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Comment by busyant | Hacker News Reader

I know a chem prof who built a Lego spectrometer. https://publiclab.org/wiki/lego-spectrometer

Legos are just wonderful.

edit: I know nothing about woodworking or crafting any building materials, but I always wish I could perform those types of projects. And whenever some potential project comes up, I think to myself, "but I could build it with Legos."

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> edit: I know nothing about woodworking or crafting any building materials, but I always wish I could perform those types of projects. And whenever some potential project comes up, I think to myself, "but I could build it with Legos."

I bought a case for the Raspberry Pi camera that has a LEGO-compatible back and a small LEGO set (10692) specifically for making things to hold the camera where I want it. It has worked great.

Question for LEGO geeks: my set only has one L-bracket, and it is quite small. Looking at other sets at local stores, they also only have one or two small L-brackets.

Is there some way other than L-brackets that people use when they want some LEGO assembly to connect perpendicularly to some other assembly?

Or should I just order an assortment of brackets from a third-party LEGO brick marketplace site, like this [1].

[1] https://www.bricklink.com/catalogList.asp?catType=P&catStrin...

You can put a flat Lego piece perpendicular between two rows of studs. I don't think it's quite as secure as having an L-bracket though.

it also stretches the studs apart a tad to much, so it's not recommended.

That's almost what I ended up doing, except rather than putting the flat piece between two rows of studs, I put it on top of the studs and had adjacent stacks to stabilize it.

Two flat pieces back to back are very very close to the width between the sides of two rows of bricks separated by one row of empty studs.

Here is a photo [1]. Here it is with the three top braces and the cable holder removed so you can see everything [2].

This the LEGO compatible case I'm using for the camera [3].

[1] https://imgur.com/a/ggNe5uM

[2] https://imgur.com/a/jz525N7

[3] https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01F19WI0O/

If you want more options get some of the Technic sets - the pins and arms provide lots of freedom.

This pattern is what people call 'SNOT'[1]. As my 10yr old has moved up to more complex sets, the percentage of those increases, sicne they allow designers to achieve different effects. I would personally recommend the 1x2 or 1x4 blocks with studs on one side, those are fairly sturdy.

1: https://swooshable.com/snot

In addition to brackets also consider hinges [1], like the standard 1x2 hinge [2] or for higher load a combination of e.g. [3] and [4]. There are also various solutions using Technic parts.

I'd honestly just order what you need from bricklink. Alternatively get used Lego by weight from ebay. Around here you get a kilogram of unsorted, good quality Lego for €20.

1: https://www.bricklink.com/catalogList.asp?catType=P&catID=22

2: https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=3937...

3: https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=3036...

4: https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=3038...

If you have a part you really like BrickLink is often he best way to get it cheaply (as you can buy just it) - but if you want to expand your collection I would use BrickLink’s tools to find sets that have as many of the parts as you can find and try to locate those on sale.

Or try the local Goodwill Auction site (if you drive to pickup you save on shipping and can outbid others).

Would be great if Lego jumped on board projects like both of these and released them as kits.

They'd only need create a few 'scientific' bricks to make them work. Not that different from Mindstorms.

Lastly will be the precision Lego 3D printer in which one may print Lego compatible parts including the Lego 3D printer.

oh, i am soo waiting for that. you can already print compatible bricks now, but the results are not quite there yet, but that's totally the future. instead of buying sets in a shop i'd lofe to just print out the parts at home. one nice thing is that, since the parts are so small, it's much easier to deal with print failures, because reprinting a broken part is much easier than reprinting a whole model.

People at CERN: Hold my particle accelerator.

Lego: Ok.

https://home.cern/news/news/experiments/using-lego-study-bui...

Please note, the plural form of LEGO is LEGO, not Legos. As per LEGO themselves[0].

[0] https://twitter.com/lego_group/status/842115345280294912?lan...

The Lego corporation is welcome to care about that for trademark reasons, but the rest of us don't really have a need to do so. "Legos" is clearly in common usage, failure to YELL ABOUT LEGO IN ALL CAPS and all.

you are of course right, and people have been trying to get the word lego to be used as a common term for all lego compatible bricks, but that's dangerous as for now lego can stop anyone from publishing anything about alternative brands using the term lego. so they have to avoid doing that or will get in trouble. better to avoid the term lego altogether and just call them bricks.

