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Lego Microscope

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Re: Lego Microscope

#61

Post by mitchdoogle »

eigenket wrote: post #47
jerf wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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

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

Re: Lego Microscope

#62

Post by em-bee »

sombremesa wrote: post #58
cbsks wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Re: Lego Microscope

#63

Post by frosted-flakes »

jerf wrote: post #52
eigenket wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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"...).

Re: Lego Microscope

#64

Post by escape_goat »

sombremesa wrote: post #55
busyant wrote: post #12

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."

> 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.

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.

Re: Lego Microscope

#65

Post by em-bee »

dividedbyzero wrote: post #42
em-bee wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Re: Lego Microscope

#66

Post by InitialLastName »

em-bee wrote: post #35
InitialLastName wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LEGO (the company)has to take it seriously because they have to defend their trademark. Likewise, the manufacturer of hook-and-loop fabric closures has to be very clear [0] when a hook-and-loop fabric closure is their product or not, but lay-people are happy to call them all Velcro. [0] https://www.velcro.com/about-us/trademark-guidelines/ Edit: pronouns not my game

i think you meant to say "their trademark"

Yeah fixed.

Re: Lego Microscope

#67

Post by em-bee »

adolph wrote: post #57
jonplackett wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Re: Lego Microscope

#68

Post by eigenket »

mitchdoogle wrote: post #61
eigenket wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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.

Re: Lego Microscope

#69

Post by em-bee »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #48
tzs wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 worke…

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.

Re: Lego Microscope

#70

Post by em-bee »

eigenket wrote: post #68
mitchdoogle wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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
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