Jeffery Mewtamer

Well, all of my summer sets have arrived. Anyone mind attempting to translate the building instructions for the Destroyer, Beasts, and Mask maker into plain text for the blind builder's benefit? Or at least the more technic/gear-function based bits since I have more trouble mocing in that area without existing designs for inspiration?

I suppose fair enough on most points, though I was under the impression the 3D-animated TMNT was much less popular than TMNT2K3 or even the 80s carttoon, and the fact that early Bionicle G1 actually managed to compete with Prequel Era Star Wars sets just seems to reinforce the idea that Lego did a much better job managing the Bionicle brand in its early days than they did with this reboot. If nothing else, it feels like Lego thought Bionicle G2 would sell itself in much the same way Star Wars sets sell themselves, and instead of adjusting strategy when that proved a bad gamble, just gave up without caring who they gave the proverbial middle finger to in the process. Then again, maybe the difference between now and 2001 is that back then, most people shopped at brick-and-mortar stores and it was a fairly common strategy to tell kids to run off to the toy department while their parents did their shopping, increasing the odds a child would catch sight of something interesting they didn't see a television ad for. Jump forward to today, and you've got many parents doing most, if not all, of their shopping online while their kids sit distracted by the latest fad mobile game on a smartphone or tablet, so even the kids interested in toys only know about the ones they see ads for and have fewer opportunities to discover a new favorite toy through window shopping(this might also be why, as far as I know, Toys R Us is the only chain toy store of note still in business). Then again, given I was 14 for most of 2001 and my mom was 38 when I was born, letting kids roam the toy department unsupervised at Wal-Mart might have been old-fashioned even then.

Wouldn't Technic and Duplo be more accurately described as building systems than themes? And to the casual observer, Ninjago and Nexo Knights are just the latest incarnation of generic Ninja and Medieval themes, though perhaps Lego has done a better job elevating those above generic status than they have elevating Bionicle above generic robots in the eyes of their target demographics. Granted, it probably did Bionicle no favors that it's in the same genre as Lego's best selling License(a kid who likes robots but isn't interested in Ninja is probably going to choose Bionicle over Ninjago, but the kid's probably going to go for the robots he recognizes from Star Wars or even the non-robotic characters he thinks are robots, over the robots he's never seen anywhere but on store shelves). If Lego was to license something super popular with Ninja in it, they might find themselves struggling to keep Ninjago selling well to anyone but the hardcore fans.

Well, just ordered the beasts, mask maker, and destroyer off Amazon. Probably paying a bit more than I should, especially for the destroyer at nearly 50USD, but considering I don't have a Toy R US or Lego Store anywhere near me, Lego's site is an absolute nightmare to navigate with a screen reader, and it wouldn't be worth the headache to place an order via Toy R US's website when I likely won't be placing another order with them within the decade, I think the 40 USD I spent over 20USD per set is worth it for the convenience and avoiding the inevitable collector's prices that will come when everything sells out in the first hand market.

Honestly, there are plenty of Japanese licenses that could make great constraction themes, but those would require overcoming the barriers that have thus far limited Lego licenses to American properties and Harry Potter(or at least, HP is the only non-American property I'm aware of having a Lego license).

