Aspergers is no excuse for comic sans.

As an Aspie who loved Lego when I was a kid, I'm getting a kick out of these replies.

ilikeracecars: Aspergers is no excuse for comic sans.

Sans comic does however describe most Asperger's. The jokes: They don't get 'em.

I was going to make a snarky comment about the kid, but yeah, the parents need to raise his allowance. Less than $1 a week? shiat I know times are hard for some people but damn. You can't expect him to learn how to save money if you don't give him any.


//I bet they are Teabaggers

Shadow Blasko: Aspy kids would probably LOVE Capsela.

I loved mine when I was a kid... The gears and linear motion would probably be a big hit.

[www.kaboodle.com image 300x251]

I still have all my Capsela sets as well as all my Robotix(in their boxes no less!). Awesome stuff even today.

As a parent of a 9-year-old with ADHD, LEGO are amazing at focusing his attention and creativity. Aside from the simple fact that kids rarely retain the design of the kit per the original instructions, YouTube alone is awash with many ideas for creating ad hoc sets, vehicles, and (obviously) rotating orbital gunnery platforms from existing pieces in various boxed sets. There's a few sets of YT videos with stop-motion Star Wars minifigure adventures that are also entertaining.

My kid converted his younger brother's marina/Baywatch-ish dock set into a combination Star Wars outpost and Ninjago fortress. The LEGO computer games themselves are also ridiculously fun and addictive, so kudos to any parent of a child with a behavioral disorder trying to stimulate their creativity and ingenuity. My son is often amazed at tales of my childhood when we only had a few space-themed sets, nothing that really followed any film or book trends, and the fact we had dozens, not HUNDREDS of sets to choose from. I remember pulling up this page with the 1970s-80s era Space series sets that I had, and I got this look from him like Marty McFly did from the video game kids in 2015. "You mean you gotta use your hands? That's like a baby's toy!"

Now, in a purely Bricktop sense, I will pull my nose out of LEGO's asshole and simply comment that a feel good story is a feel good story and there are damn few of them around these days as it is. Kid wins, LEGO wins, even if at the end of the day not a single fark was given. 

/But god, I so wanted a table covered in the old moon/crater plates
//wished I'd kept all of it, too. I was meticulous with not losing pieces
///My kids nuked that accomplishment, though

kingflower: maybe thebfark libtrds will finally realize that cirporations ARE people!

LEGO isn't a corporation. It's a company owned by the Kirk foundation, which only duty is to own LEGO, and give money to the family of Kirk.

I guess most (all?), large Scandinavian companies are owned by family foundation. That's how they stay Scandinavian, and how they grow larger because there isn't any stockholders to fark them over.

Foundations don't give a shiat about corporations or stocks...

So many great lessons here. The kid learned how to set a goal and reach it. He then learned about not quitting when he found out that item was no longer manufactured. And he learned that some corporations are great companies. Sure, this is a huge public relations boost for Lego, but do they really need it? They are successful enough already without a story like this. Also, I like the fact that the the letter was not demanding or asking for anything free. He was just asking if they might have any more available. Good for him. And good for Lego.

God-is-a-Taco: Oh, and as for the article: This shows how much LEGO has changed.

[i.dailymail.co.uk image 634x425]

Look at that crap. How much of that is actually assembled by the kid? There's probably a base model that's 90% of the thing itself, and there's nothing you can do creatively with it.
There's puzzles for that thing, even 3D puzzles. LEGOs should be stimulating young minds about turning concepts into designs.
This is a train. It will always be a train. You can't modify it, because then it wouldn't be a train.

Tell you what, how about you pick one up (as pointed out, it is still available through the secondary market), and put it together without the instructions. Even a close approximation will do. Then get back to us with pictures. This very same set is on my desk shelf beside me, it's a great piece of modelling because it hardly looks like the pile of assorted tiny bits it comes out of the box as. I do get a chuckle every time something about Lego comes up here, because inevitably someone will come along and assert that having fewer tools available to you somehow increases the creative space. Having a wider selection of parts increases the possibility space, pretty much by definition, and it follows from there that it increases the amount of creative and logical thinking one can do with it.

I just realized this is the same argument I had here a while back about something or other to do with D&D, in which it was asserted that getting to know the full range of options and mechanical depth of the game (and using that knowledge to your advantage, as one commonly does in games) is somehow playing the game worse.

I love how instead of enjoying the fact that on top of the kid wanting that set, it was magnified by 10 because of the fact that he earned it through saving up, instead of the wah wah liberal cry-fest about why they didn't raise his allowance or just buy it for him. It's grandiose on the derp scale.

Obviously if they couldn't afford a $100 lego set, they couldn't go much further than $1 a week. Not everything has to be about me me me.

