Brickspace Opinions

Yet another pretentious guide from John, this one about smiles

2010-03-04T12:17:00.000-08:00

Hey, guess what? I'm back. And I'm ready for another rant. Just a short one, so you wouldn't have very long to wait until it's over and you can have your moan in the comments box. Alternatively, just scroll down to the comments box now and moan about whatever the hell you want.

This time I'm going to talk about smiles. Maybe there are some which you don't know, or some which you use a lot and don't like. Maybe you need a bigger smily vocabulary, or maybe there are some that you hate and you can feel good that someone else, yours truly, hates them to. Maybe you're just reading this article to feel good about me being wrong and you being right. Whatever floats your boat.

Let me just say now that I like smilies. If they're overused, then I get annoyed, but they're great just to add a bit of emotion into a comment, or to clear up your feelings about something (eg. lightening the mood of an otherwise insulting comment). Of course I object to Nnennian smilies (ie. making a comment of simply " :) ". Fuck you Nnenn, who ever said you were popular enough to just say that?), but they have their uses.

NORMAL SMILIES

Ah, the classic smily face. Maybe a bit innocent, and kinda reminds me of foreign people using it (as if to say "I like your MOC, but be nice, I don't speak English well"). Even still, it's helpful to give the person a bit of encouragement with this little fella - as in "get better soon :)" or "try harder next time and I'll give you a cookie :)". Nice, helpful, but overused.

The simple "hooray". Perfect for many situations. Even a replacement for the classic :). Nice and clear to see what it is, and it's even clearer to interpret the "yay" message it's trying to get across. Great for cheering or friendly jokes, as in "I love waffles :D" or "om nom nom :D".

Similarly useful. Clearly a guy sticking his toungue out. This is the ultimate way of saying "jk jk". I hate people who say "jk" after their comment (it's like they're not good enough at cracking jokes that they have to clear up after themselves. Ruins the effect of the joke completely), so the :P is at hand. Examples include "yeah like when I saw your mom last night :P" or "ha ha :P".

I really don't like this one. From what I can discern, it's just an alternative for :P for people who can't be bother to press shift+P for the capital. It's just not as clear as :P. Avoid at all costs.

A guy frowning with his mouth open. Whilst I'd usually not mind this, it means the mouth is on the left of the eyes and this disrupts the Western way of reading left-to-right. I always find that it isn't immediately recognisable. Good for those "gah!" moments, though. Examples include "I lost my iPhone! D:" and "OMG I accidentally my harddrive D:".

There's not much to say about this. It's a simple, easily recognizable, unhappy face. No problems with this one.

:'(

A crying face, for those sad moments. Once again, this is just a standard smily, so I have no 'beef' with it. Uses include "I wish I had that many bricks :'(" and "RIP Marc's virtual fish :'(".

One of my favourite, yet completely useless, smilies. It's supposed to be a smily with a cleft palate. Cruel, yet surprisingly funny. Of course, not everyone knows what it means, so it's not best to use in comments, if at all. It doesn't put across an emotion, so it's practically useless. I have no examples in fear of being too offending.

Originating from a mixture of LOLcats and Japanese Animé stuff (Neko, catgirls, etc), this adorable smilie simply means "d'aww". It's ideal for those moments when you want to show that you think the picture you're commenting on is cute, whether it be yet another Lego Wall-E or something a little more odd. It's also mandatory for any pictures of cats.

A neutral look, or a "hmmm" look. Nothing special here. Not often used, but very rarely misunderstood.

A look of misunderstanding, a guy with a tilted mouth for a "Hmmm...huh?" kind of expression. I usually don't mind this smilie, but it comes out very bad in some fonts, where the slash is very close to the colon (bloody kerning). This may be fixed with a dash-for-nose, like so: :-/.

Many people don't immediately recognise this smilie, which is annoying. Sure, it's not a smilie, but it's very useful. It's NOT "less-than-three", it's a heart. On its side. See? Useful for replacing for the words "love" or "lovely" (eg. "I <3 those greebles", "Those greebles are <3"). Can also be used on its own to simply say "I love that."

;)

A simply wanking winking smilie. Can be interchangeable like so: ;), ;D, ;P, ;3 etc etc. Has exactly the same uses as winking does in real life. Nothing much more needs to be said.