Is it really necessary for nearly every post to quote a significant fraction of the entire thread? Seriously, I think I spent more time skimming quotes than I did reading actual replies. Anyways: Regarding black holes, I think it worth noting that they can be grouped into three major size categories: stellar mass, super massive, and micro. Star collapse is how stellar mass black holes are theorized to form in our universe. I don't know much about super massive black holes aside from it being theorized that they exist at the core of the Milky way and other galaxies, but there have been multiple theories put forth for how man-made micro black holes might be made(the two main theories that come to mind are sufficiently powerful particle accelerators and sufficiently powerful lasers focused to a sufficiently small point). That said, if your super power is to generate gravitational fields without the need to create matter out of nothing or condense existing matter, there's no reason that, with sufficient power and control, this couldn't be used to generate an event horizon, and even if the effect doesn't fit the scientific definition of a black hole, the result is likely to be called a black hole by any layman observer with a cultural background similar to the posters on this board. Also, contrary to popular belief, black holes are not cosmic vacuum cleaners. Replace the Sun with a solar mass black hole and the orbits of the planets would be unchanged(most, if not all, life as we know it would still be doomed, but from the loss of the sun's lifegiving warm, not from the black hole tearing us apart or crushing us). Also, . As for protodermis having such highly variable properties, may I direct your attention to the allotropes of pure carbon? Graphite, Graphene, Diamond, Buckminster Fullerene, other fullerenes, carbon nanotubes, and amorphous carbon are all pure carbon, but their differing molecular structures give them vastly different physical and chemical properties. Not to mention how dissimilar the solid, liquid, and gaseous states of the same substance can be. Even if the hardest of hard SF interpretations require it to be some kind of exotic matter, is its variability really that much more extraordinary than carbon's? I also think it worth noting that the four classical elements correspond quite nicely to the 4 most common phases of matter: Earth - solid Water - liquid Air - Gas Fire - Plasma And, in what we'd consider a natural state for an Earth like planet, most non-living solids are some kind of earth, most liquids are aqueous solutions, all gases contribute to the mixture we call air, and plasma and fire are practically synonymous. On a related note, in this view, Avatar making Lightning a sub-element of fire makes much more sense than all the systems that make lightning a sub-element of air since lightning is the other naturally occurring form of plasma you'd see on an Earth-like planet. Similarly, Avatar including Metal(refined earth) and lava(molten earth) as sub-elements of Earth and plant and bloodbending as sub-elements of water as most life as we know it is mostly water. And now I want to read a rationalist Avatar fic staring either an Earth Avatar in the present day or a fire avatar in a near future setting.

And now I want to read a rationalist take on a setting with classical elemental "magic" as the dominant superpower. Also, normal water is closer to 8/9 Oxygen and 1/9 Hydrogen since the most common isotope of hydrogen has a mass number of 1 and the most common isotope of oxygen as a mass number of 16. I wonder if a sufficiently advanced water elemental could concentrate all the naturally occurring heavy water(the water containing the rarer Hydrogen-2 aka Deuterium) in a large body of water. Granted, I've no idea what use heavy water has outside of being a nuclear buffer and how often do nuclear technology and elemental magic exist in the same universe? And assuming an Air elemental could extract pure hydrogen in macroscopic quantities given a large enough volume of air, and could then compress it fast-enough and far enough to trigger a phase transition to metallic hydrogen, could a metal elemental then control the hydrogen and prevent it from evaporating back into hydrogen gas? If the hydrogen passed through a liquid state in the process, is there any elemental that could keep it in it's liquid state and continue the compression? And yeah, it's kind of weird how Bionicle makes Earth and Stone distinct elements. Sure Wood/Plant/Nature is as often distinct from Earth as it is an apart of earth and Ice and Water are separate elements as often as they are aspects of the same element, but the only other example of stone and earth as two different things I can think of is Pokemon and many of the types in Pokemon aren't even included in most classical element systems so the separation of rock and ground isn't as glaring as it is in Bionicle.

While I don't doubt a buildable version of a Bionicle village or some other landmark in the franchise would be awesome, unless the Toa and villains are Kaiju sized(which I don't get the impression they are), you'd run into problems of scale fairly quickly. Play sets large enough to accommodate a community of mini-figs are already quite expansive and beyond what any middle-classed child could buy with pocket money. Building an ecosystem the Toa could really play in would fill a decently sized room and retail for thousands of dollars. So, if Lego wanted to combine CCBS Constraction with buildable environments, their main options would be: -A handful of buildable props(if my impression of the Mask Maker as a biomechanical blacksmith is remotely active, a Mask Maker's forge might be one such prop). -A series of small play sets, each big enough for one or two CCBS figures that can be combined to make a truly expansive world model, but would be more expensive to buy a complete set of than the figures themselves. -Traditional play sets sized for minifigs with a handful of CCBS figures that are Kaiju scale(this would be a great idea for a Transformers or Godzilla license).

I'm curious about the novels, but I can't see well enough to read physical books and my talking ebook reader isn't compatible with Kindle format(not that any of Amazon's digital services seem to work well with my screenreader, so I couldn't purchase through Amazon even if I had a compatible device).

