davee123

So, in the new "LEGO Book", there's a picture on page 37 of a doctor minifig, supposedly from 1978*. Looking closely at his hair, it's different than the "standard" male hair piece! Quickly, I had to look this up to see whether the standard male hair had changed sometime after 1979 (when it was first available)! After looking around, there were a few instruction scans that show photographs of these hair pieces, the best one being this one from set 675 Snack Bar: All the photos we could find from 1979 appear to have this type, including catalogs: So... what gives? Did these images get taken of prototype parts that were never released? Did sets back then actually have slightly different hair pieces? If so, when did they change? And why am I just learning this now? And why won't the Eurobricks forum software recognize the image tags unless it has a .jpg/.gif/.png/etc extension?! DaveE * He's actually NOT from 1978. He's not from anywhere. According to BrickLink and Peeron, that torso didn't come out until 1980, and never was used with blue legs.

Maybe it's the folks at DK publishing not bothering to do any fact checking. I remember talking to the Master Builders about "The Ultimate Lego Book" (also by DK), and one of their comments was that they lost count of the number of errors that were in it. By contrast, the "LEGO Collector" and "50 Years of the LEGO Brick" books are both recent, NOT done by DK, and I don't think either has any errors (although the former has some omissions that are disappointing). DaveE

Huh. I guess I accepted that this new way of theme releases a while ago. I don't think the name "change" is even remotely close to a "change", since they already took the "Castle" theme name away in 1998, and replaced it with nothing. Each "mini" release since has been given a name, like "Knight's Kingdom" and "Castle" (which just-so-happens by amazing coincidence to match the theme name used years ago). But there's no over-arching "themes" and "subthemes" like there used to be in the late 80's and 90's. And I certainly don't expect LEGO to start treating its medieval/castle sets the same way it treats Town/City with guaranteed new sets every year. LEGO's marketing has taught them to do these little tightly knit "story groups" of sets-- Agents, Power Miners, Space Police, "Castle", Knight's Kingdom, Life On Mars, Exo-Force, etc, etc. They'll keep medieval/castle style sets in the mix for as long as they're predicted to be profitable (which they are), and probably periodically have dry spells here and there. That's what I've come to expect, anyway. I dunno-- for me, if stated the way it's been stated by fans, it's kind of like they're asking us for input about something they already did 10 years ago. To me, this is really about LEGO asking us "what should we call the next installment of castle?" rather than "would you like us to axe the line?" DaveE

I have to admit I'm confused as to why people would be upset with this "change". How are people imagining that this is any different than when they changed the name from "Castle" in the mid-1990's to "Knight's Kingdom" in 2000-2006? Or was there just as much consternation over that change? DaveE

That's what I suggested to him a few years ago, but yes, he wanted to keep his placement in the search engines. Part of Peeron's income is from BrickLink associated stores, which get better prominence if the individual parts and set pages are allowed to be scraped. I had also suggested that it might be alleviated by adjusting the max number of concurrent webservers in his Apache configuration-- although I'm not sure if that's controlled by the ISP or not. But regardless, like I said, Dan didn't seem to think that screen scraping was the problem; I'm not sure why. I don't know what he thought the problem might be, but he seemed to doubt that it was the web spidering. All I really know is that even though you might wait 12 seconds for the page to load, the page gets generated in, say, 0.3 seconds or something. I don't know the exact numbers, although I think for a while he would put the page generation time on the webpages (now it seems like it's gone). So the excess time isn't the machine or the database being bogged down-- it's something probably with the webserver or the network. Something's queuing up HTTP calls, and isn't handing them off to the CGI's immediately to get built. Could be any one of a lot of things, I suppose, but I'm not familiar enough with network issues to know. I suppose it could be a limit to the number of concurrent processes allowed on the box, too, which would be a BSD configuration issue controlled by Pair. But that's just another shot in the dark. DaveE

