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Lego Institutes Bulk Ordering 258

Posted by CmdrTaco from the finally-I-can-build-my-lego-house dept.
mattdm wrote in to tell us that Lego has instituted bulk ordering of parts. The selection is somewhat limited, but they have most of the parts you would want to build your fullsize Lego house. And with five colors to choose from, you should be all set! Now the question is, with this quantity of Legos available, what do people think the coolest thing to build would be?
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Lego Institutes Bulk Ordering More

Lego Institutes Bulk Ordering

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  • Re:mindstorms? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    If you had been following the months of anticipation at www.lugnet.com, you would know that this is the first step in many that should culminate in a large selection of shapes and colors. There's going to be a few core pieces that are always available, then, about monthly, there will be special runs of specific pieces. We were told that there would be 40 or so core pieces always available, and 100 or so different pieces every month. Orders for the special pieces would be filled only if some minimum agregate quanitity were reached. They're also going to do international and online ordering. I suspect this thing won't be in full swing until october or november. They havn't said if they would do technic pieces, but I don't see why not. Some technic pieces wouldn't make sense in large quanitites though. Of course, if you're disappointed or impatient, you can always go to one of the private lego brick auction sites like www.auczilla.com or others. Search lugnet for more info. brian
  • Have you seen how much legos cost? 100 is bulk. Believe me. :)

    :wq!

  • That's just sick. ;-)

    --

  • Now with bulk ordering, it should be possible to buy enough materials to build a Beowulf cluster!

    --

  • Well, there's always the Lego Tux [ericharshbarger.org]. I've always wanted a couple of lifesize standups from various science fiction shows adorning my room.
  • What's with the US/Canada limitation? Does your crazy government class them as munitions? :-)
  • Been done [applefritter.com].

    Repeatedly [umich.edu].
  • I'm 22 and for the past two summers have lived the dream life of actually getting paid to play with legos. There is better work somewhere, maybe... but I doubt it.
    ~luge
  • But... but... it's the real pieces that they are selling. There's been discussion about this at lugnet for some time, and my guess would be that Lego knows that the people who would buy giant bags of legos are also the ones who hate the new stuff with a passion. We won't be seeing glowing pieces in bulk for quite a while, I don't think...
    ~luge
  • I think that's already been done with an old macintosh. system and monitor were covered in new lego cases.

    I'm glad they're doing bulk orders of the 2x2 smooth panels, cause that's what I needed to complete the keycaps of the LEGO keyboard I'm making (each key is being replaced by 2x2 LEGO bricks)

    • _____

    • ToiletDuk (58% Slashdot Pure)
  • Heh... no more COLOUR problem! :)

    All we need is Red, Green, Blue and maybe Black.

    Then compose mixed pixels to give your giant
    Lego block the colour you wish. Colours can be
    changed at any time, even shading and effects
    are possible. :)
  • Correction... since the green blocks are so rare,
    lets use yellow instead.
  • Tux has been built [ericharshbarger.com], at least on a small scale. I don't think Eric's planning on putting it anywhere other than on his desk tho.
  • Eric Harshbarger [ericharshbarger.com] who got credited with buil,ding a 2 foot high tux several months ago, is working on building a desk for a .com up in Seattle. One of their executives was hired, with the proviso that in addition to payroll, and whatnot, he wanted a fully functioning desk for the office made of Lego. So Eric wound up with the contract to build it. When it's done, he said he's gonna have pictures up on his site showing the process.
  • Lego's good! Metallica Bad...
  • Nononono, you put the smooth pieces over it.

    -David T. C.
  • "...what do people think the coolest thing to build would be?"

    First, we order about 10,000 Lego men. Next, we order sufficient pieces to equip them all with Lego Machine Guns [slashdot.org].

    Now we invade Legoland. I think we'll start with the Lego Kingdom, those primitive little knights and archers don't stand a chance against our overwhelming firepower. Next on the list are the happy citizens of Lego Town, all they can field are a few policemen.

