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Subject: 
Re: Announcing Brickshelf.com Gallery for everyone!
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.publish
Date: 
Fri, 11 Feb 2000 20:03:40 GMT
Viewed: 
1479 times
  

In lugnet.announce.brickshelf, Kevin Loch writes:
http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi

Keep in mind that this is still buggy beta code, and anything can break.
Also note that only the most essential features are in place now, and
many, many features will be added soon.

In future modifications, will you be sorting the Member Index?  Or how about
allowing custom minifigs from the member to be displayed?  How about for each
member having a link to their personal web site?  What about limiting the
number of pictures to each gallery or will that be up to the member?

Thanks
Barbara

   
         
     
Subject: 
Re: Announcing Brickshelf.com Gallery for everyone!
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.publish
Date: 
Sat, 12 Feb 2000 03:55:53 GMT
Viewed: 
1524 times
  

In lugnet.publish, Barbara Sproat writes:
In future modifications, will you be sorting the Member Index?  Or how about

Yes, in many different user selectable ways.

allowing custom minifigs from the member to be displayed?  How about for each

Yes, and even better you will be able to assign any icon in your collection
to be the icon for any folder in your collection.  I might allow that for
the user icon otherwise there will be a large selection of figs to choose from.

member having a link to their personal web site?  What about limiting the
number of pictures to each gallery or will that be up to the member?


Links to personal sites is a good idea!

As for limits, As long as the content is interesting (i.e. not 30,000 copies
of the same picture) we are limited only by the system resources (which
can be expanded as required.

KL

    
          
      
Subject: 
Re: Announcing Brickshelf.com Gallery for everyone!
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.publish
Date: 
Sat, 12 Feb 2000 04:09:01 GMT
Viewed: 
1528 times
  

allowing custom minifigs from the member to be displayed?  How about for each

Yes, and even better you will be able to assign any icon in your collection
to be the icon for any folder in your collection.  I might allow that for
the user icon otherwise there will be a large selection of figs to choose
from.

I like this idea.  I prefer a large assortment of minifigs for each user to
select on the main page, but having our own icons for the folders would be
cool.  I imagine someone like Larry having a GMLTC folder with their logo as
the link to the folder.  There needs to be some way to tell if it's a
sub-folder or a picture though since both could be in the same folder.

If you (or some other artist) could come up with a bunch of standard icons, I
think that would be a nice place to start.  That way we could still put up a
Town icon on our town folders even if we don't yet have a nice icon of our own.
If I'm someone that is good at building but terrible at art, I'd like to have
a good selection (5 or so of each subject) of defaults to choose from.

Back to the minifigs though, do you think it would add a significant load-up
time for the main page if we all chose different figs?

Ben Roller

     
           
      
Subject: 
Re: Announcing Brickshelf.com Gallery for everyone!
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.publish
Date: 
Sat, 12 Feb 2000 04:51:36 GMT
Viewed: 
1589 times
  

In lugnet.publish, Ben Roller writes:
[...]
Back to the minifigs though, do you think it would add a significant load-up
time for the main page if we all chose different figs?

Depends on the size of the images and the number of images per page.  The
neat thing is, with modern browsers and servers, a whole bunch of small
images totalling, say, 100KB can be transferred in roughly the same time
as one big 100KB image.

For example, here's a page containing 500 all-different randomly-generated
minifigs:

   http://www.lugnet.com/people/members/minifig-test/

Each minifig there is 28x50 pixels and the file sizes average 909 bytes each,
for a total download size of approximately 500KB, including the index page
and HTTP protocol overhead.  It's a slow-loading page, but then again there
are quite a few images.

