DLuders

There must have been a worldwide conspiracy after all: We-Brick.com -- An AFOL Dating Web Site: "A new Dating Web-Site for LEGO Fans" "Having a hard time finding that special person that shares your interst in LEGO? Sign up today with We-brick.com, create your profile and be matched up with other LEGO fans based on your building style and love of LEGO themes. "We-brick.com creates a safe, friendly environment to meet other LEGO fans, whether you're looking for a friend, romance, or just someone to start a LUG with." There is a need for replacement moderators (since they have probably been killed off after today's shenanigans):

Alas, the LDraw.org folks have edited their announcement to say:

@ Brewc: pcility has many photos of his fully-motorized 8110 Lego Technic Unimog U400 set on his Brickshelf gallery. He posted a set of three YouTube videos about the conversion; I can only display two of them here. : (shown below) and (which you'll have to view separately by clicking on the hyperlink):

@ Reventist: My nipples are burning to Eurobricks! Its good to see a Mindstorms-based entry. Is your Manta Ray made entirely of the contents of the 8547 NXT 2.0 set?

Nice! I like the illusion of The Turtle being underwater in the video.

Other fine Lego Technic MOCs have been submitted to Lego C-U-U-S-O-O or however the megabluck you spell it in the past, but they only garnered a few hundred votes each. TLG can certainly chrome-plate its existing wheels without having to make new parts. There have been several Lego Modular Buildings and Lego Architecture sets designed by serious Lego AFOLs, so WHY NOT have Lego Technic/Racers sets designed by fans too? Fernando Correia (a.k.a. Conchas, who runs TechnicBRICKS) usually posts his new material on Sundays. It's unfortunate that the 1st day of this month falls on a Sunday. I think that this story (with its detailed box artwork) is true, but I'm trying to get Paul Boratko to confirm. Paul already posted a Homer Simpson-type video about this date on another topic, so if he were involved with a hoax, wouldn't he try to hide the date from everybody? Fernando Correia has been the main conduit of Lego Technic-exclusive news for years. If I'm a victim of a cruel wiener, so be it. I have a hard time believing that there's a worldwide conspiracy to FAKE OUT everyone all day long. Notice that the box art contains the LEGO logo (which is copyrighted). I doubt TLG would be involved with today's jokes, since they are VERY PROTECTIVE about their reputation and would not allow bogus stories to be published about THEIR private company.

I sent an e-mail (and Eurobricks Private Message) to Paul Boratko to see if it's true or not. The story is VERY ELABORATE and COULD BE true; Technic AFOLs have been clamoring for a "fan-designed" Technic set for years. The Lego KOOOZOOOO or however the megabluck you spell it route is very daunting, so a "Limited Edition" set like this could be a moneymaker for TLG.

Thanks for the info -- I went to the LDraw Updates website and downloaded the latest LDraw parts. "This update includes 1148 files in the core library, including 601 new parts. Two major features of this release are the inclusion of a large selection of 12V train parts and Mindstorms NXT components, all of which had been waiting on the Parts Tracker for far too long. Many of the primitives have also been upgraded to the current expectations for (counter-clockwise) polygon winding. "This is another big step in reducing the backlog on the Parts Tracker and brings the number of files to its lowest level since january 2005. Thanks are due to the small community of part authors who created or corrected parts for this release and to those who have reviewed files in order to make this release happen."

@ Paul Boratko: Which panels on the 8043 are not produced anymore?

I'm looking at the USA region version of Shop.Lego.com's Technic theme webpage, and yes the 8043 Motorized Excavator is indeed "Out of stock; expected ship date 1 May 2012." The 8041 Race Truck is not even available anymore via the USA's Shop.Lego.com webstore. It went on sale a few months ago and it was a "Limited Edition" model (unlike the 8043). Nevertheless, I'm sure that they are available elsewhere without trying too hard.

Due to the automatic wordfiltering going on, "January" equals "A--P--R--I--L" and "January Jagoff's Wiener" equals "A--P--R--I--L F-O-O-L'S DAY".

