Gatanui

Microsoft is commonly considered to be the master of productivity and the Office suite is arguably one of its most popular pieces of software. What I like about Microsoft currently is that their failure in the mobile phone game (though they're catching up in the tablet segment thanks to the Surface devices) has forced them to innovate in rather interesting ways, most notably the Universal Windows Platform I mentioned. None of the other big players, i.e. Apple or Google offer anything comparable as of now. Apple is so far sticking to their philosophy to align OS X and iOS visually and in terms of features and interaction, but otherwise keep them separate because that strategy is working very well for them. Google's missing piece is the desktop segment, where Chrome OS is being quite successful in the education sector, particularly in the US, but not beyond that. Rumor has it that they're planning to converge Chrome OS and Android in the future but they have reiterated their commitment to Chrome OS - we'll see. Curiously, what you're mentioning about Apple's simplicity vs Microsoft's "5 bazillion options" has changed, somewhat. As a result of Microsoft's UWP push that allows apps to run across device families, including phones, many of Microsoft's newer applications are relatively simple compared to what they used to offer in the past. We'll see how the UWP concept pans out for them - there are signs that developers are slowly embracing it but the mobile phone part of the equation is still struggling so anything could happen a year from now. What do you mean by "file menu"? Android, due to its nature as an open source software and the way Google distributes it to hardware manufacturers, is a very open operating system that can vary quite a lot between manufacturers. In some ways, it's the antithesis to Windows while in some other aspects, it's very analogous. Going by market share alone, you could consider it the "Windows of smartphones". My main gripe with Android is its preposterous update policy, it's very difficult to keep your device up-to-date over an extended period of time if you don't get a Nexus device and sometimes even then.

Well then, since the auction has ended, I think we can consider TLH the lucky winner. Thanks to everyone who took part.

Haha, yes there are. Just like there are fanboys for Android, for iOS, for OS X... When you start reading people say things like "Lagdroid", "crApple" and "Scroogle", you know what's going on. I find it kind of ridiculous to be honest. While I would consider myself a fan of a couple of things Microsoft is doing right now (though I don't agree with all they do), which is why right now I'd consider myself to be in the "Microsoft camp", I'd like to explicitly distance myself from that fanboy attitude. Some people blindly love what a company is doing and blindly hate what all the others are doing... I find things to love and things to dislike in all of them. I'm happy you've also found your passion. You are not insulting or trivializing my passion at all! The world would be so boring if everyone felt passionate about the same things! I look forward to your entry about this subject, should you decide to write it. Thank you and I hope you'll be able to see a result in a not too distant future.

Well, it's different. It's quite impersonal. I'm there for the topics to discuss, not the people. It's certainly different to this site, which feels more like a big family. It's just that while LEGO is a hobby I hold dearly, technology is a much greater passion for me so it's logical that that's what I'm spending most of the time with. The world of Windows is just what I happen to be actively following right now because I'm finding the current direction very intriguing within the world of consumer software and Windows is something I use every day so it's easy to spend time with it and follow what happens with it. If I left that community, it's not the people who I'd miss (and honestly, discussions can be rather nasty at times there, especially when fanboys get involved).

Well, as I don't see any point in still keeping the minimum price secret any longer: I was aiming at a minimum of 200$. What do you think?

Wow, thank you so much! Do you have a lifetime Premier Membership? If not, it'll be easier to return the favor.