Yoyo: Summercat: I wanted te fark out of the original space sets - the space shuttle ones.

I seem to remember space sets before the space shuttle. The rocket looked like Mercury. There was also a moon base, as I recall.

I had the moon base and a few others from the gray space set, but I was always more interested in building my own creations. I never knew about that space shuttle one, but do remember some later sets with blue and then white bricks. Then by the time my younger brother was into them, they had red and black ones with neon green windows.

God-is-a-Taco: Oh, and as for the article: This shows how much LEGO has changed.

[i.dailymail.co.uk image 634x425]

Look at that crap. How much of that is actually assembled by the kid? There's probably a base model that's 90% of the thing itself, and there's nothing you can do creatively with it.
There's puzzles for that thing, even 3D puzzles. LEGOs should be stimulating young minds about turning concepts into designs.
This is a train. It will always be a train. You can't modify it, because then it wouldn't be a train.

Here is the argument:
You buy both, the Lego kit, like the train, that you have to assemble, (1024 parts) and the free range Lego so the kids can use there imagination to build whatever there little imagination can come up with.

These sets are awesome. If you've ever watched a 5 year old sit quietly for days at a time with 1500 pcs, three 50 page, wordless booklets and assemble everything on their own, you'll understand how impressive they can be. It's follow the instructions one block at a time, and a kid in kindergarten can build impressive stuff. Metaphor for life?

It's the equivalent of giving your child an engine block with a process manual and have them assemble it in your living room. And if the drop it (lego, not the engine block) and break it, they know how to repair it.

IMHO you buy the kid both, if you have the means.

was over at a friends house - his girlfriend says "Why is NBC showing a black and white movie?"

It's A Wonderful Life - in December.

gotta love this next generation...

It get it, I do. The parents want to teach delayed gratification and aspberger's kids need more delay for the concept to sink in. But, really, there is delayed gratification and then there is delayed, almost to the point of impossibility and in-futility, fark this it doesn't matter anymore, thanks for ruining it for me jerks gratification. Or, you know, a girl's first sexual experience and gratification.

God-is-a-Taco: Oh, and as for the article: This shows how much LEGO has changed.

[i.dailymail.co.uk image 634x425]

Look at that crap. How much of that is actually assembled by the kid? There's probably a base model that's 90% of the thing itself, and there's nothing you can do creatively with it.
There's puzzles for that thing, even 3D puzzles. LEGOs should be stimulating young minds about turning concepts into designs.
This is a train. It will always be a train. You can't modify it, because then it wouldn't be a train.

Actually, they find ways to separate it into little parts. Shipping etc. Also the plastic they use in molding is sensitive to shrink and warp, about as much so as it is tough as nails, so any time they can make reliably smaller parts using their own patents they will do so.

The rail system is mainly for use inside complex cities made of legos.

elffster: I loved my giant Lego set I got a long long time ago. It was just bags of different bricks. I made all sorts of things with them.

A few years later the specialized sets started to come out, with the weird shaped pieces and hinges and other doo-dads. But I really just needed that big pile of regular Legos for building.

You go ahead and play with the plain bricks. However those of us destined to become mechanical engineers instead of civil engineers needed the new bits with moving parts.

/and it's and MS, not a PhD.
//the cost/benefit analysis for PhD is negative.

God-is-a-Taco: Oh, and as for the article: This shows how much LEGO has changed.

[i.dailymail.co.uk image 634x425]

Look at that crap. How much of that is actually assembled by the kid? There's probably a base model that's 90% of the thing itself, and there's nothing you can do creatively with it.
There's puzzles for that thing, even 3D puzzles. LEGOs should be stimulating young minds about turning concepts into designs.
This is a train. It will always be a train. You can't modify it, because then it wouldn't be a train.

Yeah, I don't understand this at all. My kids could build a kick ass space ship with the bricks in this set.

Wow, that's a biatchin' train set.

They don't sell the good Legos in America anymore. Now they're all "modular construction for easy build" crap, because apparently kids are too dumb to build a real Lego in 2012.

It's nice to see Europe still gets the good stuff, at least.

cretinbob: I was going to make a snarky comment about the kid, but yeah, the parents need to raise his allowance. Less than $1 a week? shiat I know times are hard for some people but damn. You can't expect him to learn how to save money if you don't give him any.


//I bet they are Teabaggers

you sound like an asshole. How many asperger kids did you raise?

So they've never heard of ebay? Oh. They did. But they hate capitalism.

It does look like a cool set.

revrendjim: Please stop with the stupid "dusty" thing. It was only cute the first 800 times.

What's going on, I'm not cutting an onion over here!

FTA: "...I commend your willpower and patience..."

You would think a company that makes toys that are insanely popular with quirky children would understand how monomaniacal they can be.

/now I need to apply for a job with Lego.