmas presents, the price seems pretty high, especially for some of the smaller sets that have only a few bricks and then some specialised pieces. How have the retail prices changed in real terms over the years? Have they gotten cheaper or have they become more expensive with all these character sets (Star Wars, Bob the Builder.

PS My favourite Lego add-on in the 70s was a large, motorised block that had a wired remote for forward and backward movement. You could put on wheels or caterpillar tracks and then stick on your favourite Lego parts. When we had two, my brother and I would use them for Robot Wars type battles (long before Robot Wars existed).

Re:Why are they still so expensive?

[zoney_ie]

The prices are insanely more cheap. Here in Ireland, we changed over to Euros in 2002 at an exchange rate of IR£1=1.27 (i.e. numbers on prices are higher in euro). The prices for a given "size" of set are lesser numerically in euro than they were in IR£ in the mid 1980s. That's despite inflation of 5% or more each year even just around 2000-2003. An old UK catalogue shows that prices in £stg were the same numerically in the mid 1980s as they are today in euro for the same size set. The IR£ retail prices were higher again than the £stg ones.

Re:Why are they still so expensive?

[pragma_x]

PS My favourite Lego add-on in the 70s was a large, motorised block that had a wired remote for forward and backward movement. You could put on wheels or caterpillar tracks and then stick on your favourite Lego parts. When we had two, my brother and I would use them for Robot Wars type battles (long before Robot Wars existed).

I know how you feel.

Once I took all of my mideval minifigs, taped numbered slips of paper to the backs of each, and organized them into "red" and "blue" teams. Once placed on a "ruined castle" terrain, a sheet tracking hitpoints for each man, and some dice at the ready, I began to engage in "scale warfare" with my brother.

Many years later, I learned about this new thing called "Warhammer". Good times.

Re:Why are they still so expensive?

[DrEasy]

PS My favourite Lego add-on in the 70s was a large, motorised block that had a wired remote for forward and backward movement. You could put on wheels or caterpillar tracks and then stick on your favourite Lego parts. When we had two, my brother and I would use them for Robot Wars type battles (long before Robot Wars existed).

I used to play that same game with my cousin! He was 4 years older, a true hacker, and he'd come up with some truly impressive designs (like rock-solid trucks), whereas mine were all about strengthening one weakness by creating two more... He always kicked my butt.

The funny thing though is that nothing ever came out of his creative genius (last time I heard of him he was a tourist guide), whereas I ended up getting an engineering degree... There must be something wrong with our educational system.

LEGOS LEGOS LEGOS!

[Big_Monkey_Bird]

I'll always call them LEGOS. I want money for using that clandestine photo of me on their 50th anniversary set.

Why no Google click-thru?

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone else notice that - unlike most celebratory Google logos - there's no click-thru on the LEGO one? Why not? My guess is that it's because of MONEY. The top link for q=LEGO would, of course, be lego.com. LEGO is a commercial entity and Google is all about making bucks. Why would they provide millions of hits of free advertising to LEGO? I wonder if they already approached LEGO and asked them for cash for a home-page link? Maybe LEGO said "no" and new Google is not a charity.

Self Replicating Automaton

[Plazmid]

April 19th, 2011, some kids build a self-replicating automaton out of Lego. By 2015 50% of Earth's surface has been converted into Lego blocks. By 2020, they become self-aware.

Ahhh, lego. Smell the nostalgia.

[Hazelnut]

I just got all my old space lego sets down from the loft and gave them to my 8 year old son for christmas. One of the sets is the large space explorer in the picture that I got at a similar age - kept that box for 28 years! Unfortunately there are a few pieces missing, but all the more recent sets were 99.9% complete and I intend to get hold of the bits we need for that memorable set.

We spent 2 days at Christmas time building which was a lot of fun. Happy Birthday Lego!

this is awesome, a tool to pass on

[psychosmyth]

I am amazed how my son has taken his blocks and meshed the new designs with my blocks that were passed to him. engineering 101

Happy 50th Lego!