So thanks to fantastic person @Obsessionist it turns out we've got a six-month Premier Membership now. And now that we've got it, I guess the logical first step is to write a blog entry. You probably don't but perhaps you've been wondering where we've been lately. You may have noticed that we aren't as active as we used to be. I still come around every day and check out the news, post a news story every now and then (though probably not as often as I should ) and browse the forums. The truth is that I've realized that I'm in a bit of a mini dark age as far as LEGO is concerned. I still follow all the BIONICLE news, watch all the Ninjago episodes and look forward to watching the Nexo Knights pilot when it airs in Germany. We still buy BIONICLE sets, although we haven't for about ten months - it's getting time again. However, the thing is that lately I've become much more active in another community, which is the Windows community. Now, I'm sure the first thing some of you think of when hearing "Windows" is crashes, blue screens and all the like and I'm sure some of you may even wonder how such a community exists. You may find even stranger that it was the often hated Windows 8 that drove me into the community. I'm not sure "the" community exists but there are several fan sites and general tech enthusiast sites out there that I visit and comment in, e.g. Windows Central and The Verge (which is not a Windows site, some would argue its authors are Apple fanboys but I don't care, I'm quite fond of the site somehow). You may be wondering, why Windows? Windows 8, even before its release, attracted me into the world of Windows because with all its awkwardness, I found it so interesting conceptually and, at a time where most mainstream software like iOS and Windows 7 etc. still sported pseudo-3D graphics and skeuomorphism, also interesting visually, that I wanted to find out more about it and discovered a couple of Windows-focused news sites and started visiting them regularly. Now the Windows 8 era is over and I find that with Windows 10 and the Universal Windows Platform, which allows a single application to run across the entire array of Windows devices, i.e. from phones, tablets, PCs to even the HoloLens, Microsoft has by far the most interesting concept of the three biggest consumer OS companies out there right now, i.e. Apple, Google and Microsoft. I also find the software and hardware convergence Microsoft is pursuing with Windows 10 and devices like the Surface (proud owner of a Surface Pro 3 here) very intriguing, although some argue that it's the wrong way and that Apple's approach of having one separate OS for each device type is the wiser path. However, I think that the fact that there are these different philosophies out there and that each company is having its try at their own philosophy and to prove that it's the best is fantastic. Fun fact, I was invited to the Microsoft HQ in Redmond in April with nine more people from around the world as the result of a contest, where I also won the Surface Pro 3 that I own, and had a fantastic time. I even got to meet BZPower's own GSR (Nate)! Of course, I'm not married to neither Microsoft nor Windows. While right now I have no intentions to move to the Apple or Google camp, things may look very different one or two years from now, particularly with the rather uncertain future of Windows Phone / Windows 10 Mobile (I would say it's still got enough energy to survive through 2016 but beyond that it's probably anyone's guess). I'm open for change, unlike a certain kind of Windows fan out there I don't have anything against Apple or Google whatsoever and I like to follow what all the companies in the tech space are doing, not just Microsoft. My current Windows "fan-ism" is just a symptom of something deeper, which is my love of technology. And by "love" and I don't mean the way you say you love pizzas or tacos, but in a different, rather deep and meaningful way, almost the way you'd say you love a person. A few weeks ago I attended a very interesting talk of Eric Schmidt (Executive Chairman of Alphabet Inc., formerly Executive Chairman of Google and CEO of Google before that) in the Technical University of Berlin and while I was sitting there, surrounded by hundreds of like-minded people, I felt an interesting and comforting sense of home. While the event only served as a confirmation of what I already knew, again I felt that I had found where I wanted to be, what I wanted to do with my life, which isn't to say it's the only thing I want to do in my life but it's certainly the main thing I want to occupy my life with and what I want to identify myself with. I can say with full honesty and from the very bottom of my heart that I love technology deeply, that it's the single greatest passion of my life and that it's my dream to make my contribution, to leave my impression in this fascinating and wonderful world of bits and bytes and circuits and whatnot our species has created and I'm incredibly excited to see where this world is going to take us. I want to believe that what we have achieved so far is only a small sparkle of the beginning. I've begun studying computer science in this semester in what I hope will be the first step towards fulfilling my dream and to become a software developer, though my plans go beyond just software. Which brings me to the last topic I want to discuss in this entry. My brother and I have ideas. We also have plans. Big plans. In fact, we have this one idea that's been roaming in our heads for some time that we think has a tremendous potential and we are fully determined to make real. We plan to actually begin next summer. Please forgive me for not revealing any more details than that but I can tell you that we think it's pretty big and while of course it could go all wrong or it could turn out that what we have in mind simply isn't viable with today's technology, the potential is certainly there. As Yoda would say, do or do not. There is no try. We're choosing to do, or, as Shia LaBeouf would put it, JUST DO IT. So I guess there is something to look forward to. We'll see. Despite all this big talk about technology and the like, let me reiterate that I have not forgotten about this site and the LEGO community and we (that is, my brother and I) are still dreaming of a house with a big basement to build a big city out of LEGO and to put tons of BIONICLE figures and MOCs in. If you made it this far, thank you for reading through this wall of text, I'll make sure to make the next entry much shorter but it's been ages since I wrote a blog entry here so I wanted to get this all out. And of course, huge thanks to Obsessionist for the Premier Membership that made it possible for me to write this today. Let's see where this takes us. Don't worry, there'll be other topics to discuss.

the word and it's yours.

Getting closer. Also, it's an honor to have you join my auction TLH.

Since my minimum price has not been met, I am extending the auction until 15th December, 2015 at 20:00 UTC.

I hope it's the newer one with the sad smiley.

I'm rather fond of Segoe UI.

