CP5670

I like both official models and MOCs, and have a good mix of both on my display shelves (at home). When I buy a set, it is usually something I intend to keep together for a long time. The bulk of my MOC parts come from Bricklink, or occasionally from extra copies of sets. This is something I like doing too. I have a lot of official sets built up and almost all of them are modified in some way. Some mods are trivial (filling up holes in spacecraft cockpits), some are more substantial (adding functions to Technic models), and some are closer to MOCs but are made of largely the same pieces.

Great model. I especially like the working headlights and how well they "blend" into the look of the model.

I don't remember doing anything with ledit.exe. The MLCad readme hasn't been updated in years and could contain outdated information. I think the "complete" install is just a self-extracting rar or zip, in which case you can use 7-zip or any other standard compression program to unpack it manually. Or you could try installing the SR3D package instead, which also contains the LDraw parts library.

The thing is that the Mac is not a "premium brand" in any performance or technological sense today. As I said earlier, it actually used to be like this at one time and I was a fan of Macs back then, but Apple has long since changed its business strategy from that. Today, their products are decent enough for average PC users, but not necessarily any better or worse than OEM Windows PCs. They are well suited for some specialized purposes (like that particular video editing program someone mentioned), and for other specialized needs like mine (games and numerical computation), there are much better choices. Macs are certainly cheaper today than they used to be, but that applies to all computer prices in general. I remember the top of the line 68030 Macs were around $12000 in the early 90s.

That image clears up some things. I think it's obvious that the red switch is used to operate a function switcher. The only question is whether it uses the red transmission rings or something closer to the 8082/8865 mechanism. If the model can move each set of tracks independently, which is almost certainly the case, then the drive motors will probably have to be in the base. That would only leave one motor for the four remaining functions, for which I don't see how the transmission rings will work. TechnicBricks makes an interesting point about the parallel LAs. It looks like they won't work the way they are built. A possible explanation is that it is just a building error in the preliminary image, which we have seen before many times.

64-bit Vista and 7 run 32-bit programs fine. Is it actually giving you an error message? It might be that the installer doesn't recognize the OS, even though it would work fine on it otherwise.

They specifically mention Newegg for the DIY prices, which is where I get a lot of my stuff. I was just giving an example showing that their analysis of the DIY option is flawed. I think they might have a point about Apple versus other OEMs, which as you say is the most relevant for a typical computer user, but I don't really fall into that category myself. If you factor in the extra time needed for DIY, then it also makes sense to account for the substantial performance gains you can get that way.

Yes, practically anything that works on XP will also work on Vista and 7. The only exceptions are some very old 16-bit programs. SR3D is also worth checking out. The interface is not as intuitive as MLCad, but it's a more powerful and featured program overall. Also, MLCad and SR3D are modeling programs. For rendering, POVRay is commonly used for Lego models. If you don't need a raytraced, high quality render, you can also just open the model in LDView and take a screenshot.

Some of the DIY pricing in that article makes no sense. I had gotten a 2.66ghz Core 2 in summer 2007 (and was running it at 3.6ghz) for $30 less than the price they quote for a 2ghz one in April 2008. I think the price differences between Apple and other OEMs might not be that big, but when it comes to Apple and DIY it's quite another story, especially if you also take performance into account.

I agree with this, even though I can see the purpose of EB's rules here. Personally, I would be in favor of removing the age limit altogether, and instead having rules on "sensible posting behavior," with the exact definition of that to be made at the discretion of the moderators. A rule that is not consistently enforced is never going to be taken seriously. I have been posting on internet forums for a long time and have come across plenty of kids who are quite intelligent, as well as plenty of adults who are complete morons. There is no way to tell anyone's age for sure on the internet, and the age of a person doesn't really matter anyway. The only thing you know (or care) about the person is his behavior on the forum. If that behavior is acceptable, the poster should be allowed to stay, and if not, he should be banned, regardless of age either way.

This is actually a known issue now, and several people have brought it up in the quality thread. See the entry on "deformable minifig accessories." It's a fairly recent problem and seems to be caused by poor molding tolerance.

Exactly. It was not only the fact that those functions were manual, but the control knobs for them were placed right next to the functions, resulting in no interesting mechanics in them at all. I would say that they weren't "proper" Technic functions. The outriggers were probably the biggest flaw and really feel like an unfinished design to me. I would also add the lack of a second rear differential, which would have been easy for them to add in. 8275 was never quite as ambitious a concept as 8258, but it did what it was supposed to almost perfectly and it didn't skimp on things the way 8258 did. In terms of pricing it was also a fairly good deal. The PF parts in it were worth at least half of the set's $150 US price, and of course you also got the tracks and many other useful parts.

Those were some of the best years for PC gaming. Freespace 2 had its source code released at one point and the mod community has made many upgrades to the engine and graphical content, so the game looks reasonably good today. The 360 and PS3 have fairly powerful CPUs but they are coupled with weak GPUs (the PS3 has something similar to a 7900GT, which is quite old today) and have small amounts of memory compared to PCs. Crysis in 2007 (one of the rare PC exclusive games) was the last big graphical advance and nothing after that has even matched it, much less surpassed it. I wouldn't expect that to change until the next generation of consoles comes out in 2 or 3 years, although on the flip side it means that we PC gamers don't need to upgrade for a while. I do agree with you on the dumbing down of games in general for the casual audience. We don't have the variety of games today that we had 10 years ago, and many genres that were common back then (adventure games, space sims, 6DOF FPSs and arcade racers come to mind) have largely died out today. I think the mods have actually become one of the main sources of fresh ideas in gaming now.