[Nashadelic]

Thanks for all those wonderful years and getting me through those hard times when I could just play with you and forget about the world.

miss "erector sets" "panels and girders"

[peter303]

I used to like to all they building toy kits when I was a kid (pre-video games). I hear that most of them fell by the wayside due to tough liability laws. Lego bricks are too large for most kids to swallow or put in their eyes.

AGREED: Technic's was/is the best lego development

[museumpeace]

we were using that stuff to build prehensile manipulators, right out of the box for a UROP project at MIT. The line I draw is this : if I know what I want to build, how little imagination and inventiveness do I have to apply to the given parts to make the end product. Its a lot like the difference between programming a RISC architecture in assembler vs some bloated "every instruction any engineer ever fancied" CISC machine. On the other hand...if its a case of "you can't get there from here" due to a poverty of basic mechanical components like u-joints or worm gears thats no good either. And its that trade off that Technics does better than all the new HERE, LET US JUST DO STARWARS/PIRATES/WTF FOR YOU kinds of stuff. Those kits are for kids who grew up watching TV.

The neatest thing I ever saw was back in the mid 60's: a kid I knew built a mold with legos, poured plaster of paris into it, then picked away the blocks to reveal a railroad bridge for his model train set that was the spitting image of a scaled masonry bridge. That was with nothing but basic blocks

Re:18, I'm 36

[Denver_80203]

And I have upwards of 1500 Pounds of them.. I still buy 3-5 sets a month (or more). AFOL (Adult Fans Of Lego) is HUGE. Nothing embarrassing about it. I never did get the 8800 though.. Released during a time I had lost interest. Be rpoud. It's a still a VERY sought after set... 2-300$+ for a complete set in excellent condition.

Specialized Pieces not the Problem

[Ohio Calvinist]

I've read a lot of posts by other /.ers say that highly specialized pieces limit the creativity of Legos. While it has been a while since I played with it, I was always excited to get a "new" kind of piece that let me do something that was hard, inefficent or ghetto rigged before. (Kind of like this, I can do it in assembly, but you get a little stoked when you get a really nice, efficient, fast new API) What comes to mind was the piece that allowed you to make 45deg. roofs. It origninally came in a castle set, but I found myself re-using it in space applications.

I feel like the problem with Legos today is all the commercial tie ins, like StarWars and Spiderman. One of the greatest strengths, I feel, of the older Legos were that they were a set genre, but the unverse' story was largely untold. It was up to me, and my imagination to decide "why" the diffrent castle factions were at war. I got to experience the Galaxy exploders discover a medival civilization. I built a tyranical dragon lord who was defeated by the black knight using a futuristic laser gun found from the wreckage of a lost spacecraft.

I feel like the commercial ties "lock-in" a number of kids into highly-commercialized, pre-digested stories, where they are tempted to simply play out what they saw on TV rather than write new ones for themselves.

My wife is a teacher (first grade) and is disturbed (as am I) at how many students can't write or tell a story that doesn't include cartoon characters, and that it takes significant work to do something that we both feel came so naturally to both of us. How she does it, is that kids are not allowed to write about-or read books that feature TV or video game characters, or books made from TV/movies, in class.

I believe it is the creative play as a child that has done more for my career and personal development than anything else in my life.

Re:Specialized Pieces not the Problem

[MortimerGraves]

Ohio Calvinist: I feel like the problem with Legos today is all the commercial tie ins, like StarWars and Spiderman. One of the greatest strengths, I feel, of the older Legos were that they were a set genre, but the unverse' story was largely untold. It was up to me, and my imagination to decide "why" the diffrent castle factions were at war.

My six year old -- who is a huge fan of Lego and Harry Potter -- recently had Harry, Ron, and Hermione racing around in scratch built space ships (despite us having Star Wars Lego as well), as well as a scratch built TARDIS. I'm not entirely sure what the three were doing in space, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't part of Rowling's canon. :-)

Monorail!

[lpangelrob]

The space set dates back to freaking 1979? I got mine when I was 8, or about 10 years later.

One of the best sound bites I'll always remember from my childhood is the click, click, click of the monorail engine changing direction at an endpoint. At the time, that particular set was one of the most expensive available from LEGO, retailing at about $149.99 (in 1989 dollars!)

