That's funny, but so true. You get the idea that it's the lawyers who design the toys and the packaging now a days. If your child wants to be a toy maker, you need to impress upon him early on that lawyers can be creative, too. I didn't realize that until I was a grown up engineer facing all kinds of constraints that were not physical or financial in nature as I was taught in school, but had to do with "compliance" and "legal".

Legos have been around a lot longer than you. And they had kits years before they had movie tie ins. It's been an evolving product. The only thing that's stayed the same is the fact that the basic brick is colorful and connects to other parts using a consistent system that hasn't changed over the years. A block built in the 60's will work just fine with one built last week. But, the availability of special parts and the artwork on the box and in the instruction sheet, that has varied over time.

My kids played with Lego when they were in single digits. A kid that young is more creative when they don't have to think about tolerances. Not all kids are interested in engineering, but if allowed to be creative in simple ways, maybe they will grow up to find the "hard stuff" worth doing. It's simply a matter of allowing the child to see the path from the toy version to the adult version and traverse if interested. Tolerances aren't exactly hard, but they aren't interesting either if all you want if a replica space ship. Let the toy maker deal with tolerance and kids deal with the part they are interested in.

You mean we have a whole generation of kids who have no problem with RTFM?

Or maybe, LEGO used to be like a lot of other creative companies, they created stuff that the guys in R & D enjoyed rather than what real kids enjoyed. Then marketing showed up and convinced management that real kids weren't like the toy designers.

You see the same thing with computers, the creatives have a hard time understanding why regular people are perfectly happy with whatever Microsoft and Fry's are pushing, Until marketing go involved, only geeks played with technology.

I have no complaint with Lego. My only complain would be with people who think there is only one correct way to assemble a kit.

That's a great point. Sometimes they aren't ready for adult tools or need some guidance that parents aren't able to provide. I remember how when I had to work on the week ends, I'd take them to the office and set them up with a CAD program. They never designed anything worthwhile on their own, and I couldn't get my own work done if I helped them.

Once it is assembled just the way you like it, just pop it in the oven for a minute or two. It's plastic, it melts together. When I was a girl, I was allowed to play in the kitchen. No easy bake for me, my parents thought light bulb cooking was stupid, so I learned to do things the right way with grown up tools. Too dangerous for modern boys and girls. When I wanted a toy lathe like my friend had, my dad laughed and then decides he'd rather teach me how to use his tools.

Don't they have some sort of Lego CAD where you can design something and then order exactly the right parts? If not, they should. That would encourage people to buy the genuine article.

I usually bought TYCO. It was good enough for daily play. If they wanted something special that they would never take apart, then Lego or maybe TYCO with glue. If it had to have the special wheels, then Lego, but only if they contributed some of their hard earned allowance money. It's amazing how requiring a kid to pay even 10% of the cost makes them think twice.

Interesting comment. I'm middle aged now and my kids are in college (Georgia Tech). I enjoyed exposing them to the joys of creation when they were toddlers. Back then in the 90's, special pieces were truly rare, especially in my house since I rarely bought genuine Legos TM. I bought generic sets of blocks that interconnected with legos because the genuine article cost a lot more, even if it was only a bucket of the not so special bricks. So, the only way Lego could make money off of parents like me was to sell special kits containing special parts. To me, buying plastic bricks was like buying generic ice cream except for special occasions when I let the kids talk me into buying expensive ice cream with special sprinkles or something. It's the best I could do on my grad student stipend. Besides, to me, it was about teaching my kids to enjoy being creative, not being a collector of expensive rare objects.

A one way trip to Mars isn't necessarily a suicide mission anymore than a one way to trip to anywhere else is. You just live out the rest of your natural life there. If it isn't possible to survive on the local economy or live off the land, you schedule periodic supply ships for however long it is necessary. If some pioneers meet with an early demise, it isn't necessarily because they wanted to die, anymore than if someone dies climbing mountains or motorcycling. What do people say? "He died doing something he loved."

Welcome back to the 80's. Remember when some trusted person put the backup in their car trunk at the end of the day?

No need for a brothel. It isn't sex that needs to be studied. Take fertilized eggs and implant as needed. Gestation and birth don't need to be random and unscientific. It might be more fun that way, but sex and reproduction are necessarily linked. I mean, test tube babies have been happening on this planet for thirty years. Freeze the eggs, the sperm, or the embryos. do animal experiments in low gravity near earth. Sure, low g sex is probably fun, but why bother when the technology exists to make babies without it?