    The Space guys are going to be a problem, as they posses highly advanced technology, like Galaxy Commanders and StarFleet Voyagers -- but by that time, we'll have captured and assimilated the pieces from the medival and town sets.
  • I've always wanted to see commercially available third party sets using genuine Lego parts. For instance, right now we have Star Wars Lego sets available, but I'd like to see Lego replicas of some of the more obscure ships in Science Fiction (Like maybe a Space Battleship Yamato, or a Narn Heavy Cruiser). Unlike mass-market X-wings sets, there isn't enough demand for Lego itself to produce these, but smaller companies might be willing to do it.

    When I first heard "Bulk Lego pieces", I was hoping that they would be cheap and varied enough to allow third parties to economically buy and repackage bricks to make such kits available. Alas, the actual selection available is far too small. So, as for the present, right now all we can do is to guess what parts we'll need, and then go out and buy a heap of sets.
  • Look at Alan Turing's plans, and modify them to make a mechanical SETI machine.
  • And then we could give it to the Dolphins...
  • Found this at the Doctor Fun Page. Seems fitting for us /. readers.
    • http://metalab.unc.edu/Dave/Dr-Fun/df200006/df20 000613.jpg
  • a pair of lego pants so someone could pour hot grits in them

    thank you
  • This isn't THAT new. All the old-school LEGO enthusiasts know that if you bought a big set, like the old space monorail or something like it, that you would get a nice big catalog of just about darn near everything LEGO. In the back, there was a section where you could buy, in bulk, bags of pieces exactly like the ones here. In fact, you could order even more than what you see there, like LEGO men, shrub variety packs, and bulk LEGO man accessories.
    The only *new* thing going on here is that you can now buy them via LEGO's Shop At Home service. Whoopdie do. What would be a big deal is if they offered EVERY piece they made available in bulk, online ordering or not.
  • Cool! A few years ago a friend and myself called lego to inquire about buying 50000 4x2 bricks to do some large projects with, but they said they did'nt do that anymore, but would be happy to sell us 1000 little assortment packs at an very unreasonable price.

    Now it looks as if it may be possible... and I'll find out if this is true, or if it is just another unchecked and untrue Slashdot story as soon as their server recovers from being slashdotted.

    Failed to connect
    The host 171.20.249.10 could not be contacted. If this persists, you should contact the administrator of the remote site.
    [ I've always wondered how you are supposed to contact the administrator of a site that cannot be contacted]
  • It's because they can be used as weapons [slashdot.org]! :)
  • ...a full size replica of Richard Stallman? ;)
  • A self replicating lego factory!
  • It's just wrong for those arrogant capitalists to get rich selling their plastic blocks. Interlocking plastic blocks are a commodity. Everyone should have equal access to free plastic blocks.

    Down with closed source LEGO. Plastic wants to be free.
  • ... a giant Lego brick, so big it could be seen from space. Take that, Great Wall of China! My personal preference is for a red one.
  • A door for my cubicle.

    --tangram
  • "...what do people think the coolest thing to build would be?"

    I want to build a to-scale model of Earth.
    --
    Compaq dropping MAILWorks?
  • When it was being built, I wanted to build a copy of the new Cleveland Browns Stadium. I thought that would have been pretty cool. The only problem was getting enough Lego. That problem has been solved. Now I only have to find 70,000 minifigs and the space to build the stadium.
    --
    then it comes to be that the soothing light at the end of your tunnel is just a freight train coming your way
  • I sure hope not. :) I think there will be something wrong with you if you stop enjoying Lego.
    --
    then it comes to be that the soothing light at the end of your tunnel is just a freight train coming your way
  • The best way to stay in Lego is to have kids. Train them from an early age to enjoy Lego, and you're set. My son was two days old when he got his first Duplo. We ramped up to normal Lego when he was 3. He loves to get Lego and we have a great time building the sets together.