Speaking as someone who never owned a G1 set and knows very little of either generation's story, it sounds like the end of the G1 story was very similar to a fan continuation that got cutoff partway because real-life got in the way except it was being written by someone who worked on the series in an official capacity prior to its cancellation.

In my view, packaging should either be durable enough to double as permanent storage containers or minimalist to reduce landfill content. The closest I've ever owned to a canister set are the original Throwbots, but assuming the canisters were the result of trying to make a version of the Throwbot carriers that wouldn't come apart easily and didn't need a box around it, I'd say canisters qualify as packaging that doubles as permanent storage container. As for boxes versus bags, many of the boxes seem redundant since most of the parts are bagged anyways, though perhaps it's better to use cardboard(usually biodegradable) over plastic bags(usually non-biodegradable) for making a sufficiently durable disposable container for larger sets. Though Lego isn't as bad with wasteful packaging as some(fingernail-sized memory cards in greeting card-sized packaging that probably weighs more than 100x what the memory card does comes to mind).

^But are any such parts from G1 still in production? And for that matter, is the double cup bone available in other sizes?

Anyone mind posting set numbers and exact US titles for the Summer sets?

I can't really appreciate color schemes(one of the downsides of going blind), but if they give us a series of color-coded for your convenience glowing energy enemies made of all trans and one of them is purple, I'd have to get it on principle alone even if it included no new molds. Actually, a swarm of energy beings that come in the six/seven colors of the rainbow, each all trans in shades of their color that then combine into a multi-colored monstrosity sounds like a cool idea. Or, maybe trying to connect that idea to Bionicles non-standard six-element system, a spirit of each element as a small, swarming creature that's all trans in the element's colors, and form power armor for their respective Toa. Then we could have a villain whose base form is all trans black and powers up by corrupting the spirits and his ultimate form has him absorbing spirits of all six elements.

@Tarvaxx: I don't know, seems to me that kids these days are more likely to come accross the latest in hot toys browsing the Internet rather than browsing their local toy store or the toy section of their local Wal-Mart. And is the average parent of the average kid in Bionicle's target age really old enough to be more comfortable shopping at a brick and mortar store over shopping online? If I had kids, I'm fairly sure I'd be buying most of their toys(assuming a distinction was made between their toys and my toys rather than just calling them the family's toys) online, and I'd probably administer their allowances via prepaid debit card. Or maybe I'm more pro-technology than is typical for a 29-year-old and it isn't as unusual as I think for a 29-year-old to still be childless. Or Maybe bionicle's target age is older than I think it is. Two of those could easily make me underestimate the average age of the parents of Bionicle kids and coupled with the third overestimate their comfort with online shopping.

Considering I can count the number of times I've shopped at a Target on one hand(and can probably do so without counting in binary), and can't remember the last time I bought something from Wal-Mart, I'm more inclined to think this just means people are going elsewhere for their Bionicle fix. I mean, why go out to a store where you'll have to manually search for the sets your looking for with no guarantee of finding them when you can go online and order them from Lego's Online store or Amazon from the comfort of your own home?

I'm leaning towards getting all five at the moment, though I'll probably wait until July 1st when 5% Cashback at Amazon kicks in on my Discover Card.

^To add to that, if there's an option to change how many posts are displayed per page, you could temporarily set it to the maximum setting to reduce how many pages you need to save. If the site in question has a print view or archive view, that might allow you to save the content without a bunch of useless site navigation and use info boxes taking up space. Unfortunately, I don't know of any reliable method of automating the process, especially for sites where pages are dynamically generated. I think DownThemAll adds a download all links option to the context menu, but that likely won't capture everything you want and will likely capture a lot you don't want.

So, which of the summer sets contain either new molds or new to Bionicle G2 molds? Also, any suggestions for non-Bionicle sets that contain the CCBS torsos that haven't been used in Bionicles(and ieally providing a nice selection of other non-Bionicle parts)? Can't follow the pictorial instructions to build official models and can't distinguish colors, so my interest in new sets is kind of limited to what can add new shapes and forms to mocing.