A simple OMG smily. Intended to be a guy with his mouth open, maybe gasping. Alternatively, :o can be used, but this doesn't show up well in some fonts. Uses include "You have this part in black? :O" and ":O epic win!".

,':\

The use of an apostrophe and comma as eyebrows for a 'huh?' face is a really great idea. You've just got to watch those annoying font variations - in serif fonts a comma will look different to an apostrophe. In which case, use it as the up-eyebrow, and the apostrophe as the down-eyebrow to avoid overlapping with the mouth. You could use the eyebrows in various smilies: ,':) ,':( ,':\ ,':D ,':O . Just try to avoid using winking smilies with the eyebrows, or else you'll get some sort of three-eyed effect.

JAPANESE SMILIES

^_^

This classic Japanese-style smilie is an alternative to :D - in other words, a way of saying "yay!" in a different, funny way. Try not to use these too often to avoid be a Weaboo.

The dumbest of them all. This smilie, which isn't actually a smilie since it doesn't have a mouth, is extremely annoying. Especially if you use it at the start of a comment, where two ^s usually mean the comment is referring to a previous comment two places above. Meant to be a shorthand ^_^.

O_O O_o 0_o

The Japanese version of :O or even ',:( . A way of saying "WTF", or showing that you are shocked at something in the picture. Increasingly often used in Dano's photostream to show that you will be mentally scarred for life by looking at the picture in question. Eg. "O_O Dano... that's just not right, man..." and "O_o Uh, WTF Dano?".

o_e

A relatively unknown smilie that I have taken a liking to. It's meant to be a smilie squinting one eye, signifying a "huh?" or "eh?" expression. May take a while to see what I'm getting at.

<_< >_>

Japanese this-way and that-way smilies. Meant to show a person looking left and right. You could use both of them, one after another, to show that you are looking in either direction (usually before saying something secretive). Just think of terrified glances around the room if you're about to say something shocking or secret, eg. <_< >_> I actually quite like Glee". You could also use >_>; to show your looking in another direction, or being distracted, eg. "Who care's about speed limits anyway? >_>"

ಠ_ಠ

A seriously Wapanese smilie. Started by a user on Reddit, this one which uses Unicode characters basically means "not amused". Its original use was to be a smilie for a "look of disapproval". Could also mean "I'm bored". Not everyone may know what this one means. Use with caution.

Anways, that's all. Let me know if I've missed out any important ones. It's late and I'm tired so that's very likely. But hey, I posted, didn't I?

~John

The LEGO brand

2009-12-31T02:39:00.000-08:00

LEGO, it is fair to say, plays the part of a hobby in our lives. For some, it is more; it is a career. But it is a career that, for the most part, would be enjoyable, and one would have chosen it having had a happy childhood association with the Danish toys.

Like much of sport, LEGO is a relief in our lives, a chance to get away. And so, the decision of a nicorette company to feature LEGO in its adverts is one I find, if not disgusting, entirely unnecessary. But let's not put down the advert itself too badly; apparently it won the Golden Drum in 2007.

And we need to be clear that I am not opposed to nicorettes; indeed, I know very little about them but they seem to me to serve a good purpose. Other, very similar adverts involving paperclips and plasticine look almost identical. And I have no idea what to put on an advert that will make it sell. But as you read in a previous article, it does not take a genius to realise what does not go on an advertisment.

Wow, that was a long paragraph! I'll cut to the chase. While all markets overlap in some way, the people who need to use nicorette products are not, in my BS-Opinion, the ones who are likely to be tempted by LEGO. Can you imagine: "Daddy, look, that Lego advert says you should by nicorettes! Please, Daddy, please!" No. But a successful company puts out an advert and it continues to be successful. So who am I to complain?

And finally, have a very happy 2010!

Bionicle, Fawlty Towers and the laws of Murphy

2009-11-27T12:32:00.000-08:00

There was a time when I was really into Bionicle myself. I forget almost every single detail. But this was because it seemed to me that every day, John and others would bounce around, proclaiming the brilliance of the new Bionicles to be released the following Wednesday. Flabbergasted may be too strong a word. But I had always wondered what was ever wrong with good old-fashioned Tahu, Lewa, Gali, Kopaka, Pohatu and Onua, although I did at least accept the existence of the Bohrok and turned a blind eye to the Toa Mata selling their naming rights (apologies, Newcastle fans).