I use "bricks" (or the very neat tearm "Klemmbausteine" in German) in any context where Lego legal might want to interfere, and stick to Lego/Legos otherwise. It's a common term beyond any reasonable doubt by now, and corporations really shouldn't pry their greedy tentacles that deeply into everyday life.

right, i have a hard time avoiding the term lego at home with my kids too. the main problem for me though is that i am quite disappointed with how lego treats competitors that i just don't want to promote the lego brand anymore.

btw: german seems to have developed two terms. i don't know where it originated, but bluebrixx (and i don't know who else) uses the term "noppensteine".

we'll have to see which term becomes more popular. both are descriptive, but "noppen" is a rather rarely used word which feels a bit wierd when you are not used to it.

You might not really need to avoid using the term in a way that is understood by the general public. There are quite a few (United States) precedents for losing trademark if a term becomes genericized. For example: Asprin, Escalator, Flip Phone, etc.

There is a wikipedia list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_generic_and_genericize...

Where are you from? In Britain I'm pretty sure I've never heard anyone say "Legos", it sounds very American to me.

My main point here is that you probably don't run around saying LEGO, in all caps, not singular vs plural.

I understand why the LEGO corporation does it, but it's their problem, not ours, and we don't really need unpaid lego consultants running around lecturing people about the "correct" way to refer to them.

Yeah I was just surprised by the assertion that

>"Legos" is clearly in common usage

Given that I don't ever hear people using it.

Personally I get faintly annoyed by people saying "legos" the same as I would by people saying "sheeps" instead of sheep when referring to multiple, although I don't think I've ever corrected anyone over it.

i remember being galled by it in the late 80s, so this debate, at least, has been going on for some time.

> Given that I don't ever hear people using it.

I certainly do. The people around you are not a uniform sample of all communities on Earth.

That was exactly my point. The guy was saying people shouldn't correct an "incorrect" thing which is in common usage, but I was trying to emphasise that it isn't common usage everywhere.

I think it's fairly obvious why they want people to refer to them as a brand—they don't want to lose their trademark. If LEGO becomes so generic as to lose its association with the company that created it, then they lose out to all of the copycat companies. Velcro has done the same ("hook and loop, one side's a hook, the other's a loop"...).

> My main point here is that you probably don't run around saying LEGO, in all caps, not singular vs plural.

WHAT? DOESN'T EVERYBODY SHOUT WHEN THEY SAY LEGO??

we do when we step on them

Strange because as an American I've almost always heard to them referred as Legos. As a kid, my friends and I said, "let's play with Legos". My parents would say " get these legos off the floor". Seems odd to me to think of these phrases without the "s" on lego

I have a pet theory - in north america you have a popular snack called an eggo (pluralised to eggos) thats basically a waffle.

I think americans started calling lego legos because they were already calling eggos eggos. In the uk and europe generally we don't have eggos, so we don't have legos.

the catchphrase from the advertisement is "leggo my eggo", where leggo means "let go" which can't have an s appended. i have never had them so i am not sure, but i don't think they are that popular, and i haven't seem them referred to in plural

As a kid, I heard people say the phrase “legos my eggos”, (since the “leggo” had lost al of its association with “let go”).

Please, the Eggo corporation would prefer you refer to them as one EGGO or multiple EGGO waffles (tm)

Interestingly the company initially wanted people to call them "Froffles", but people apparently called them "eggos" due to the fact that they taste eggy. Then the company changed the name to "eggo" to reflect that.

I checked the wiki page and thought the contrast between the two approaches is interesting.

More likely, the Americans lengthen the e in the first syllable into almost a diphthong, like /eɪ/, and shorten the "o" in the second syllable into a schwa kind of sound that can comfortably be followed by /z/. Meanwhile, in British and many European accents, the first syllable is short and strongly stressed /ɛ/, and the o is /oʊ/, and you can't add an s without contorting your mouth in some horrible way. Which is why British people are so disgusted by "Legos". Try saying it with an American accent.

Yeah thats probably a more reasonable explanation than my theory. On the other hand its pretty common to say silos, speedos (both for swimwear and slang for a speedometer) and flamingos in British english and they have very similar endings.

As an American who grew up playing with and saying "legos," I've never heard anyone pronounce it the way you're suggesting.

I love pet theories so I hate to disagree. I've personally said the word "Legos" about 1M times in my life and it's mostly because Legos always come in groups, groups with a lot of items. You have to have a plural word to refer to them.

Also (child of the 70s) I am certain that I was calling mine Legos before I even knew about Eggo waffles. Third - boy I'm really piling on, sorry - I don't think I've ever referred to multiple Eggo waffles as "Eggos", probably because there's already "waffles" for that.

Yes, it's always "legos" when referring to the pieces (unless singular one piece), in my world.