    When I left home, I made sure my Lego came with me. My parents never had a chance to get rid of it. :)

    My kids also tend to buy me Lego for my birthday, Christmas, and other holidays. Father's day is coming, and can you say "Destroyer Droid"? :)
    --
    then it comes to be that the soothing light at the end of your tunnel is just a freight train coming your way
  • In an amazing lack of foresight, my sister and I mixed our Lego as children. I haven't asked her about unmixing them, or buying her out. So they stay at my parents.
    My siblings are at least 4 years older than I am, and didn't have much interest in Lego. I have one or two sets that were hand me downs from them, but that's it. They haven't asked, and I'm not telling.

    --
    then it comes to be that the soothing light at the end of your tunnel is just a freight train coming your way
  • Haah! Not a problem... I just always feel the need to point out these silly little typing errors. Must stem from the damage my wicked English teacher inflicted on me as a child...
  • Me and a friend just picked up the Lego Mindstorms kit, and the first thing we thought of building was a 'robot building factory'.

    The basic idea is to design a *very* simple robot that wanders (wanderbot) around a space, until it finds something that gets in its way - then it shoves this thing (lego parts) into a hopper.

    The hopper feeds a 'factory' made out of the Mindstorm kit that makes more of these little wanderbots...

    This has probably been done before, but we figured we'd give it a try our own way, and see what happens. The ultimate would be to have the new wanderbots appear in the same arena, all gathering lego bits together!
  • Another nice thing about lego: in general, it's repairable. Nomal model glue works very nicely with lego, as does super glue. This is, of course, if there isn't too much bending involved in the breakage.

    Lego is also shaveable and sandable, so if that piece is bent beyond repair, get a sharp knife and some sandpaper and presto: new, custom made pieces :)

  • Those colors are easy to get a lot of from the bulk buckets already available. The colors they chose for this are harder to get in quantity elsewhere.


    --

  • I reckon we should bulk-buy all their spruce tree parts and re-forest the Amazon.

    These could then be harvested to make cheap plastic products.

    Like Lego.

    Erm, Looping detected.

    Troc

  • AT/AT! (Score:2)

    by luge ( 4808 )
    Some friends and I (who happen to have access to 6 Mindstorms kits through school) have been dreaming/fantasizing about building a motorized AT/AT for ages. It'd require a huge amount of parts, but we think we roughly have the mechanics worked out (one RCX per foot.) Argh.. now if only I had the time...
    ~luge
  • Yeah, but it was a crappy (1/2? 1/4?) scale AT/AT. I mean a "minifig scale" AT/AT, like this one. [rr.com] C'mon... that would be awesome.
    ~luge
  • The bulk packs include black, white, green, gray and red.

    No yellow, no blue. How are you supposed to build a full-scale Lego replica of an IKEA store without yellow and medium blue?
  • Fischertechnik is another brick-based system that has been around for decades. It started out much more oriented towards mechanical engineering than Lego. In fact, it is used quite a bit for prototyping, in particular in Germany. You can find more information at the US distributor [fischertechnik.com] and the German site [fischerwerke.de].
  • When I was around 11 or 12, my Mom made me decide between keeping my Lego or keeping my Micronauts.
    What kind of sick individual makes a kid decide toys??! :)
    As you can well imagine, I picked Lego!
    Irecently put together all my 80's Space sets when I rescued the bags of stuff from my parents' place. What's interesting is that my friend Jim gave me all his Lego when I was 12 and he was 14. He figured he was "too old" to play (or maybe his parents made him give it up), and the stuff he gave me doubled the amount I had!