Soon enough, Cahdok and Gahdok released the Bohrok-Kal who in turn release the Bahrag... too much, too much! In order to keep things interesting, brand new enemies had to appear all the time.

Which brings us on to Murphy. His law states that anything that can go wrong will. While I believe someone was once crushed by a simple door, the rest of the creatures/whatever you call them seemed to be the unluckiest group of people ever to have inhabited a fantasy island. Everything that could have gone wrong did, as well as a good many things that quite simply do not happen to anything other than Lego creations who were already on their last legs considering Makuta's discovery of the Joy of Six.

I gave up on Bionicle a long time ago, and therefore will not concern myself with the Voya/Maria/Bara/Magna/Vakamas of this world. I have not done a whole load of research, but it seems that the intrepid Toa once concluded that the island itself had not long to live, having previously thought it was simply sleeping. Its life was apparently ended when it was given the obviously fatal Mask of Life. Well, that makes sense.

I am sure a lot of people will miss Bionicle, and don't get me wrong, it started out as a good idea, and as the statement itself says, Lego thrives on innovation and new ideas. But think of all the great comedy series, and how many of them were ruined by the eternal flogging of characters that were no longer funny. Then think of Fawlty Towers: twelve high-quality and priceless episodes. Everything that was introduced to the Bionicle scene was introduced for a reason, which seemed a good idea at the time. And some were. But the Bionicle scheme had the potential to go badly wrong, and so of course, it did.

John's Top Tips for being successful on Flickr

2009-11-22T11:56:00.000-08:00

Believe it or not, there are a lot of 'n00bs' on Flickr. Oh, so you knew that? Well, you may well be one of those n00bs. Below are my top tips for getting respect in the community, having successful photos, and not having everyone hate you. This is essential reading, folks.

1. DON'T FLOOD YOUR 'STREAM
There is an art to posting on your photostream. Sure, I'm not saying I've perfected it, but I can offer some advice. My basic principle is that you shouldn't flood your photostream - people don't want to see a picture of the same thing, just a bit zoomed out, and it's just going to waste their time looking through it, as well as your 100MB (if you're not a Pro member).

Four pages of photos is maybe a bit too much!

So, say you want to keep the photos on your photostream to a minimum. What then? Well, you could put a whole gallery of your pictures - that's right, every single one of your almost-identical pictures - on another website, like Brickshelf, Photobucket, or even MOCpages. That way, if we like your MOC, we can see more, and if we don't like it we don't have to trawl through pages upon pages of pictures of it.

All you need is links! (da da da da daa!)

2. FUNNILY ENOUGH, PLAGIARISM IS BAD
There is an unwritten rule on Flickr. It doesn't really need to be written, because most people have enough decency to follow it without being told it, but I'll say it anyway: Other people's stuff is theirs, not yours. Yeah, weird, huh? If you want to show off a great creation you've found, put it on your blog. Flickr is no place for showing off other people's stuff even if it already on Flickr. That's really all I have to say about this, because it is such a basic principle. Still, every now and then, a user comes to light who has a photostream full of stolen pictures. Let me say this - we're not going to like you for doing it.

3. POPULARITY IS POWER
That's right, people. Just because you think logically and have a lot of good, decent arguments about a particular topic does not mean people will side with you. You need popularity - if people see your photos, and if people like your MOCs, then they'll like you, and you have the power to say possibly offensive stuff and do idiotic things (see 'Don't be an Asshole' below). However, if you're not popular, don't think you have power! You have no right to slag off someone else's creation without reason if you are a worse builder than them, and don't even think about kicking out more popular people from your group.

I think we all remember this day.

4. DON'T BE AN ASSHOLE
People do some dumb shit on Flickr. You'd never know it, would you? Heh.
Let's take an example: Exxtrooper. Everyone's favourite lovable Norweigian. He manages to say some of the most stupid things, you'd never know he had a sense of social decency. So that's my point: if you think something will be offensive, or you just want to do it to get on people's nerves, don't do it. Some people may argue that, if you show that you are actually a decent person, acting like an asshole sometimes is acceptable (Dano's made a living out of it). In fact, brief, offensive comments can also be very logical.