It seems to be a fairly clear-cut geographical divide - Americans always pluralise, Britons never do. Without knowing but based on other lexical splits, I'd expect the majority of the rest of the Anglophone world to follow British usage, with Canada going either one way or the other. Usually Americans can cite 17c usage as a precedent - not in this case !

Ugh Lego and trademarks. My wife and I had Lego threaten to sue us for trying to import "legos" of mass destruction, it seems. We ordered a lego-compatible kit, which is ok I think, since it's only the lego figure that is patented Lego, the logo and name of course trademarked to Lego, and any brand cooperation to respective rights holders (eg Star Wars).

However, a kit without Lego names or logos, and without Lego-figures, and without any branding or copy of existing Lego-kit, should be ok.

But no. In some way, our customs withheld the package and we had lawyers for Lego threaten to sue us if we claimed rights to the package. They attached the Lego figure patent with the threat. We said, burn it, forget it, and acknowledge that we can sleep at night again please, but they forgot the last part.

It was a kit worth about 10€, and we have hundreds of €'s of Lego. Now we've stopped buying Lego. Also, less plastic crap.

Not to sound bitter, but the big friggin majority of kids toys industry is shit and the world would be a better place without it. Sorry for the steam :S.

the patent for the lego figure is expired too. they still have a 3d design mark on the figure which bluebrixx is working now to overturn.

you tried to privately import a single box? i can understand lego going against commercial importers, but private shipments of individuals who don't have any resources to defend themselves, that's just ridiculous.

However, a kit without Lego names or logos, and without Lego-figures, and without any branding or copy of existing Lego-kit, should be ok.

and they are. but you have to make the effort to defend yourself against the accusations, which a commercial importer can do, but it's totally unfair to put that on individuals for a single set.

which set exactly did you try to import?

there are a few large importers in germany, you may consider those. avoids the hassle...

You're right to be bitter, especially so because Lego has a pretty sordid history in this respect, the only reason they exist is because the founder copied someone else's IP and made a bundle of money on it. At the root of every great fortune there is a great crime. Oh, and the original inventor committed suicide. Those little details.

Bricklink, now Lego's property, also has checkered past. Fits the family.

They send bulk of these threats for any package that customs mark as "probably fake Lego". Depending on a country, if you refuse to get the product incinerated you'd have to pay storage fees for the time it takes to get an expert to assess the claim. Lego is doing great job in making sure custom officers have as little knowledge of the real situation as possible.

And to add to Lego's sis each set includes unnecessary unique bricks so that you can't remake a set without buying these custom parts. There are tens of thousands unique bricks so far and this trend is going strong.

and as soon as you start paying those fees the price advantage of personally importing alternative brands is lost. making importing only worth the risk for a set that you really want because lego doesn't have anything comparable.

I don't think we should allow corporations to dictate how we use language.

Even you're misconstruing their recommendation. "LEGO is always an adjective" implies there is no plural form, because there is no noun to begin with. You're supposed to say "LEGO brick(s)", apparently...

Jesus, I’m gonna stop reading comments on LEGO posts here since every time there is a grammar war.

I and everyone I know has been calling them LEGOs since I was a kid in the 70s; that’s good enough for me.

> Legos are just wonderful.

One of the most fascinating things about HN is how people will come out in droves to bash the environmental impact of mining cryptocurrency, but legos are just wonderful - nevermind the plastic waste.

There must be a name for this phenomenon.

Obviously this post will get downvoted with no real rebuttal - more idiosyncracies of the quality platform that is HN.

Waste?? I still have my legos from my childhood. No plastic wasted here!

That plastic will outlast you, though. When considering environmental impact it's prudent to look beyond a couple hundred years - which I admit we suck at as humans.

and it will be handed to my kids and grandkids, and they will pass it on. most bricks will hopefully not end up in a landfill.

I don't think you need to search for a psychological explanation.

I think it is probable that many people think the benefits of Lego far outweigh the benefits of cryptocurrency mining.

I prefer it when the commentary on Hacker News does not extend to hot takes. I am sure there are many hypocrisies to be observed on HN, but you are drawing a patently false equivalence between the carbon footprint of cryptocurrency, which if it produces value, certainly does not do so directly, and the impact of the plastic pollution caused by lego pieces, one of the most heavily conserved categories of plastic object in the world.

Say what you will, but any post on HN that even mentions cryptocurrency in passing has an environmental alarmist as the top upvoted post whereas here any such thing will be downvoted to the bottom.

> I prefer it when the commentary on Hacker News does not extend to hot takes.

Seems like you don't speak for the hivemind. Hot takes get upvoted on the regular around here. Just not when they don't conform to the echo chamber.

I found a name for the phenomenon that I was looking for, I think.

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