    Pope

    Freedom is Slavery! Ignorance is Strength! Monopolies offer Choice!
  • It's been a long time, and I don't remember the source - Scientific American, maybe - but I recall seeing an article about logic gates built out of Tinkertoys. Somebody put together enough of these to build a Tinkertoy machine the size of a car that could play unbeatable tic-tac-toe (aka noughts and crosses). I'd think if you could build logic gates out of Tinkertoys, you could surely build them out of Legos.
  • Actually, LEGO already makes those [brickshelf.com], for display outside their Outlet stores.
  • Those are generally called POOPs, or Pieces
    that could have been made Out of Other Pieces.
  • Not at all... Legos have excellent compressive strength, if poor shearing properties. They would be excellent for first stage propellant tanks of rockets. And -- the colors!
  • The coolest thing would be to build a replica of the Microsoft Campus, then blow it up.

    (Actually, I don't think it would be all that cool, I'm just trolling for points.)
  • Hey for those kind of prices you could hire a real Spaniard to tile your roof.
  • You've always been able to order every part, in bulk, from Pitsco. They sell the Lego Dacta parts, Dacta being the "educational" wing of lego.

    http://www.pitsco-legodacta-store .com/catalog.cfm [pitsco-leg...-store.com]

    - cheers
    davevr
  • GPL'ed, full version for Windows, beta for Linux. http://leocad.gerf.org [gerf.org]. Quite an extensive parts database, really nice output for creating building instructions for use later.
  • 2. A lego will obey humans unless it involves taking apart two peices (in these cases it's okay to break rule 1 as well)

    *lol*
    The best thing Lego has EVER made, IMHO, is this strange-looking piece that comes w/the Lego Mindstorms. It is vaguely reminiscent of a shoehorn (A Lego shoehorn??). I didn't realize WHAT it was until I started trying to pry 2 pieces apart (2x1 flats). Naturally, I resorted to teeth (SOP, right?), but I'm staring at this thing, and notice the two hole in the bottom of the thicker end. They are suggestive of...something...lego bumps, maybe? So if I put them OVER the Lego bumps....

    In short, it was a Lego TOOL FOR SEPARATING LEGOS!!!!!! I call it the Lego wrench.

  • Dude (Score:2)

    by / ( 33804 )
    Lego Institutes Bulk Ordering

    Whoah. Like, build a Lego Institute. They, like, would never have seen it coming.
  • Unfortunately, they're only spruce trees. You'd need some deciduous trees as well.
    -russ
  • Well, we're getting up there. I'm 42 and I still enjoy legos, when I can pry them out of my son's hands. Is there anybody who's dead and still enjoys legos?
    -russ
  • Having seen the recent BattleBot [battlebots.com] competition, we've concluded that what the audience wants is blood and shrapnel. Watching a bunch of wedges slam into eachother is rather boring, unless a bot gets pushed into the arena blades.
    If we ever do an entry, it'll have at least 4 layers of Lego armor, so when the saws/flails/mower blades hit it, bits will fly everywhere. Ideally, we'll build it upside down and fill random sets of bricks with some fluid for extra blood effect.
    And it'll also have hammers, and blades, and a chainsaw, and sharp sticks, and foul language...
  • Oh guys, get ready to flame me for this, but can I ask you a question? I am 22 years old and still thoughly enjoy lego's, is there something wrong with me?

    Not at all, you are what is known as an AFOL, Adult Fan of Lego.

    Check out Lugnet [lugnet.com] for many more AFOLs.

    I'm 34 and am just getting back into it, though it's expensive as I try to replace all the childhood sets of mine that are in joint custody at my parents.

    George
  • HINT: If you're married to someone who won't let you buy your own Lego sets, have a kid. Then you can play with your child's Legos. My son is only 2 years old & "his" collection is already almost as big as "mine". That also applies to model trains.


    I'm not married, but my girlfried does have a younger brother that stays over sometimes. So we're always buying stuff and using him as an excuse. "Boy, wouldn't Paul like some legos to play with when he comes over next?" "I bet Paul would like that board game. We should get it and play test it" "Paul would really think this video game is cool. Let's get it"
  • Feh! Just the house-building junk.