The word 'moronic' comes to mind. In fact, so does the word 'perma-ban'.

You go girl!

5. DON'T BE A PERVERT
There are a lot of female users on Flickr. And, surprisingly, there is also a lot of questionable content on Flickr. So, if you do want to be a pervert, maybe stay away from the nice, just-wanting-to-show-off-their-photos female users, and search around for some of those female users with less decency.
Comments are not to be abused, people. As is explained in another section, comments are for words with meaning. That's right, no-one wants to hear what you'd like to do with the girl in the picture. You can run back to 4Chan to perv over whatever you want there - just stay away from Flickr.

"I'm wearing a strapless shirt" - comments have been disabled on this photo, very wisely.

"You single?" is, surprisingly, not appropriate.

6. NO ONE GIVES A SHIT ABOUT YOUR STORMTROOPERS
One of the growing trends in the community, or at least in the Lego group on Flickr, are these insanely boring pictures of stormtroopers. For some reason, Flickr members (who, most of the time, are not actual MOCers) seem to think that people like to see cute pictures of stormtroopers holding onto walls, or kettles, or with their helmets off, or whatever else. Here's a tip: we don't.

Surely a piece of photographic genius.

7. COMMENTS ARE FOR SAYING STUFF

Sure, sometimes comments don't need to be long. Sometimes people just like someone saying "Cool". I know I do - I get a bit cranky if no one comments on my photos. Praise is good. Too much praise is not good - after a while, you'd get big headed and become allergic to criticism (then again, maybe others of your fans would back you up when the person criticizing you is wrong. I'm talking Sir Nadroj here).

So don't waste our time. If you've got something interesting to say, say it. If you haven't, don't comment. And if your comment doesn't make sense, don't publish it.

On a similar note: if someone asks a question on your photo, answer it. Because, funnily enough, that's what it's meant for.
Side note: if you have more to say, put it in the same comment. Having four of your comments in a row is just plain stupid.

I guess he thought it was rhetorical.

Acceptable. Just.

Nicely said, LittleBuilder.

8. IT'S NICE TO KNOW YOU HAVE A CRAFT KNIFE
Well, I guess it is - but stop cutting up Lego and go out and do something useful with the knife for once! I don't care if you go out a stab someone with it, it's better than us having to look at your pitiful BrickArms modding skills. And that goes for the people who paint a helmet, put it on a minifig, take a picture and show us. We don't care. So, to summarise:
If you're going to experiment, do it in your own time.
Simple enough - I'm not stopping you playing around with your new BrickArms, trying it on your minifigs, whatever - just don't show us. What skill is there in giving a Han Solo minifigure a Brickarms gun and showing us? "Wow, what a new concept" will be the last thing we'd say! Time is money, and the average Flickr-goer is not going to waste it on looking at your dumb Brickarms mods.

Put it in a MOC!

9. IMAGE IS EVERYTHING
There is a knack to naming yourself on Flickr, and a knack to choosing a profile picture. It's not just "I like the look of that so I'll use it as my profile picture" or "Hey, I'll include dumb symbols in my name just for the heck of it" - by choosing these things you give off an image of yourself. What do you want to be seen as? The answer to that will be the reason behind your profile picture choice.
If you want to hear my rant on picking a decent account name, click here. For now, though, I'll concentrate on avatars.
In a way, it's like advertising. You're flicking through Flickr (heh), and you come across some comments. All you see of the commenters is their avatar and name. That is the only moment you get to sell yourself. If the viewers aren't interested, they'll move on and you'll lose their valuable faves and comments. You've lost them. So pick something instantly recognizable as an avatar - people will think "Hey, that guy builds Lego, that avatar is a good picture, I'll see his/her stuff!" and you've got them. That's all there is to it.
One thing to stay away from at all costs is a picture of yourself as your avatar. No one (and I repeat NO ONE) will be interested in seeing your stuff if your picture shows an acne-ridden 13 year-old. Why? Because then that's what they think you are. Sure, you may be that, but you don't need to let them know!

