Leaderboard

At this past LEGO club meeting, I noticed a profound theme of creativity and the fundamentals of imagination. At the meeting, all the members brought a polybag, and put them into a container. Everyone drew a random polybag, and were tasked with building something original with the parts. Discarding the instructions, I was unsure what to build with my unconstructed Bat-Tumbler. It could instead become a mech (or a Bat-Mech), a whale, a plane, a house-- yet I decided on a space shuttle. Players were allowed to exchange parts, but required to use all they had obtained. My model was relatively simple; the cliped, sloped flags and 2x3 wedges became my wings. Everything was mounted on the two 2x4 plates of my 2x8 frame, and the wheels were retooled as my thrusters. Some participants did not complete their model in time; the finished models included an alien expresso machine (mug not included) and your run of the mill doomsday machine from two separate Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Kraang turret; how Legends of Chima Season 2 should have ended from the Eagle Glider, and a creature greatly resembling a chicken Mixels' Zaptor. The winning model was built from a Friends Penguin Playground, becoming the Penguin Police Boat, complete with penguin pilot and fish canon! As the meeting concluded, I was fascinated by the uniqueness and individuality exhibited in each creation. Before we went home home, some members stopped by the junior LEGO club (conveniently on the other side of the city.) The junior clubbers brought their "MOCs," the designs of which were primarily pirated from their original LEGO sets. One model in particular, however, stood out. The construction of the model was simple, a flying vehicle with two 3x3 quarter circle plates as wings and trans-red 1x1 round conesmounted by two modified plates with studs protruding horizontally. Mounted on the aircraft was a plain blue minifigure with a plain blue torso and legs, yellow hands, and, of course, ninja cowl, named Denny. What truly set this model apart was it's story. Denny was Benny the 1980-something space guy's brother, who did not like spaceships. Instead, he loved hovercraft! One day, Denny went into spess on his hovercraft until he was orbiting earth. He quickly realized the planet was "square," like a 2x2 brick; this shape apparently screwed with the planet's gravity, so every time Denny neared a corner, he fell of the edge! This delightful anecdote embodies what LEGO stands for. Each individual, in the adult and junior club alike, had their own ideas interests, abilities, and resources, yet they all found their own way to Play Well.

The Situation On April 27th, 2014, several images were found, developed by Eurobricks user 'Bbqqq', that had LEGO Digital Designer at an enhanced field of view. Infuriatingly, Bbqqq did not include instructions on how to increase LEGO Digital Designer's field of view angle, so I proceeded to contact the guy via Eurobrick's private messaging system. Operation Barbeque is a plan to retrieve information from Bbqqq, which will allow myself and anyone to modify the Field of View of LEGO Digital Designer to something reasonable. The Conversation (If you could call it that) Message 1: Initial Contact Message 2: Subsequent Contact Message 3: If I didn't know better I'd say this guy was trolling me. Message 4: Alcom is a total sell-out. Message 5: The plot thickens. Well now he seems like a nice guy. That solves the secondary mystery. :)

We have technology in the modern day called "Video Cameras". Most of our mobile and desktop technology now comes bundles with some form of "web camera", we have VR sensors like the Kinect and LeapMotion. Many vehicles, including trucks, buses and police cars have cameras installed to record incidents that might occur on the road. Many places in public we visit also use Video Cameras to record for security purposes. Most importantly, a significant number of people doing incredible physical activities, from snowboarders to surfers to Police/SWAT officers to Military Personnel all use Video Camera technology (such as the GoPro) to record the things they do from their own perspective. A hundred and eighty years in the future, why the f**** aren't military personnel on extremely important missions in dangerous territory given any kind of camera to record what happens to them? We know that other sci-fi games like Halo have this tech. We know that recording hardware exists in Mass Effect, since it's used consistently throughout the series. We know that a lot of the headwear Shepard and Co use can be fitted with all kinds of crazy and awesome tools. If Shepard had just recorded his incident with the Prothean Beacon and his conversation with Sovereign, the council (even "Reapers" Turian) would have HAD to agree about the existence of Reapers, and as such the galaxy could have probably prepared a lot earlier. Now, granted, it probably wouldn't have done *that* much in the long run, but at least we'd be all feeling a little less annoyed by the Council.