--Todd

     
           
      
Subject: 
Re: Announcing Brickshelf.com Gallery for everyone!
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.publish
Date: 
Sat, 12 Feb 2000 23:46:27 GMT
Viewed: 
1647 times
  

In lugnet.publish, Todd Lehman writes:
For example, here's a page containing 500 all-different randomly-generated
minifigs:

  http://www.lugnet.com/people/members/minifig-test/

Wow!  Would it be possible to generate all of those with a height
of 128 pixels (total, including space above and below fig.)?
Those would look *much* better than my lousy scans (and I could add
that feature *much* faster) :)

KL

     
           
      
Subject: 
Re: Announcing Brickshelf.com Gallery for everyone!
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.publish
Date: 
Sun, 13 Feb 2000 12:01:59 GMT
Viewed: 
1931 times
  

In lugnet.publish, Kevin Loch writes:
In lugnet.publish, Todd Lehman writes:
For example, here's a page containing 500 all-different randomly-generated
minifigs:

  http://www.lugnet.com/people/members/minifig-test/

Wow!  Would it be possible to generate all of those with a height
of 128 pixels (total, including space above and below fig.)?

Technically speaking, it's possible to generate them at a variety of small
sizes -- it's basically just some pipefitting and scripting with pnmtools.
But then again it was just a little experiment page -- something from the
back burner at lugnet.com.


Those would look *much* better than my lousy scans (and I could add
that feature *much* faster) :)

Oops, sounds like there's been a bit of a misunderstanding(?).  When I wrote
"here's a page..." above, it wasn't to say "here are a bunch of images to
take/use" but rather (literally) to say (to Ben, to address his question)
simply "here is the existance of a page" which demonstrates that download
speed isn't too bad for lots of images when they're very small.  In other
words, it was a technical demonstration.

I didn't mention this before because it didn't seem relevant, but that page
was created on August 21, 1998 (at a different URL back then) and was simply
something lying around on the back burner that happened to be relevant to the
discussion (Ben's question in particular).  Although it probably didn't take
more than a couple hours to make back then, it wasn't something assembled
yesterday on-the-fly for any particular purpose or suggestion.

--Todd

     
           
      
Subject: 
Re: Announcing Brickshelf.com Gallery for everyone!
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.publish
Date: 
Sun, 13 Feb 2000 17:58:00 GMT
Reply-To: 
cjc@newsguy.%NoMoreSpam%com
Viewed: 
1759 times
  

On Sun, 13 Feb 2000 12:01:59 GMT, "Todd Lehman" <lehman@javanet.com>
wrote:

I didn't mention this before because it didn't seem relevant, but that page
was created on August 21, 1998 (at a different URL back then) and was simply
something lying around on the back burner that happened to be relevant to the
discussion (Ben's question in particular).  Although it probably didn't take
more than a couple hours to make back then, it wasn't something assembled
yesterday on-the-fly for any particular purpose or suggestion.

On a much lighter note, I really liked how the page loaded.  I am
guessing that the order in which the images appeared on the page was
not caused by anything other than load times, but it was cool to watch
gaps appear in the lines of minifigs then watch them be filled in
later...

And yeah, it doesn't take much to amuse me.

--
The parts you want and nothing else?
http://jaba.dtrh.com/ - Just Another Brick Auction

    
          
      
Subject: 
Re: Announcing Brickshelf.com Gallery for everyone!
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.publish
Date: 
Sat, 12 Feb 2000 04:16:16 GMT
Viewed: 
1675 times
  

In lugnet.publish, Kevin Loch writes:
Yes, and even better you will be able to assign any icon in your collection
to be the icon for any folder in your collection.  I might allow that for
the user icon otherwise there will be a large selection of figs to choose
from.
Could you make a minifig generator-like device to make our own figs?
Alan
This message's random set is: 8523, www.lugnet.com/pause/search/?query=8523

    
          
     
Subject: 
Re: Announcing Brickshelf.com Gallery for everyone!
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.publish
Date: 
Sat, 12 Feb 2000 04:36:43 GMT
Viewed: 
1544 times
  

In lugnet.publish, Kevin Loch writes:
In lugnet.publish, Barbara Sproat writes:
[...] Or how about allowing custom minifigs from the member to be
displayed? [...]

[...] otherwise there will be a large selection of figs to choose from.

Do you think this is safe (from a legal standpoint)?  LEGO has already done
this for members at the LEGO MINDSTORMS website.