Just your average set of avatars. I wouldn't click on the first, for instance - "is the user a grasshopper? Ew! Maybe he's a bug enthusiast...". The second is quite hard to make out (or that may just be my image discerning skills), the third is alright, if a bit boring, and the fourth is quite weird

Note: another thing to avoid is frequently changing your avatar, if you use only one most of the time. The avatar is what people know you by, so it's good to have a way that people can say 'Hey, that's Worker' or 'Hey, that rubber band holder is Nnenn'.

10. KEEP IT TO YOURSELF
Now, this time I'm not talking about rude comments, though you should keep those to yourself as well. I'm talking about pictures. Flickr is a great place for hosting images, even if you don't want to show them off, but other people don't have to see them.
Here's I'll let you in on the secret - there's this thing, right? Yeah, this thing. Really useful. Mmm-hmmm. Hell yes. It's called Privacy Settings. That means you can upload a picture to Flickr and no one will be able to see it except you. You can use the image, embed it, the URL is there - but other people don't have to see it.

So no one has to see your Facebook photos!

Then, there's an added trick: you can embed the pictures, private or not, in a comment! So if you're using a picture to prove a point, you can upload it as a private image, put it in the comment, and not pollute your photostream!

Oh, OK, I'll ignore it... oh wait - damnit, I can't! I must stop reading this... ach, I've read it! I can't ignore it! Nooo!

Another way of showing different pictures of your MOCs...post the main pic, then show the others embedded in a comment.

11. YOUR PICTURES AREN'T THAT GOOD
I hate pretentious people. You probably think I'm being pretentious writing all this, but I know I'm no better than some of the people I criticise here. Yes, my avatar needs work. Yes, a lot of my comments just contain praise and no criticism. And yes, I've acted like an asshole now and then. I'm not perfect.
But I do hate people that are pretentious. Let's put it this way: if people start plagiarizing your pictures, then (and only then) you can put a filter on your pictures.

How I feel when I see there's no 'All Sizes' button because the owner of the image has put on a filter.

So what is this filter thingy? Well, if you're paranoid, then you can stop people downloading your photos. That means if you right click then press 'Download Image' or whatever you'll end up with a blank picture called 'Spaceball.gif' (or whatever they've changed it to now). That, my friends, is the ultimate RAEG moment. Sir Nadroj does this - and I must say it is the most frustrating thing. If I want to blog his stuff, I can't - I either have to blog using the Flickr blog function, or sneak off to MOCpages and grab the low-quality picture from there. So please, no one's Lego pictures are that valuable. Don't do it unless you have a real reason to.

12. DON'T ABUSE NOTES
By that title, I mean don't abuse what notes are for - not don't abuse notes' privacy. I'm sure there are several international organizations which will try to persuade you to not molest notes.
I said in the last section that I hate pretentious people. There's something I hate more than pretentious people - and that's whole-image notes. If you have a comment about the whole thing, don't add a gigantic note, dumbass! Add a comment. Is that so hard to consider? Is it such a crazy concept?
No. No it isn't. And that's why I've blocked every user who's done that on my photos.
But there's more note abuses than that. I quite like 'Note War' pictures - they're quite fun - but non-'Note War' pictures are not intended for your stupid notes. So think before you write your notes!

Heh heh. I'm sure the owner of the photo loved that. (sarcasm)

Overkill much?

13. DON'T BE A N00B
Maybe I'm being a bit harsh with this one, but a lot of people in the community don't like what has come to be referred to as 'MOCpages n00bs' - that's right, the type of people who are obsessed with Clones and Halo. I don't mean them harm, and I'm sure they're all nice [12 year-old] people, but MOCpages is not like Flickr. There's a lot you need to learn, and then people will start to respect you. So here's some basic rules if you've just migrated from MOCpages:

Don't advertise your own stuff. No one likes adverts on their photos (see picture below).
Don't make Halo MOCs, or at least don't show them to us. Unless they're fantastically made, we've seen it all already.
We don't care about your Clone legion. We never will do.
Flickr is a place for photos. That's those images that are in focus.
Don't abuse groups. That means don't post idiotic discussions (see 'Don't be an asshole' above) and don't start up your own stupid groups unless you're sure it will gain interest.
Write in proper grammar. So people can read it.
If you don't think something will be interesting to other people, don't put it on your goddamn photostream!