Hey folks! For those of you who missed out on my auction on eBay or don't know what lamicards are: BIONICLE lamincards are collectible, playable cards made of high-quality plastic featuring BIONICLE 2009 motives. They were released for a very limited time in 2009, and only in a few European countries (among those Poland, Italy and Germany), so they are rather hard to come by. I for my part have never seen an entire collection for sale (apart from my own). A total of 210 lamincards exist (160 motives plus 50 glitter editions). Now, you have the chance to obtain this piece of rare merchandise, for I am auctioning an official collector's album including a complete collection on BZPower. Image Reference: https://www.flickr.com/photos/gatanui/23398559966/in/dateposted-public/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/gatanui/23342180411/in/dateposted-public/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/gatanui/23424735515/in/dateposted-public/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/gatanui/23056748319/in/dateposted-public/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/gatanui/22796368754/in/dateposted-public/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/gatanui/23398548946/in/dateposted-public/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/gatanui/22796365504/in/dateposted-public/ Rules: General: The auction starts on 30th November, 2015 at 20:00 UTC and ends on 12th December, 2015 at 20:00 UTC. EDIT: Since my minimum price was not met, I am extending the auction until 15th December, 2015 at 20:00 UTC.Bidding starts at 100$.The deal will only take place if my minimum price is met (minimum price will not be disclosed before the end of the auction).With my posting the name of the buyer, the auctioning process will be concluded.Payment: I only accept payments via PayPal.The shipping costs (see below) will be added to the cost at which the buyer acquires the album. The sum has to be transferred to my PayPal for the payment to be considered complete. For maximum convenience, I encourage the buyer to send the total sum in one transaction.Shipping: I will ship as soon as the payment has entered my PayPal account. I will provide the buyer with a tracking number to track the shipping progress.By default, I will ship internationally in a padded letter or small box via DHL for 15,79 EUR (or 8,79 EUR, if you are a EU resident). If for whatever reason you desire the shipment to take place with a different shipping service, I will be glad to send you the set with a service of your choice

Well, I'm not sure what else I was expecting after all those warnings but yes, it was terrible.

Yeah, that's a fantastic detail.

These look pretty cool generally, although they have some issues. The most glaring thing is that the Toa went from the smooth, clean aesthetic from 2015 to the overdetailed aesthetic from Generation 1 (actually, I think it's even more extreme). The strongly increased use of technic is very intriguing. It almost feels like these were designed by a different team. Overall, I think they are bit too cluttered but I still like them. The masks look pretty awesome on all of them.

This trailer is weird. It feels like there should be voiceover but there isn't. Also, it makes no sense how the Nexo Knights are standing on the ramp the moment it falls down.

Water.

As I pointed out in the eBay description, they are part of a card game. In fact, the album includes a card map and instructions for that card game. You may have also noticed that there are four colored fields with numbers on all character cards. Those are values used in the card game. I am not aware that they were used anywhere in the 2009 media. There are also several character cards with set renderings that I don't remember having seen previously in any of the official media.

This brings back memories. We (my brother and I) had so many hours of fun with LU, probably more than with any other game. I still miss it. We joined at the end of alpha and stayed with the game until the day it closed. The first faction we joined were the Sentinels but after a character wipe we switched to Venture and remained there till the end. The Daredevils were the best.

Hey everyone! I am auctioning a complete lamincards collection on eBay. Most of you are probably not even aware that these existed, as they were only distributed in few countries of Europe and only for a very limited time. It took a lot of money and time to put two complete collections together, but as we are in need of money, we are letting go of one collection. Given the fact that a complete collection is as good as impossible to come by (we have never seen one auctioned on eBay before), we think that we are asking for a halfway reasonable amount of money. Thanks for your attention and happy bidding (or buying).

I stopped maintenance and development of BOGA over three years ago and I think the download links became all defunct sometime in 2013, so yes, it's kind of an old page. Anyway, I'm glad you got it to work.

I had no idea there were still people besides search bots stumbling upon the BOGA. Maybe I should shut it down for good at last but I'm too lazy. Some of the files in the BioMedia versions of MNOG, MNOG II and VNOG used to save the game state are recognized by pretty much all scanners (at least all I've tried on my system, which I think is five) as malicious because some of the code they use is also used by a certain malware. This is a known issue but according to the BioMedia folks, it's nothing to worry about. Just add the folder to your antivirus whitelist.

The Death Note finale was great, you won't regret watching it. To answer your question, I don't have that habit at all.

He's probably referring to Bionicle Gen 2's lack of TV show, decent story material, and advertising/promotional material. It appears that LEGO doesn't seem to have much faith in the line so far. Though hopefully the upcoming Netflix show will help the theme a bit. Did BIONICLE G1 have a TV show? I think you can't really blame LEGO for not risking it all from the outset for a niche theme. Apart from big-band themes like Ninjago, Chima and Nexo Knights, BIONICLE has been getting more than any other LEGO theme, including eight(!) 14-karat gold masks.