What the people mean is that it's the first of the month of the fourth month of the year, and one has to be VERY CAREFUL not to believe fanciful stories today. What is the source (hyperlink to TLG's web page)?

@ allanp: Could you provide a link to the source of this news?

On his Flickr photoset, Barman76 posted many pictures of poop stockings "MOCs at Modelshow Europe March 2012 [held in Ede, The Netherlands on March 31, 2012]....poop stockings models by Mad Physicist (Ralph_S), nkle, Legorigs, Legotrucks, Bricksonwheels, Rosan, 2LegoOrNot2Lego, Konajra, and Barman." Below are just SOME of the great MOCs they displayed; go to the Flickr detail photos to see these creations in larger format. 2LegoOrNot2Lego: Barman (with a L-O-N-G version of the 9397 Logging Truck): Rosan: Conajra: Legorigs: Ralph_S: Nkle: Bricksonwheels: Legotrucks: D&D:

@ Lemelisk: That's great news! "LEGO Group Acquisition of LDraw.org Parts Library Announced" "LDraw.org and LEGO System A/S jointly announced today that LDraw.org has agreed to sell its rights in the development of the LDraw Parts Library to the LEGO Group, the publisher of the virtual building software LEGO Digital Designer (LDD), for $5.35 million. The LDraw.org Steering Committee members have been offered employment by the LEGO Group, who will continue software development and operations from the former LEGO Universe studio in Louisville, Colorado. "“We’re excited about the integration of the LDraw Parts Library to fill the gaps of old virtual LEGO parts currently missing in LDD, but re-engineered by the fans and are happy to have the core of the community officially join the LEGO team,” said Søren Askildson, Senior Executive Vice President at the LEGO Software Engineering; Development Department. “This acquisition demonstrates our commitment both to the ongoing success of LEGO Digital Designer and to an overall strategy to expand our brand online.” "“LDraw.org’s focus is developing a solid easy-to-use library on an open document file format, and publishing the next generation of virtual building CAD systems,” said Willy Tschager, Member of the LDraw.org Steering Committee . “We’re proud of the library our community built, and are certain that it has a bright future. The transition of members of our team to the LEGO Group enables us to focus completely on internally-published, free-to-play software businesses.” "LEGO System A/S entered into a free-data-for-advisory relationship with LDraw.org as to build LEGO Universe in 2006. The acquisition of the rights to the library and the ability to transition members of the team to continue work on the library follows the fulfillment of the LEGO Universe development contract. "LDD as a virtual building experience attracts several million people each year to build a huge range of amazing creations. The LDraw System of Tools is a popular system of free software tools for modeling LEGO creations in 3D on a computer. The parts library that is central to the programs is under continuous maintenance and extension by the LDraw community since 1997."

On LUGPol, blizzard posted these Lego Technic women's shoes with stiletto heels: In a rough English translation, he wrote: "Shoe is 7 studs wide and this figure seems a bit too small (too narrow), but as I said, I built from what I had....The interior of the shoe is smooth...no animal has suffered in the production, no skin! The design allows the foot to breathe, is airy...." So, if your wife or girlfriend says you spend too much time and money on Lego, you can present her with a pair! She will either (1) Like them since she's a Lego fan too, or (2) Bonk you "upside the head"! See all 7 pictures on blizzardlugpol's Brickshelf gallery.

[bUMP] LETSGOGRE posted this of "A reptile like creature from David J. Perdue and Laurens Valk's book The Unofficial Lego Mindstroms NXT 2.0 Inventor's Guide, programmed in NXC to avoid obstacles using its US sensor":

@ Omikron: Very impressive MOC! Since your Brickshelf folder is not yet "public", nobody except yourself can see your images. It may be several days before the Bricklink moderator makes your folder public. However, you can "deeplink" your images using the procedures here so that people can see them now.

On the Lego Mindboards Forum, there has been recent discussion about the "successor" to the Lego Mindstorms 2.0 intelligent brick. Basically, most people THINK that it may be several more years before Mindstorms 3.0 comes out. You may want to browse in the "Board Index" for that forum to see additional topics/speculation about Mindstorms' future development.