>:(

Excuse me sir, this isn't MOCpages.

So that's it, folks. Follow that rules and people will actually like you. Now, I know I've probably said some hugely insulting stuff, but someone had to point out the obvious. I hope this gives you some ideas for how to improve your image on Flickr, or even if it just provides some LOLs. I mean no offense to anyone. I am now criticizing anyone's creations, or photostreams, or comments, or avatars - I'm just suggesting some stuff. I don't mean to make myself look better than everyone else, because I am far from that.

Thanks for reading!
~John

Adverts don't always tell the truth

2009-11-08T11:49:00.000-08:00

Firstly, I have to warn you about one thing: this offer expired at the start of September. But there’s a good reason I’ve waited; I didn’t want anyone to take it. Alright, you look at the crudest part of it, and £5 for a visit to Legoland Billund with Ryanair looks pretty reasonable. The economy with the truth starts here. The advert mentions nothing about a return flight.

Now, of course, one person’s stupidity that warrants an Opinions post is another person’s dream holiday. So, I’ll give this advert (from The Independent, 8 September 2009) a fair crack of the whip and quote it.

Which person, travelling to Legoland Billund, would not want a ‘tummy-tickling experience’? I’d rather just see the Lego. Be careful, because there are some requirements; you’ll need a ‘colourful creativity’ to get in. Yes, I’m being intentionally silly here. But it’s hard to believe how this park earned the prestigious title of ‘northern Europe’s biggest fun-for-the-family destination’.

How good is your geography of Denmark? Well, apparently everyone’s favourite holiday resort Aarhus is ‘not far’ from Billund. But a very rudimentary examination of this showed Aarhus to be an hour and a half’s bus journey from Legoland. If you can be bothered, you’ll be glad that the ‘pulse doesn’t beat too fast for the heart to enjoy’. A ‘fairy-tale’ adventure in Odense, the birthplace of Hans Christian Andersen, looks like a more enjoyable alternative.

Perhaps I’ve just put down the holiday for which you’ve been saving up for a week. And please, by all means visit Legoland Billund and continue to enjoy the fine works of Mr. Andersen. But you can’t believe everything you read. Particularly not if you’re planning to return home from your Legoland visit. ●

Germany: A cautionary tail

2009-10-21T07:54:00.000-07:00

You will forgive me, I am sure, for starting on a sporting note. Last August in Berlin, Jamaica’s Usain Bolt stunned the world by running 100 metres in 9.58 seconds. It was a truly great achievement, one that surely only Bolt himself can eclipse.

Also in Berlin during the summer, the tail of a Lego giraffe outside the Legoland Discovery Centre in Berlin was stolen. The 30cm tail will cost the Lego Group €3000 and 15,000 bricks. The Discovery Centre was supposed to become a roaring success; I saw it as more of a laughing stock.

I paid a visit to the Discovery Centre not too long ago. After the Discovery of the absolutely ridiculous prices, I found a very mixed bag. One could only admire the marvellous creations representing Berlin landmarks, and the large area for building Lego certainly drew the crowds. But there really was little else. Everybody received a brick, there was an Indiana Jones-themed zone... and a shop. I may have forgotten minor details but it soon became apparent that all there was left to do was search the shop and enjoy the rest of the Potsdamer Platz.

There is another Discovery Centre in Duisburg and a Legoland in Günzburg. This is an opinion column, so having not been to either, it is no use looking for other peoples’ views on the place.

There is still, and will always be, an enormous Lego fanbase in Germany. Popularity of Lego is incalculable. But the Legoland Discovery Centre Berlin is a remnant of a darker era for Lego, when appealing to new markets was placed above continuity. Back to basics, it seems, is an appropriate message for Lego to bear in mind with regards to Germany.

-Stickman

Dare to Decorate.

2009-10-21T06:47:00.000-07:00

I thought I might get this little rant over and done with: basically, I'm fed up of people on Flickr decorating their names with grammatical symbols and accents without actually considering them. Sure, it's quite a weak argument, but I'm angry nonetheless. At least I'm not blabbing on about people using 'Legos' instead of 'Lego' (which I will do someday).