Stud and Tube

[Anonymous Coward]

Most popular Stud and Tube system?

Something tells me the pr0n industry is bigger than Lego...

Lego's own words on the anniversary

[vesuvana]

The 1:58 smacks of PR-speak, like the "5 out of 6 dentists agree" of yore. Even Legos' official PR doesn't pin it down that tightly. See http://parents.lego.com/Features/50th%20Birthday.aspx for more interesting factoids about one of the best early geek toys ever. Oddly, this doesn't make me feel particularly old.

Oh, boy.

[thealsir]

Lego, lego, lego. A big piece of my history as a kid. I used to be a fanatic about and still love it...I think it peaked around the late 80's to early 90's...the later stuff I really don't care for. Anyway, I've always loved Technic. My last (big) foray into technic was making a case:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFopAu-e7Vs

Making a structurally intact case completely out of legos is challenging, especially when you're strapped for parts. This one needed some serious thought, but I did it all in one night on a caffiene rush. 'bout seven hours.

Argh

[Schmapdi]

It's taking every ounce of my willpower to not a) go get down my Legos from my parent's garage (mostly castle Legos, but odds and ends as well) b) go to walmart and just buy 2-3 of the coolest Lego sets I can find. Legos would definitely help fufill my urge to build things, something that, outside of Legos, I'm not really that good at. The problem is technically I'm one of those stupid ... what do you call them? "Adults?" *grumbles* The problem is I'm not really nerdy enough to want to have a giant Lego Millenium Falcon sitting around, regardless of how much fun I'd have putting it together. Oddly enough, just the other day I pulled out while going through my closet the last Lego creation I had ever built. I was probably 16-17 at the time and built a Lego robot using just about every special and space-type Lego I had. I have to say, he's pretty badass.

doublespeak

[sidb]

Sony probably issued a press release stating that their CDs contained some sort of useful consumer value-added enhancement software. It's still a rootkit. The people who make Legos are quite benign by comparison, but I still won't let a corporate PR department dictate my vocabulary.

The Minifig Smile

[Cheefachi]

I remember when all minifigs were always smiling. I think they introduced minifigs with different expressions including *shockingly* frowns, when they started doing the commercial tie-ins (though I could be wrong here). My preference would be somewhere in the middle, everyone shouldn't have a smile, but then there shouldn't be minifig faces that are o specific to a genre or theme that its not that reusable.

LL924

[turgid]

Got that one for my 5th birthday. I could build it off by heart after two or three goes. By the time I was 11, I had designed and build my own 4-wheel drive, independent suspension all round, 3-speed gearbox, rack and pinion steering car.

Then they said I was too big to play with toys :-( and took it all away.

Re:Lego people

[ArAgost]

That would be one phenomenal case of jaundice . . . I have Gilbert's syndrome, you insensitive clod!

Lego or Meccano?

[spaceyhackerlady]

A colleague of mine asks this question of every new hire. Almost every engineering type has answered "Meccano!"

He was flabbergasted when one summer student had no idea what either was.

...laura

Re:Lego or Meccano?

[CrazyTalk]

I prefer Blocko (ala The Simpsons)

Re:Lego people

[Anonymous Coward]

You've never seen the Lego NBA minifigs?

Ugh....

[jotaeleemeese]

None. My family was to poor to afford neither...

Subverting the Non-Dominant Paradigm

[tobiah]

I was looking at the Lego display at Target and noticed that every set had a weapon. Back when I played with Legos in the 70's, I had the contrasting experience of noting that none had a weapon. There was not even one set with a configuration related to combat. I found it strange and the answer I got was that the founder of Legos, Ole Kirk Christiansen, was a pacifist who had been so put off by WWII that he swore to only make toys with educational and non-violent themes.

The first move away from this policy I remember is the castle line in the 80's. Since then it has changed rapidly, and now it's fighting robots, space fighters, alien warfare, etc. I'm rather disappointed, if not surprised.

Castleland

[spgass]

Congratulations to Lego for 50 years. I remember the yellow castleland I enjoyed as a kid. I used to wake up my parents early on weekend mornings, they'd get out a lego set for me to play with and go back to sleep.