    We all know all the GOOD pieces were in the original space series of the 80s. Now they have ludicrously stupid garish neon glowing crap, and some stupid Time Traveller's series which apparently was just created because they had no imagination and decided to just throw pieces from all their other series together to make a new series.

    God help children today...

    I still hold a grudge against my mom for giving my Legos away to charity when I "grew up". I still want my fscking Legos...
  • aging M16? the M16 build [mozilla.org] is hardly a day old, and already it's aging...

    //rdj
  • Boxes of 100 doesn't sound like "bulk" to me... the giant displays you tend to see in the toyshops during the greedy season are built using tens of thousands of bricks... they'll be dramatically expensive at these prices. We want wholesale Lego!

    Actually, what we really want is a RCX-hardware-compatible brick with some other (better) CPU and *MORE* *OUTPUTS* . This shouldn't be hard - anyone done it?

  • One thing I found interesting about the plastics used in Legos was the incredible variety of testing performed on the material to determine the appropriate plastics to use. One such test that comes to mind is the 'saliva test', which was used to determine how the plastics would survive repeated 'mouthing' by young toddlers! (While I didn't see these tests first hand, I did some consulting work at their Northeast headquarters in CT, and heard this through some of the developers there).
  • I would build a replacement case for my PC using those 'technical lgeo' blocks with holes in :-)
  • And I still don't like it. Duh, I can remember when I was a kid building nice stuff with lego. My car once went over the edge of the table and that was the end of the fun for me. *boom* and back to the drawing board.

    No, Fischertechnic [gamelan.de] is the way to go IMHO. In the time where lego only featured cars where the 'block wheels' got under a large plate Fischertechnic allready had geers and such to make cars which could actually steer (and I mean like a car where both wheels really turn). IMO Fischertechnic was and still is way ahead.

  • In International news today, the Russian space program has announced plans to create MIR II, to replace their failing space station.

    In unrelated news, the Russian government has ordered four trillion lego bricks, for an unknown purpose.
    Part of the order included four thousand little-edge-elbow peices because, quote, "We don't wan't to be in later stages of the project and then have to scramble looking for a little edge elbow peice"


    ----
    Oh my god, Bear is driving! How can this be?
  • Dude, thats sick. Sadly, Lego don't have compacitor tiles, reisistor tiles, and most importantly, transistor tiles. Unless you build the switching mechanically (Can't see that somehow), you can't do it.

    Oh and no, they don't have any conductive plates at all under bulk order, just the boring house brick types. Not even any Technics, damn them.
  • Oh wow, i can picture that now...pnuematic "relays" would be seriously cool, and you could difinatly build them (Probably not out of lego. Possibly, but you probably wouldn't use Lego) It's difinatly something i would love to see working. Any electro-mechanical engineers in the UK wanna apply to the Arts Council for funding on this? ;)
  • The "bulk" packs are 25, 50, 100. Sorry, to me, "Bulk Packs" would be 1000, 2500 and 5000. And they are like $6.95 a crack, with a whopping 5% or 10% discount if you get 5 or 10 of each.

    Let me put it this way. The roof of your lego house is gonna be in the vicinity of $28 a square foot. You can do real spanish tile for less than that.

    -dB

  • Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these babies!
  • How about a waffle made out of lego.

    Now you can say
    "My Eggo is Lego" or
    "Leggo my Lego Eggo"

  • A full size, funtical lego toliet...

    Furnite would be cool, like tables, desktops, book selves.

    The question is, would it say cost more to build a lego book case, or just go buy one at XYZ store with the fake wood. You know the plastic funritre, but they have "wood" stickers you put over it so you freinds don't think you a cheap bastard (which you of course are)

    Those things (lego's) are really easy to build computer cases out of, I had an old 386 motherboard and started to build a case out of lego's, but I didn't finish it, I sobered up.

    The coolest thing though, would big a 6 foot giant Tux! Get some black boxes, yellow and white, what else do you need?