First up, and foremost in my conciousness is the Latin letter O with a stroke - Øø. I don't know if it's coincidence, but Lego Flickrers seem to use it a lot, and it's an accent which pops up in Danish as well as other Scandinavian languages. For those who care, Ø makes a sound which can vary (in Danish) from an 'er' sound to the last sound in the French 'sœur'. In some cases, this works - 'Kilø' becomes something like 'killer' (a little scary, but a normal word nonetheless). In other cases the use of Ø falls flat on its face - take 'Jerrø' as an example. And no, I don't care if it was just profile name decoration, whenever I see it I see it not as decoration but as different sounds, dammit. So just know what you're putting into your name.

One guy with whom I have a certain annoying bone to pick is Mr. David 'Gðmolka'. On further investigation, it turns out David's surname is 'Gomolka'. I've never seen, however, someone mistake Eth (Ðð) as a progression on an O before. Eth, if you haven't already guessed, makes a 'th' sound, specifically that at the start of 'this' or 'the' rather than 'thatch'. So apparently he's 'Gthmolka'.

Some people like to decorate their names with MORE THAN ONE accent. Let's take poor old 'Zåçh Ç' for example. I know I really shouldn't pick on him, but I guess he just doesn't learn French at school. FOr those of you who don't know, Çç is a c with a cedilla, which makes a soft c - or s - sound. Zach has also included an a with a ring (Åå)in his name. This pops up here and there, and is found in all Scandinavian languages. It is like Ø, but more to the sound of 'or' or 'aaor'. I'll leave it up to you to work out the correct pronunciation. The capital of that letter - Å - is also the Ångström sign, which is some unit of measurement of atoms or 'summin.

Then there's those people who like to include weird accents in their names. These can look 'cooler' (dare I say 'awesomer') but then you run the risk of the accents not showing up on older computers which have an older version of Unicode. I won't say anything bad about 'Kǻrrde', because he's actually a nice guy, but his compound a with-ring-above-acute (Ǻǻ) has really got me guessing. An acute accent can either mean a sound which starts low and goes high (only slightly, though) or a sound which is the main stress of the word. I'm hoping it's the latter.

My final nit-pick is with people who over-decorate, who add extensive accents to their names, namely 'ӃilǝƵillλ'. Some of those symbols in his name I had to delve deep in my character palette to find. The first K I had to copy direct from his Flickr 'stream, so I've no idea what it means. I've looked through the whole K library - with right hooks, left hooks, commas below, dots below, and more, on pages of my character palette that I didn't even know existed. My best guess is that it's a phonetic symbol. Next up is the turned E (Ǝǝ). I'm pretty sure it's something phonetic, but it is also used in general notation-or-something. After some research, I've found out the Z with a stroke (Ƶƶ) was used in a Tatar language in the 20th century to show a sound close to that in the middle of 'fusion' (nowadays shown as Žž). And, to cap it all off, the final letter (meant to be an A) is either the Greek letter Lamda or a turned Y. So ya.

Oh, and I know you've probably noticed I have a symbol in my name too. So yes, I shouldn't really be insulting other like me but I do have some right - because I know what they mean. I have added Eng (Ŋŋ) into my name knowlingly and with acceptance of people calling me 'Jong'. Besides, this post wasn't really about me insulting people. It was about you lot of readers learning a little bit more about those weird letters you find in the 'Insert Symbol' palette in Word. And I bet you found some of it interesting.

I mean NO offence whatsoever to ANYONE, so don't get all lairy at me.

~John

UPDATE: It turns out the Ӄӄ at the start of KileZilla's name is in fact a Cyrillic letter. The Cyrillic alphabet is an alphabet used in languages like Russian and Kazak (you will have seen Cyrillic scripture in the film Borat). Even still, it's the Cyrillic letter Ka with a Latin accent (a hook), so it's pretty rare.

Jump on, ya' wee lassie!

2009-09-25T10:03:00.000-07:00

That's right, take a ride on this here bandwagon! Yee haw!

OK, strange Scottish/Cowboy accent over, let's get down to business. Back in august, BrickArt!san gave birth to a monstrosity... a monstrosity that turned into a community-wide phoenomenon - Transformatank. Yes, note that I'm not including those two stupid Taus (τ) - BrickArt!san is very annoying in terms of adding in over-elaborate punctuation.