We had planned to do this for LUGNET members, but then LEGO went and put
their own minifig generator to use:

   http://www.legomindstorms.com/members/index.asp?Userid=151
   http://www.legomindstorms.com/members/index.asp?Userid=154
   http://www.legomindstorms.com/members/index.asp?Userid=165
   http://www.legomindstorms.com/members/index.asp?Userid=168
   etc.

The reason it made us nervous when they did that is because it seems likely
(or at least possible) that people at TLC could assume that they had thought
up the idea first -- and that if we did it afterwards, that we must've stolen
[sic] the idea.  But the idea of an interactive minifig generator was first
demonstrated on the net way back in 1997:

   http://www.baseplate.com/toys/minifig/

So we've hesitated to incorporate things of that nature.  (Which isn't to
suggest that they'll never ever go in.)

Maybe we're just being overly cautious.

--Todd

    
          
      
Subject: 
Re: Announcing Brickshelf.com Gallery for everyone!
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.publish
Date: 
Sat, 12 Feb 2000 04:49:22 GMT
Reply-To: 
LPIENIAZEK@NOVERA.ihatespamCOM
Viewed: 
1591 times
  

Todd Lehman wrote:

In lugnet.publish, Kevin Loch writes:
In lugnet.publish, Barbara Sproat writes:
[...] Or how about allowing custom minifigs from the member to be
displayed? [...]

[...] otherwise there will be a large selection of figs to choose from.

Do you think this is safe (from a legal standpoint)?  LEGO has already done
this for members at the LEGO MINDSTORMS website.

We had planned to do this for LUGNET members, but then LEGO went and put
their own minifig generator to use:

   http://www.legomindstorms.com/members/index.asp?Userid=151
   http://www.legomindstorms.com/members/index.asp?Userid=154
   http://www.legomindstorms.com/members/index.asp?Userid=165
   http://www.legomindstorms.com/members/index.asp?Userid=168
   etc.

The reason it made us nervous when they did that is because it seems likely
(or at least possible) that people at TLC could assume that they had thought
up the idea first -- and that if we did it afterwards, that we must've stolen
[sic] the idea.  But the idea of an interactive minifig generator was first
demonstrated on the net way back in 1997:

   http://www.baseplate.com/toys/minifig/

So we've hesitated to incorporate things of that nature.  (Which isn't to
suggest that they'll never ever go in.)

Maybe we're just being overly cautious.

Lemme see if I get what you're saying. You guys thought of something
first, have clearly established prior art, and when TLC comes out with
the same idea, significantly after you do, you decide to not do it any
more because they might think you stole it from them?

Yes, you're being overly cautious.

IMHO.

--
Larry Pieniazek - lpieniazek@mercator.com - http://my.voyager.net/lar
http://www.mercator.com. Mercator, the e-business transformation company
fund Lugnet(tm): http://www.ebates.com/ ref: lar, 1/2 $$ to lugnet.

Note: this is a family forum!

     
           
      
Subject: 
Re: Announcing Brickshelf.com Gallery for everyone!
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.publish
Date: 
Sat, 12 Feb 2000 05:20:50 GMT
Viewed: 
1600 times
  

In lugnet.publish, Larry Pieniazek writes:
Lemme see if I get what you're saying. You guys thought of something
first, have clearly established prior art, and when TLC comes out with
the same idea, significantly after you do, you decide to not do it any
more because they might think you stole it from them?

No, sorry, I forgot the other related concerns...  What's above is probably
only about 30-50% of it.  One other thing was that it suddenly seemed a lot
less unique and special after TLC went and did it, and we had always kinda
wanted stuff on LUGNET to be special.  On the other hand, no one I know ever
visits or hardly ever even mentions the official LEGO MINDSTORMS site (we all
know why), so it could still be special.  Another concern is that Mini-Figure
imagery are trade dress and copyrights owned by LEGO, so it would really suck
to have it up and then be asked to take it down if they suddenly had a change
of heart.  In 1997, we had met with TLC (then TLG) legal counsel to talk
about (among other things) the subtleties of displaying minifig torso art,
and although a photo of a minifig which just happens to be part of a scene is
one thing, a close-up scan or image-filling photo is quite a different thing.
The main concern they had with Suzanne's Minifig Generator at the time was
that it didn't acknowledge that LEGO owned the designs.