  • Amen to that. I've lived in many countries, and bought Lego-alikes in a few of them, and aways been disappointed. The crap I bought in India didn't even fit with itself, much less real Lego.

    Real Lego is incredibly durable, and made with amazing precision. Lego my parents bought 25 years ago still fits perfectly with brand-new sets. Find me any other toy that's this cool, this durable, and this backwards-compatible for less money.

  • My 14 yo son still plays with them, too. But I have to get past him to get to the minstorms.
  • Does anyone remember the old Digi-Comps? I always wanted one, but never managed to put the allowance together for one before they were discontinued.

    I'll have to think this one through, on a Lego-based mechanical computer. Not even sure it would take bulk Legos to do it, at least until you got to 32 bit architectures, hardware multiply, FPU, VM, etc.

    Imagine, 1e-6 BogoMips. 1e-9 fps on Quake3

    Oh, don't forget the 1/4 HP motor to drive it since the rubber-band failure rate would be too high at the number needed for this. And while we're at it, the motor would need a powerbooster so it could be driven by conventional Mindstorms when not driving the mechanical computer.

  • no, silly...

    build the lego machine gun [silverlight.org]

    then use bulk ordering to get unlimited ammo!

  • Well, since they have Lego Technic, how about a drivable car/truck/motorcycle etc.... Glen
  • I think it would be pretty sweet to have a computer case made of legos! You could add ventelation ass needed and add new hardware at will... My computer would have a drink holder (not just the cd rom tray) an ashtray, and a place to putt all my N.P. pictures... and of course there would be a hot grits container, as it is very inconvienent to walk all the way to the crock-pot in the kitchen...
    ------
    www.chowda.net [chowda.net]
    ------
  • I've been building with legos my entire life... I never tire of them. I quit expanding my personal collection, however, about ten years ago when they started shipping castle sets with huge grey pieces that made building walls easy. These same pieces though, could not be used to build, say, a grey tank, or the battlements to a different castle (if I had run out of "twoies". they could only be used for walls. (Sounds M$-ish.)

    These bulk orders are only on basic blocks, the mainstay of lego engineering. this is a huge boost for the creativity of minds yound and old.

  • There once was Miguel San Diego
    Who built his whole house out of Lego
    Though easy to fix
    He needed more bricks
    To repair his full-size Winnebago
  • The exterior of my new home is almost entirely made of large lego-style blocks. I chose red as the color.

    This brand didn't snap together like Legos, so we had smear a gray, granular compound between each one to get them to bond.

    I don't know who makes these blocks, but I think they company just calls them "bricks"

  • Are there any decent Lego clones? (Score:3)

    by slothbait ( 2922 ) on Wednesday June 14, 2000 @06:05AM (#1003000)
    It seems like it would be trivial to create Lego-compatible plastic bricks. It's not like there's a whole lot to reverse-engineer there. And at the prices Lego sells at, I'm sure another company could undercut them.

    Is there not enough of a market for this? Is there Intellectual Property preventing this?

    Given how IP-aware and pro-reverse-engineering this crowd usually is, I'm surprised that I haven't seen anyone else bring it up, yet.

    I have to throw in that, as an engineer (though not mechanical), I always thought it peculiar how much programmers enjoy Legos. I understand why engineers are drawn to them, and it's not like the professions are that far removed, but I would expect programmers to be interested in things less *physical*; like poetry, or classical music. Alright, so we've established that programmers like Haiku's, but still...

    --Lenny

  • minimal blocks for 1-bit digital adder? (Score:3)

    by peter303 ( 12292 ) on Wednesday June 14, 2000 @07:17AM (#1003001)
    What is the minimal number of blocks for
    a 1-bit adder. The simpler implementation
    would be two 2-bit inputs and the output of 1-bit
    sum and 1-bit carry. (A third carry input could
    be added later.)

    Whats a good way to represent 1 & 0?
    e.g. slide left or right right.