Signed, by both myself and my wife (yes, she's an AFOL, too) DaveE

That's true, but that's also what Dan's doing at the moment. He's maintaining Peeron the way it is, which turns out to be slow. If the idea is to *improve* Peeron (make it faster, more robust, etc), then that's where you'll need someone who's more active. It's not like Dan's abandoned it or anything, he just doesn't really have the drive to continue making improvements to the site. But again, even finding someone to maintain the status quo is difficult. Being a developer myself, and having close ties to LUGNET and Peeron, I've been a part of or been close to a lot of various initiatives that people have had trying in vain to find willing developers in the Lego community. LEGO even had trouble finding developers in the fan community to work on their more ambitious projects. Well, that's correct, although I will point out that hosting something like a PHP site is cheaper than hosting an "anything-goes" setup. For Peeron (or other ground-up sites), you've got to do things like run your own custom scripts (Perl, C, etc), run a crontab, get shell access, have unlimited DB access and administration, as well as have 24/7 monitoring from your ISP (like Pair does). But even then you're right, hosting isn't the big cost-- an "anything goes" account isn't all THAT much more. The big cost is in finding a developer who can understand the code. There's a big mess of code that takes days to wade through before you start to grasp what it's doing, let alone seeing the finer points of things. So getting a developer to continually (throughout the course of a year) log in and support the code is going to be the cost. It means they have to be available (be "on-call" so to speak), and have to be familiar enough with the code to be useful and respond in a timely manner to various issues that crop up. My apologies if I sound argumentative, it's not intended-- my point was simply that while yes, it'd be a great solution to get someone who was willing and able to take on the site, it's just not likely. It's sort of a "wouldn't it be great if..." discussion. Like when someone suggests that LEGO should go back to making Black Falcons, or old gray for collector sets, or stopping production of low-quality pieces in China. Yeah, I agree it'd be great, but it's not all that likely to happen. The problems in this case would be finding a willing party (very difficult), and convincing Dan to give it up (I think there's at least some chance). DaveE

It does? I guess I'm not aware of that having happened in the LEGO community, other than with LUGNET. It happens in the corporate world all the time, but they have money and employ teams of developers to take development in whatever direction they want. But in the hobby community, all the major developed sites I know of are owned, built and maintained almost exclusively by a single developer. I suppose other *forum* sites could change hands pretty easily-- It doesn't take too much technical knowledge to run a phpBB site or something. That's really a "just-add-water" website. Peeron's been programmed from the ground-up, along with other sites like BrickShelf, LUGNET, BrickSet, BrickLink, and MOCPages. Most other LEGO websites (EuroBricks, FBTB, Classic-Castle, Classic-Space, Brothers-Brick, BZPower, BrikWars, etc) aren't really "developed" per se. They use forum/blog/gallery/etc software that someone else wrote, which usually comes with a handy-dandy interface for administrators already built in. So if you want to change how the site looks, all you need to do is know the admin password, and be able to click a few buttons and fill out some web forms. By contrast, if you wanted to change Peeron, you'd have to go in and edit the code it's built on. You'd need to have an understanding of Perl, programming in general, UNIX, HTTP protocol, MySQL, JavaScript/AJAX, and other fun things. And on top of that, you'd then have to learn the way that Peeron's implemented in particular, and rewrite the necessary libraries to achieve the desired result. It's sort of like the difference between a kid who tells you "I built a webpage!" (they signed up for MySpace), and someone who wrote their page from scratch in HTML and has their own hosting service and domain name. You'd have to have a lot of money to burn if you were going to hire a developer, plus paying for the hosting. 10's of thousands of dollars a year, I'd guess. Not many LEGO fans I know have that much extra cash or are willing to throw it around. You could probably count them on one hand, or less. Generally, you want find someone who is a developer to take over. They're rare, but not as rare as a LEGO fan who's willing to find and hire a 3rd party developer. Anyway, suffice to say, it's very unlikely. But if someone does step up to the plate, it's possible that Dan might be on board. DaveE

Honestly, I doubt that's realistic. I'm pretty sure he wouldn't give up the domain name, although I suppose there could be a chance that he'd give up the code and data, if offered some sort of magic "super deal". But in my experience, such "super-deals" don't really exist. LUGNET actually changed hands, but that was really to make sure that the site didn't simply disappear (not really so that it would continue to grow and be the uber-site it was meant to be). BrickShelf was looking to stop doing hosting, but couldn't find anyone willing to take over. Ultimately, the problem is that there aren't a lot of true web developers out there in the hobbyist community. Sure, there are a slightly bigger bunch who know how to put together some PHP pages or write some JavaScript. But not that many with bona-fide build-it-from-scratch C++/Java/Perl development skills. And those that DO know how are either not really into the hobby anymore, or don't want to actively take on the hassle of taking on someone else's code-- they know how much work it is to do, and aren't interested. The thing that I think COULD happen would be if someone decided to make a brand new site from scratch that mirrored Peeron's functionality. Then, I could imagine an import of Peeron data, which Dan might help facilitate (depending on the details). Anyway, that's really still pie-in-the-sky at this point. DaveE

I think it's also about having a system of hinges, too. In the past there have been a wide variety of hinge types: - 1x2 hinge bricks (still around) - 1x2/1x4 hinge bricks (still around) - 1x4 fingered hinge plates (replaced with click hinges) - 1x2 fingered hinge plates (replaced with click hinges) - snakey connectors (replaced with click hinges) - 2x4.5 plate hinges (replaced or removed) - 1x4/1x8 brick hinges (long gone) So, switching to click hinges helps to reduce the various types of hinges that LEGO produces. But as stated, the click hinge also has the advantage of better enduring typical child play, without requiring high tolerances. The finger hinges need very high tolerances in order to work well for a long time with kids' normal wear-and-tear. But click hinges hold up better, and don't require the same tolerance. DaveE