That $130 seller is also using a bogus exchange rate, so the actual price you pay will be quite a bit higher. In any case, if you're mainly interested in the parts, 8265 is probably the best choice. Its price is fairly low considering how much stuff it comes with, and you can always get the PF elements individually or though 8293. Both 8265 and 8258 are much better sets than 8297, even just for parts and especially if you want to understand the mechanisms.

The new aliens look like Squidman and Frenzy reskins to me. It's interesting that Rench is the "hired muscle" and Kranxx is the leader. I would have thought it was the other way around. You would think Rench's apparent Blacktron connection would make the others respect him more.

I was thinking of the generic, structural pieces more than special functional elements like driving rings. The H-brackets introduced last year are a good example. They basically do the same thing that standard, studded plates and beams have done for decades, except that they come in fixed sizes. Another, earlier example is the switch from this piece to the six types of angle connectors. (I certainly see the strength advantages of the new ones, but still for a lot of situations the single old piece was good enough) In recent times I think TLG's $150 price cap, while understandable, may be one reason why some models we get seem to be underdeveloped. 8258 was one instance of this, and to me that set was a little disappointing given the potential it had. For a flagship model it has a lot of corners cut, and I still haven't decided whether to get it or not.

Technic has always been my favorite theme, even though I build a lot of Space and City models too. As others have said, I don't see any "hate" for Technic. People might simply not be interested in it, which is fine, as it does take a somewhat different mindset to appreciate Technic. I'm one of the old timers who is not a fan of the completely studless construction TLG has moved to in the last 7 or 8 years, but I don't think Technic is necessarily about any particular building style. Anything with a focus on mechanisms is Technic to me, and I use whatever type of construction that helps me make mechanisms in the most intuitive and efficient way possible. This place has actually become pretty active lately, and is probably one of the more populated Technic communities out there now. I remember a year ago there was no separate Technic forum and hardly any Technic activity on EB at all, and things have changed a lot for the better. I see where you're coming from, especially after building several things from the idea books recently. There was a time when the number of Technic pieces was quite small and TLG focused on making the parts as versatile as possible. Over the years, they introduced a much greater variety of parts, but each one is also more specialized. In a way, the move to studless construction is part of this trend.

I used to like Apple as a kid in the late 80s and early 90s, and I can still respect the products and technologies they had back then, but I wouldn't touch any of their modern stuff. Apple was once at the forefront of consumer PC technology in many ways (as is obvious from comparing many Mac games of the time to DOS games), but they had fallen behind by the mid 90s. They eventually changed their whole focus and started to target a different sort of audience, giving up trying to innovate technologically and instead becoming a purely marketing-driven company.

I would expect to see a US price of $150 for 8043. TLG has seemingly capped the price of flagship Technic models at $150 in recent years. This isn't necessarily a good thing though, as they cut corners on the models to bring the price down to that level. 8258 had several obvious examples of this.

The brick separator's edge does work nicely on tiles, but I don't like using it on bricks or plates for the reasons I explained here and here. The "brick grip" approach is probably a better option in terms of avoiding long term damage to pieces.

I attach a brick to one of the plates and use it to get a stronger grip. You would be surprised how much easier it is to separate two plates when you attach a brick to one of them. The brick is then easy to remove.

Ah, I remember you. Nice to see you around here. I didn't realize you had registered on EB. Yes, I've been playing PC games for almost as long as I have been into Lego, and I used to be active in some modding communities and multiplayer clans at one point as well. This project was probably my best work. I think the mods are really the main thing that make PC gaming worthwhile in the long run. Some particularly standout ones I played over the last six months were TNM for Deus Ex and The Ball for UT3. If you buy a video card or CPU today, they will last a lot longer than in the past, as the consoles basically drive game development these days and we have long since reached the limits of what the 360 and PS3 can do. I used to upgrade something every six months at one point but haven't really bothered in the last two years, as there have been very few games to justify it. I play old games frequently too, and often go to some lengths to get them to work on modern computers. I have various emulation setups for DOS, 68k Mac, Windows 98 and a few old consoles that I use regularly.

Some sellers only send the invoice after the order has been packed. Most of the sellers there run their stores part-time, and if your order is big, sellers may well take up to a week to collect all the parts.

I see, so any product that becomes dominant makes the competition "fake" and "knock offs?" I guess all OSs other than Windows must be fake then. Seriously, it doesn't pay to be a fanboy. Now I generally prefer Lego too and have almost no clone pieces in my collection, but that is for objective and quantifiable reasons and not because the others are "fake." Oxford seems to be one of the better clones from what people say around here.

These Oxford sets are pretty nice. I see a few cases of inconsistent color quality on the bricks, but the vehicle designs and minifig accessories are quite good. I would consider buying these sets if they were more widely available. The box design is also impressive and is superior to the current Lego boxes. It reminds me of the old Lego boxes in fact. You do know that Lego bricks were originally a clone of a Kiddiecraft product, right?