    How could design the units to cascade them?
    You may have to clever about balancing mechanical
    forces. The friction of several cascade bit adders could make them unmoveable.

  • Re:BUILD A SIGN THAT SAYS "GROW UP GEEKS" (Score:3)

    by The Dev ( 19322 ) on Wednesday June 14, 2000 @08:52AM (#1003002)
    Actually, that's false. The reason LEGO was cool when you were 5 is because it stimulates the creative part of the brain. That's the same reason it's cool at 25, but at 25 it's far more important to do it. In the process of "growing up" (16-24 yrs) most of your imagination and creative energy was methodically destroyed.
    Adult use of LEGO is an excellent way to regain those lost abilities. LEGO is not a toy (though parents treat it as such) it's a well thought out and powerful system.

  • Microsoft Headquarters (Score:3)

    by akiy ( 56302 ) on Wednesday June 14, 2000 @07:23AM (#1003003) Homepage
    Why, I'd build a miniature scale replica of the Microsoft headquarters. Then I'd don my Godzilla outfit and have a field day.

  • Re:Lego Modeling Software (Score:3)

    by imac.usr ( 58845 ) on Wednesday June 14, 2000 @11:03AM (#1003004) Homepage
    Does anyone know of a program that would be good for modeling lego structures?

    Perhaps there is a market (albeit small) for a program that let you model structures using lego bricks and then calculated how many you should buy of each color and size used.

    Once upon a time, several years ago, a company called Gryphon Software made a program for the Mac (possibly for PCs as well) called Bricks, which let you build virtual models out of what were dead ringers for Lego bricks. They had a wide variety of shapes, special pieces, and colors. You could even write AppleScripts to build complex structures for you. VERY slick.

    I still have a copy somewhere, but it looks like Gryphon is out of business; their site link takes you to a different company and that site doesn't show any info on the program.

    I think what killed it is that people found it's a lot more fun to play with real bricks than virtual ones, but it would still be useful for visualization of large designs, exactly as you described. You can try bargain bins or eBay to locate a copy.

  • use translucent bricks to build an iMac! (Score:3)

    by imac.usr ( 58845 ) on Wednesday June 14, 2000 @06:14AM (#1003005) Homepage
    Why build an ordinary case? Now you too can have an iMac-looking computer case without being sued. Get one of the light kits to make it really spiffy-looking at night. :-]

    slightly OT: am I the only one who finds it disturbing to see so many GREEN Lego bricks available? When I was younger, green bricks were an extreme rarity, usually limited to trees, baseplates, and flats used to connect the baseplates together. Even in Denmark, they're not too common, or at least they didn't use to be. (I was born there, so I have a rather extensive collection, back to the days when Samsonite was a licensee.)

    Hmmmm. "Hello, Citibank? I'd like to apply for an raise in my credit limit."

  • I just can't resist... (Score:3)

    by MaximumBob ( 97339 ) on Wednesday June 14, 2000 @10:10AM (#1003006)
    I normally wouldn't do this, but why don't you capitalize proper nouns? I mean, you ARE the Grammar Nazi.

    Well, technically, you're the grammar nazi. But I maintain that proper nouns are supposed to be capitalized.

  • Yeah! Wacky Willies.

    For those that haven't ever been to WW in Portland, Oregon, imagine a military surplus store crossed with Radio Shack and your parts bin.

    They've got everything, from industrial chemicals to bulk wire to test tubes to heater elements. Definitely a geeks' dream.

    -ted, now in San Diego (1000 miles from WW)

  • Gotta be a rackmount (Score:3)

    by tjwhaynes ( 114792 ) on Wednesday June 14, 2000 @05:48AM (#1003008)

    Think! The ultimate expandable system. A rackmount made in Lego could be added to ad nauseum as you expanded your beowulf system in pursuit of SETI@Home glory.

  • The Lego Tower (Score:3)

    by Pinball Wizard ( 161942 ) on Wednesday June 14, 2000 @07:58AM (#1003009) Homepage Journal
    Its time to reclaim the prize of the worlds tallest building, and I say it should be a big geek project with legos.