Well, unfortunately, Dan Boger (the guy who coded and runs the site) has sort of drifted away from the LEGO hobby world, and isn't overly big on improving the site at the moment. I've talked with him a few times about this, and he's narrowed it down to something strange with the webserver application itself-- not any capacity issues with the architecture it's running on. What we've learned is that upon occasion, there are so many requests that the server is throttled and won't accept new requests until it's finished with with all the pending requests. So it develops a backlog of queries that get hung; even though each individual request gets processed very fast. I suspect it has to do with search engines combing the site, since there are a LOT of URLs in there for different sorting, viewing, etc, for EVERY single part and set. Dan wasn't sure that was the problem, but I don't really know why. I'll be sure to remind him when I see him again later this month... DaveE

According to the US sizing, it explicitly differentiates between child sizes and adult sizes: YS - Youth Small (kids) YM - Youth Medium (kids) YL - Youth Large (kids) S - Small (adult) M - Medium (adult) L - Large (adult) XL - Extra Large (adult) XXL - 2x Extra Large (adult) DaveE

I buy a lot of Lego, but it mostly sits unused, and I haven't noticed much cracking. There's been some, but not a lot-- certainly not as much as you describe. And it seems similar for other people in my area (specifically the Boston area). I know that things like humidity, light, and air conditions can affect the plastic differently, so I'm wondering if it could be that your particular area's weather is encouraging a higher rate of cracking? Further, you say you were contacting local families-- do you know if the cracking they experienced was in elements that they got use out of? For the most part, many adult hobbyists' individual Lego elements don't get as much usage as they would if in a child's collection. DaveE

That's just a very rough guess of course-- but our rate was probably increased because people were doing very basic, repetitive building, like stacking 2x4's on a wall for several hours straight. It's obviously much slower when you have to look at a step in an instruction manual, find the correct element, and then add it to the creation. Hopefully it'll be similarly simple stuff at the event. Wow, yeah, that still won't even come close to the whole thing. Good luck building! Do us AFOLs proud! DaveE

Will they allow any photography at the event? Wasn't sure if they want to maintain exclusive rights to the event, considering they're planning on airing it and so forth. If they DO allow pictures, I'm sure I'm not alone in absolutely demanding some of you :) Are they letting kids build too? Or just adults? Something tells me your standard AFOL could put together elements a lot faster than that, but non-Lego people would be slower. And kids would be even slower still. I wish I had some good stats-- we did some major group builds with the public for the Millyard project a few years back, and let some kids and other adults build, but I have no idea what our average rate was... (does some checking)... Looks like the estimate we had was about 3 million bricks for the Millyard, and about 10,000 person hours. But admittedly, that's including a lot of detail work that wasn't just raw stacking of bricks (which goes much faster), and includes a LOT of hours spend doing research and measuring and other non-building related tasks. Hmmm... The more "grunt" work was done in about 6 sessions for about 6 hours a day with maybe 30 people at a time (with kids) which probably accounted for about 2 million of the bricks as a wild guess. So, perhaps 1000 person hours for 2 million bricks? DaveE

Not just S@H, since there were problems with delivering to retail stores in addition to direct consumers, but yes, this was an error in distribution rather than in product directly. Yes, most definitely. As noted in the above post, try looking at the new Carousel set released a few weeks ago, and look at the blue and dark blue in the instruction booklet. As for whether or not it's improved since 2005/2006, I certainly haven't noticed an improvement. Do you have any examples of instruction booklets where the printed colors of dark grey, etc, can be contrasted, and later instructions appear better? I DO admit that I've gotten better about interpreting their colors, but I've assumed that it's been more about my experience with the poorer quality printing rather than the print quality improving. I don't have a direct example offhand, but there are other color printing issues as well that still abound. My LSO worked in print publishing and frequently has a lot of insight into these types of things. One annoying one in particular is that occasionally, sets have multiple instruction booklets, but the printing colors are DIFFERENT between those booklets. It's particularly noticeable on the front covers, where (for example) one is distinctly lighter than the other. This thread on Classic-Castle pretty explicitly illustrates the problem: http://www.classic-castle.com/forum/viewto...f=2&t=17650 As I noted earlier, a conversation with a Lego rep in early July went something like this: (I don't remember the exact quotes): - "We've been able to reduce our cost quite a bit, now that some entire sets are produced in China, like the refrigerator magnet sets". - "Does that include the manufacturing of the minifig elements rather than just the assembly and packaging?" - "That entire product is basically now made in China." So, I didn't get a direct answer (probably because he wasn't sure of the specifics). But in combination with the post on C-C (which was oddly enough 2 days after I talked to the Lego rep), I would suspect that certain molding and printing is getting done in separate locations, and yielding separate results. DaveE