So yes, here it is: the mother of all Transformatanks, in its dark green glory. Actually, looking back on it now, it seems quite lame, but it was the idea that got everyone going.

So then BrickArtisan (I've given up on that exclamation mark he has in his name - what an annoying idea that was) milked it (so to speak) and came up with a 'logistics variant' of his newborn, retarded bastard baby:

And that got everyone going. He even created a group, with what used to have a 'moderator recruitment thread', which is a sure sign of the fad going a bit too far. Now, there's been loads of more Transformatanks, made by people like Tadashistate, Delucks, and Crimson Wolf, but I'll just pick out the most interesting...

There's been a lot of large-scale Transformatanks, which I really don't like (and, as a recently deleted picture showed, BrickArtisan himself agrees) - the idea of having something turn from a vehicle into a mecha is as old as time (which, in this instance, is as old as Transformers), so this sort of thing from 'The one and only Mr R' doesn't really belong with all the clever microscale 'Tanks.

I really like Moose Greebles' 'Heavy Bob' 'Tank which comes with a free witty description:

Heavy Bob was the loneliest тransformaтank in the Flickr group pool. All the other тransformaтanks made fun of his ridiculously large mechanical housing. They told him that he would never be able to transform like them. One day a magical blue, brick-built fairy came to him while he was crushing an old man inside his car. The fairy was touched by Heavy Bob's sad situation and after an excruciatingly long winded motivational speech convinced him that he too had the courage and pistons needed to transform.

It's a clever idea, and well pulled off, with style, flair and of course wit. It makes quite a contrast to some of the run-of-the-mill Transformatanks out there. And who cares if it doesn't stand up quite right?

One of the most annoying things is Tau (the small T BrickArtisan used in Transformatank). There's a discussion topic in the Transformatank group about how to type it on the computer, and the Artisan himself replied with:

"T = т which happens to be a letter in Russian Crylic"

OK. Firstly, Cyrillic. I'm sure there'd also be a secondly and thirdly, but then I'd just be ranting on about Cyrillic letters and how they are used in a lot more languages than Russian. I'm still a bit confused about how Tau (Tau is a Greek letter which looks similar, I can't remember the name of the Russian letter) "happens to be a letter in Russian [...]". So, its original purpose was for Transformatank, was it? Then the Russians nicked it and used in in their own language? The swines!

Believe it or not, I have a lot of respect for BrickArtisan. Sure, his elaborate use of symbols and punctuation can be annoying, but he's created something unique and brilliantly ingenious. So well done, BrickArtisan, who is only thirteen (last I heard) - you should be congratulated. Let's just hope that the Transformatank fad comes and goes before it gets severely annoying (we don't want another Cave Racers).

~John

Tim's Brickspace Opinions blog

2009-09-08T08:53:00.000-07:00

Hi, I'm Tim, Stickman from Brickspace. You'll remember me for never posting anything decent. But now, I'm going to be writing a brand new column all about Lego all around the world. Every time I'll focus on a different country and write about Lego there. Any opinions or suggestions will of course be welcome at tim@brickspace.org.

Welcome

2009-09-07T11:40:00.001-07:00

Welcome to Brickspace reactions, new graphics and more content will be coming soon!

Write your own article

2009-09-06T11:57:00.000-07:00

Brickspace Opinions needs your help! If you want to put across your opinion about anything Lego-related, or reply to an article already posted here, just fill in the form below. It's easy peasy! Just note the following things:

Make sure your article is at least a couple of paragraphs long (about half a side of A4 if written in size 12). This applies for replies too: if your response is any shorter, put it in a comment on the article you are responding to.
PLEASE include your email address so we can contact you if we have any questions about your article.
In the article box in the form, you can write/ copy+paste the article AND any notes to us: what pictures you'd like, where you'd like them (align left/centre/right), whether you'd like a block quote, etc. We will remove all these notes when we publish the article. Please note that we may also alter spelling mistakes or mistakes in grammar. If we make any big changes, we'll contact you and ask you if we can. Don't purposefully make mistakes, though.
If your post won't fit in the box below, just email it (as an attachment) to john@brickspace.org. Word 2003, 2007 and Rich Text formats are good. We can't read Pages format, though.

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