If the books get involved, it'll probably be in the form of encouraging my future kids to read them aloud to me. That's assuming none of the books ever get audiobook versions and text-to-speech technology doesn't cross the uncanny valley between now and then(present day text-to-speech is not something I would subject a child to unless they had severe enough vision problems to necessitate it). As for the toys, I'm hoping they'll see papa building stuff and want to join in, and that applies to all of my construction toys, not just the Legos. I fear video games will be a much harder sell for my children since that's something I won't be able to share in their enjoyment barring significant advancements in regenerative medicine or brain-machine interfaces.

Almost anything is preferable to Netflix, but it's weird hearing Australians actually getting the long end of the stick on media for once(usually when I hear about Australian media, it's usually in regards to censorship that makes the US look liberal, games coming out over a year after the Europeans get it(and the Europeans already getting it later than the Japanese and Americans) or games going for 80-100 AUD compared to 50-60 USD despite the AUD averaging more than 1 USD in value). Not that I currently have access to a usable DVD player or have any idea how to rip the audio from a DVD from the Linux command line, so the physical release wouldn't be worth much to me even if it came to the US.

Is it too early to get a breakdown of which summer sets contain new pieces and which new pieces are shared among the sets and which are exclusive to a particular set?

Well, recently bought another Plano 4-by-rack tackle system for storing Lego. Doesn't work as well as it did for my Zome parts, but a tremendous improvement. If I remember correctly, I've got parts divided up as follows: Small compartment in lid: common small technic parts(axle-2, pin-2 and pin-3, pin-axle, bushings, small gears. Tray 1: Technic connectors, half thickness and bent technic beams. Tray 2: CCBS bones and technic beams. Tray 3: CCBS Shells and Armor(Still need to sort contents. Tray 4: CCBS/Technic weapons and accessories. Top compartment: 6 of my 8 Throwbot containers holding other pieces(the remaining 2 are in the top compartment of my Zome Tackle Box since all either won't fit and the lid be able to latch. Pieces contained in the throwbot containers include: Container 1: CCBS heads and Masks. Container 2: Axles, Throwbot Wings and torsos. Container 3: Throwbot throwing arms. Container 4: System parts(I don't have many) including technic brick beams. Container 5: Throwbot legs and ankle/hip joints. Container 6: Gears Container 7: CCBS Torsos Can't remember if the last container is Throwbot heads or if I threw them in with something else and it contains something different. Might run into problems in the not so distant future though. I only recently got back into Lego, and while all I've got so far is: The 8 Original Throwbots -The 2015 Toa -The Elemental Creatures -a few other Bionicle G2 sets -An old Mindstorms Resource kit(NXT rather than EVO because Lego's online store is screen reader hostile and the EVO resource kit was going for nearly twice the price on Amazon at the time). I'm already nearing capacity of my newly purchased tackle box.

And even if the Lego store is pulling Bionicle from the shelves due to poor sales, that could just be the result of people going elsewhere for Bionicle. I mean, in this era were even the technologically inept have smartphones and participate in e-Commerce, it's hard to be a brick-and-mortar store without the backing of a multi-billion dollar corporation, and if you are even remotely niche in your product offerings, good luck surviving outside of a big city. , I wouldn't be surprised if even retail giants like Wal-Mart and Toys R Us are nearing the point that online sales outstrip brick-and-mortar sales if they haven't already. I know for a fact I've never purchased a Bionicle set anywhere but Amazon, and I'm not sure I was ever aware Lego had their own branded stores prior to joining this forum.

Sorry if my previous post came accross as offensive as such was not my intention. Still, with what I've read about social classes in societies lacking the ability to mass produce books and the struggles of illiterate adults in modern times, it's hard to think of illiteracy as anything but a disability, albeit one whose treatment comes primarily from education rather than health care. Actually, I have a lot of sympathy for the illiterate as, in some ways, my blindness has rendered me functionally illiterate, and many of the situations I struggle with are ones a illiterate would struggle with as well. Granted, given that Lego's instructions, if I remember correctly, tended towards fairly simple line drawings, it's quite possible they could be embossed while preserving sufficient detail. Now, if only an economical means of converting the digital manuals from the above link to such tactile drawings was available... I wish for a Linux compatible "2.5D Printer" that combines a color laser printer with a low profile 3D printer and an embossing algorithm to allow it to produce tactile prints of text documents and image files. And if that's too generic for the Bionicle Genie: I wish Lego offered an in-house service for ordering tactile printed copies of instruction manuals.