Other issues to add to the list: - Shipping in the US in roughly 2006-2008 Shipping and order packaging companies used in the US changed sometime in 2006, which resulted in such outrageous errors that it was almost humorous. In one instance, a dead scorpion was packaged with an order. In some BrickLink seller's orders, there were discrepancies of several DOZEN sets missing or EXTRA in individual orders. Lego boxes received by retail stores and by individuals were frequently deformed (crumpled, ripped, crushed, etc). Lego seems to have improved this more recently, either by improving their relationship with their packagers or by switching partners (not sure which). - Instruction color printing I'm not sure exactly when this became a problem, but instructions in recent years have changed their printing process such that certain colors are more difficult to distinguish. The primary issue seems to be that black is printed too lightly, almost at the color of dark gray. This brighter shift similarly causes other shades of gray to be lightened, making them hard to tell apart. This problem occurs with several other colors as well, such as blue and dark blue in the new Carousel set (nearly identical to my eye, even in sunlight). - Instruction rendering issues Some elements are occasionally printed with visible splines on the elements. This is likely due to a lack of time dedicated to proofreading instructions, and/or a limitation of a faster timeframe for set release (IE, they might not have time to catch the deadline or re-print when errors are caught). - Increase in element packing errors In purchasing many sets from as early as 1980, element packing errors appear to have increased, starting around 1999. Packing errors specifically in Star Wars sets were acknowledged by a company representative who said these sets were rushed through production faster than normal at the time, and had a higher error rate. This is sometimes more prevalent (understandably so) in current sets that are manually assembled and packaged. One odd recent example was an incorrect head placed in the Castle Advent calendar (which were individually bagged, and assumably not manually packaged). - Printing color discrepancies As noted on Classic-Castle recently, some printed elements turn out with different colors of printing for the same pattern. It is believed that some of the printing is done in separate locations-- as a Lego employee confirmed (without enough specifics to judge) that "all" of the manufacturing and packaging for certain types of products were done in China (magnets specifically, but others were implied). The result seems to be that the same printed pattern on the same color element shows up as a different color when received in different sets. DaveE

I got some of the flex track just recently, and was inclined to make a prototype roller coaster out of it: At the NMRA show in Connecticut, USA, we heard a bit about it from Jamie (Emerald Night designer). He brought a sample of the preliminary flex track, which looked MUCH better (it didn't have the inner rails), but he said that it was easier for trains to derail in testing. The trickiest part is making sure that the track has a uniform curve. Most of the time, some of your flex track pieces will be at different angles than the rest of the pieces, meaning that the train cars wobble a bit when riding on them (probably what leads to more derailing). Train cars ride MUCH more smoothly on the normal plastic track or 9v track. Regardless, I expect that these are REALLY handy to have. You don't need many, but they can easily help to make some non-standard angles and lengths in the track. I wouldn't advise building a track solely out of flex track of course, but when used strategically here and there, I can imagine they're very useful. DaveE

That was my thought-- but I guess it depends on how sturdily they plan on building it, and how big they want it to be. The big Lego ball on Mythbusters was what, about 1 million bricks or so? I imagine 3 million being enough to build a small 1-storey house, or a REALLY FLIMSY bigger house. You could do a wall out of 2x4 bricks, and it would probably support the *weight* of the upper floor just fine. But I would imagine that it would have a tendency to bow outwards, exacerbated by the fact that you couldn't lean on it or even really brush up against it accidentally with any force. Hence, I'd think you'd want a thick wall-- I'd probably vote for something like 3 rows of 2x4 bricks, with a lattice of other bricks connecting them, perhaps 10 studs thick all told. It still wouldn't take a severe leaning-on, but wouldn't be as prone to bowing or exploding on accidental contact. BUT, it would use about 4 times as many bricks to do it. [edit] Yeah, by quick calculations, a 24'x19' house (7.3m x 5.8m) with 8' ceilings (2.4m) took about 3.7 million bricks just for the walls-- no floor, no stairs, no roof, no furniture or plumbing. So, if you compacted it, 3 million might just BARELY do the trick, assuming you do things like cram your kitchen and living room together, and your bathroom and bedroom together, and have almost no real living space. [/edit] But the logistics of weight distribution aside, how would you make the toilet? All the "waterproof" elements I can think of are way too small to create a bowl of usable size-- and they don't connect together in a good waterproof manner without gluing or using other materials. DaveE