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Comment by Tloewald | Hacker News Reader

The price of Lego isn't the problem. It's the tiny, over specialized parts.

There were overspecialized parts early on. I have a forklift part from the early 80's that can only act as a forklift (it has a spring). I also have some boat parts from that era that really float. I got a train set around 1984 that included train tracks, carriage cars and bases that can't easily be used to make anything other than a train set.

Things got really bad in the late 90's and early 2000's before Lego turned it around. My wife got our kids a Lego airplane set with parts that can pretty much only be used to build an airplane fuselage, wings and landing gear. Very sad.

Since then, Lego has drastically cut down on the number of parts they make. There are still specialized parts. Minifigs and car wheels pretty much need to be specialized, and there are a few large parts that obviously exist only to create a larger toy at a cheaper cost. But things are much better than they were 15 years ago. Most sets now consist of mostly generic parts with just a few specialized pieces thrown in.

Disagree! You should see the amazingly creative things my kids can make using only the Chi pieces from the Chima sets! We have a lot of chi.

Kids seem to find ways to be creative no matter what. It gives me hope; the Lego masters of today are the tech geniuses of tomorrow!

I still would like to buy legos ala cart. Give me 1000 single units in black and 500 half units in black etc...

Actually using a CAD like program that would give a list of pieces needed and than a way to buy the items online would make my kids a wonderful place. Oh wait they killed that in 2012 (http://ldd.lego.com/en-us/subpages/designbyme)

Is this you are looking for? http://shop.lego.com/en-US/Pick-A-Brick-ByTheme#suppressXlin...

You can buy Lego a la carte here: http://shop.lego.com/en-US/Pick-A-Brick-ByTheme . I'm not certain it has every brick, but it definitely has the a bunch of the standard ones I looked for.

Also if you go to a Lego store, you can go to the "pick a brick wall" (http://stores.lego.com/en-us/store-experience), and fill up a cup with whatever bricks you want.

As a tip: if you are building a specific project, and are looking for a large number X of a specific shape of brick, odds are there is an employee there who knows the best way to to pack the cups to get the most brick for your buck. The "shovel it in and pack it down approach" isn't always the best way, especially for oblong pieces. I recall that the best way to pack your average 2x4 brick was to arrange them in two layers in concentric circles, standing up on their tall axis. Also, counter intuitively, at the store that I went to, it was better to buy two smaller containers of 2x4s than one bigger container at the price points they had at the time.

You can do exactly that on Bricklink (http://www.bricklink.com/). You can buy new or used parts (bricks, boxes, manuals, stickers, catalogs, and more) from sellers located all over the world.

I should have down voted you. I lost my lunch time without eating!

Edit: Why the down votes? This link caused me to just surf instead of eating? This was something I didn't realize actually existed. I actually gave him a vote up.

Down votes without explanation is always frustrating

The LEGO catalog always had this option. You could specify the bricks and colors you wanted and place an order to them directly. Now you just do it through their website.

I officially banned Chima and Ninjago sets from my house. Just awful, miserable experiences to build and hopelessly unable to repurpose because of the overwhelming number of insanely tiny pieces. The City sets you can still do a lot with though.

Everyone please print your bingo card and let's begin:

https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7143/6521189607_59acddd58b_o....

Reminds me of the 'POOP' problem[1].

[1] http://www.howtospotapsychopath.com/2008/07/31/the-worst-leg...

That's what I believed, they added a lot of surface curvy pieces. But the article mentions complexity, and indeed, some sets are HD when the one I grew up with were 360p (70s being 16 colors VGA as everyone knows).

http://www.newelementary.com/2014/08/when-lego-was-never-jus...

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