{"id":78,"date":"2006-05-07T23:26:53","date_gmt":"2006-05-08T05:26:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/idubbs.com\/blog\/?p=78"},"modified":"2006-05-07T23:26:53","modified_gmt":"2006-05-08T05:26:53","slug":"lego-mania","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.idubbs.com\/blog\/2006\/lego-mania\/","title":{"rendered":"LEGO Mania"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yes why not, I’ll jump right into the ‘Fun’ category.\u00a0 I initially wrote this for an internal posting but it turns out it wouldn’t be needed for a few weeks.\u00a0 So, I thought I’d just post it here for now:\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Friends and family recently tracked down a really cool gift for my birthday – a LEGO set that was out of production – the classic Star Wars AT-AT (<\/span>4483<\/span><\/a>).\u00a0 <\/span>When they told me the story of how they tracked the set down, it got me Google-ing on LEGOs again and lots of fun and interesting stuff turned up.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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So why do I write about it here?\u00a0 <\/span>Because there’s some sort of connection between those of us in technology fields and LEGOs – adding Star Wars to the mix doesn’t hurt either.\u00a0 <\/span>Take a walk around our office and you’ll find a couple of LEGO ‘shrines’.\u00a0 <\/span>I’m willing to bet there are a few other closet LEGO maniacs out there as well.\u00a0 <\/span>So, based on that hopefully a few of you will find this interesting.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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First off, where did my friend track down this cool set?\u00a0 <\/span>Ebay you say?\u00a0 <\/span>Well, that would be a fine choice, but he did one better.\u00a0 <\/span>He found a LEGO-only site called <\/span>BrickLink<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0 <\/span>Along the way, he also came across a cool <\/span>site<\/span><\/a> where you can find a part listing for most every set out there.\u00a0 <\/span>OK, that might just be trivia, but it’s still cool.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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So, what are people doing with LEGOs? If you’re familiar with LEGOs, you’ve heard of the more technical side of things found in<\/span> Technics<\/span><\/a> and <\/span>Mindstorms<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/span>This guy<\/span><\/a> has taken it a step further and created a Rubik’s Cube solving contraption – amongst other things.\u00a0 <\/span>Wow.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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There’s also a more ‘artistic’ creativity being displayed with the building of LEGO scenes.\u00a0 <\/span>Want to see an illustrated Bible story?\u00a0 <\/span>The <\/span>Brick Testament<\/span><\/a> was done by a guy that has a LOT of time on his hands and certainly a healthy dose of imagination.\u00a0 <\/span>And believe it or not, there’s even a tribute to a recent popular\/controversial movie – yep, welcome to <\/span>LEGO Brokeback Mountain<\/span><\/a> (One image could be considered ‘graphic’, but come on, it’s LEGO).\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Want to play with virtual LEGOs?\u00a0 <\/span>You can certainly get some of the licensed LEGO software out there.\u00a0 <\/span>Or you can check out <\/span>LDraw<\/span><\/a>, an open-standard LEGO CAD program to create virtual LEGO models or scenes.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Just to throw another tangent in here, if you want to check out an entertaining read about technologists, LEGOs and yes, Object Oriented Programming check out <\/span>Microserfs<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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I’ve always considered LEGOs to be a fantastic educational toy for kids (and kids at heart).\u00a0 <\/span>But if you just stick with the easy to find stuff, you’re missing out.\u00a0 <\/span>There are a number of sets out there that are little known – frequently sold only through educational outlets – but a BLAST for kids.\u00a0 <\/span>Check out the DUPLO <\/span>Brick Runner<\/span><\/a> and DUPLO <\/span>Tubes <\/span><\/a>sets.\u00a0 <\/span>Then, get youself (uh, I mean your kids\u2026) a <\/span>NILO table<\/span><\/a> with the <\/span>2-sided LEGO\/DUPLO mats<\/span><\/a> and you’ll be SET.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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When it comes to LEGO, I’m just skimming the surface of what all there is to play, learn and experiment with.\u00a0 <\/span>Check it out and have some fun!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yes why not, I’ll jump right into the ‘Fun’ category.\u00a0 I initially wrote this for an internal posting but it turns out it wouldn’t be needed for a few weeks.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-78","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lego"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgWQ1-1g","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idubbs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idubbs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idubbs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idubbs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idubbs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.idubbs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idubbs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idubbs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idubbs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}