    We had the worlds tallest building for many years, first with the Empire State Building, then with Sears Tower. But now, with Millennium Tower in Japan, Nina Tower in HongKong, and Petronas Tower in Malaysia, we are way behind.

    Time to reclaim the title of "worlds biggest" and further the rise of geeks to America's adored elite :)

  • Build a "Universal Constructor" out of lego. And then give it a blueprint of itself, the LEGO bulk-ordering department, and Microsoft's bank account. :)

  • I wish they would have had this 10 years ago... (Score:4)

    by Black Art ( 3335 ) on Wednesday June 14, 2000 @09:02AM (#1003011)
    Back when I was a poor and struggling programmer, I purchaced my first Intel-based system with a tax return check. This was in the middle of a chip embargo so prices were sky high.

    Well, I had enough to buy the main system (A 10mhz 8086), but not enough for the monitor.

    My solution turned out to be more expensive than the original monitor.

    I found a monochrome monitor without an external case at a local electronics store. (Whacky Willies in Portland,OR. They deal in used equiptment and just generally STRANGE stuff.) I tried a couple of solutions for cases (including foil covered cardboard and other tacky looking disasters), but nothing worked.

    I then decided to use Legos.

    Do you know how many buckets it takes to build a monitor case? I must have spent over $100 in lego over the next few months. And you have to glue them together because the heat causes the whole thing to expand and come apart at inappropreate spots.

    I finished it off and used the monitor for a number of months until general fear of radiation burns drove me to buy a real monitor. (This thing was pretty nasty. It was an early green screen that you could practically feel the radiation off the front. Probably why it only cost me $5.)

    I still have the monitor in a box in the computer room. It needs some repair after being moved a number of times, but it might even work. Someday I will have to post pictures...

  • Re:Are there any decent Lego clones? (Score:4)

    by tuffy ( 10202 ) on Wednesday June 14, 2000 @06:13AM (#1003012) Homepage Journal
    It seems like it would be trivial to create Lego-compatible plastic bricks. It's not like there's a whole lot to reverse-engineer there. And at the prices Lego sells at, I'm sure another company could undercut them.

    According to a friend of a friend (perhaps someone can verify this for me), Lego plastic is of such high quality that the assembly lines for making the bricks must be dedicated to the task - since no other product uses plastic that good. This would mean that Lego isn't trying to gouge customers by charging so much (since they are making quality product) and competitors have a tough time making bricks as good without charging just as much.

    But again, this is only from second and third-hand knowledge.

  • Do legos come in Yellow, White, and Black? (Score:4)

    by iceT ( 68610 ) on Wednesday June 14, 2000 @05:49AM (#1003013)
    It'd be cool to build a 20 to 30 foot Tux to put in front of TransMeta's Headquarters.. (For Linus, of course)...

  • Customers (Score:4)

    by lalas ( 85981 ) on Wednesday June 14, 2000 @05:45AM (#1003014)
    Should we be worried if NASA starts placing large orders?

  • Three Laws of Lego (Score:4)

    by webrunner ( 108849 ) on Wednesday June 14, 2000 @06:20AM (#1003015) Homepage Journal

    1. A lego will ever harm a living being unless they step on it in bare feet
    2. A lego will obey humans unless it involves taking apart two peices (in these cases it's okay to break rule 1 as well)
    3. A lego will attempt for self-preservation, especially when that means trying to hide so that people cant find it.

    ----
    Oh my god, Bear is driving! How can this be?

  • fractals (Score:5)

    by grammar nazi ( 197303 ) on Wednesday June 14, 2000 @05:46AM (#1003016) Journal
    Build huge lego bricks out of lego bricks. Then make larger lego bricks out of those. Finally argue that at an atomic level, lego bricks are composed of lego shaped atoms.

    ...then everything can be fractal.

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