As far as establishing priority (in the legal sense of the word), we could
probably put a note or a link on key pages explaining that the idea was not
in fact ripped off from LEGO's site.

--Todd

    
          
     
Subject: 
Re: Announcing Brickshelf.com Gallery for everyone!
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.publish
Date: 
Sat, 12 Feb 2000 06:31:29 GMT
Viewed: 
1635 times
  

In lugnet.publish, Todd Lehman writes:
In lugnet.publish, Kevin Loch writes:
In lugnet.publish, Barbara Sproat writes:
[...] Or how about allowing custom minifigs from the member to be
displayed? [...]

I see that my being unable to work has had some more consequences. I can't say
I'm unaffected by this conversation. Being discharged from hospital only
yesterday, and now leaving for ToyFair on Sunday, there won't be much I can say
here or do.

[...]
We had planned to do this for LUGNET members, but then LEGO went and put
their own minifig generator to use:[...]
The reason it made us nervous when they did that is because it seems likely
(or at least possible) that people at TLC could assume that they had thought
up the idea first -- and that if we did it afterwards, that we must've stolen
[sic] the idea.  But the idea of an interactive minifig generator was first
demonstrated on the net way back in 1997:

  http://www.baseplate.com/toys/minifig/

Actually, I think it was up and working in 1996. It didn't have its fancy
typography and disclaimer written until later.

In 1997 I wrote code for additional online capabilities -- which are not active
right now because I was fussy about how it looked.

And last year I did scans for a DUPLO fig generator and prepared more minifig
graphics.

I still intend to make the Minifig Generator a live tool for LUGNET. It's only a
matter of time.


So we've hesitated to incorporate things of that nature.  (Which isn't to
suggest that they'll never ever go in.)

Maybe we're just being overly cautious.

--Todd

TLC's actions would not stop me from adding this feature to our site. Seeing
their "avitar maker" made me a bit upset (partly because they did such a poor
job). But I don't feel threatened by it.

The issues you bring up here (Todd) are ones I remember discussing, but I
believed LUGNET was still developing along its original course.

-Suz.

    
          
     
Subject: 
Re: Announcing Brickshelf.com Gallery for everyone!
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.publish
Date: 
Sun, 13 Feb 2000 00:01:09 GMT
Viewed: 
1734 times
  

In lugnet.publish, Suzanne D. Rich writes:
TLC's actions would not stop me from adding this feature to our site. Seeing
their "avitar maker" made me a bit upset (partly because they did such a poor
job). But I don't feel threatened by it.

The issues you bring up here (Todd) are ones I remember discussing, but I
believed LUGNET was still developing along its original course.

-Suz.

I knew there would be some interesting issues around the whole minifig thing.
To be clear I *did* get the idea from Suzanne's minifig generator,
not the Mindstorms site.

However.... I never planned to have an interactive generator, rather just
a selection of (say 50-100) scans.  Since todd demonstrated how easy it is
to generate a large number of quality renderings, That would generate
better results than the scans (assuming he let me use them).  Otherwise
I guess I'll have to see if I can get my scanner to work again.  It went
kaput after I did the second fig!  The first was Timmy....

I did consider the trade dress issue as well, but since it's being used
in good taste, appropriate disclaimers should be all that is necessary.

If they had to be removed for whatever reason, it would be easy enough
to allow users to select their own icon (from their online images) as their
avatar.

KL

    
          
     
Subject: 
Re: Announcing Brickshelf.com Gallery for everyone!
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.publish
Date: 
Sun, 13 Feb 2000 11:09:44 GMT
Viewed: 
1794 times
  

In lugnet.publish, Suzanne D. Rich writes:
I see that my being unable to work has had some more consequences. I can't
say I'm unaffected by this conversation. Being discharged from hospital
only yesterday, and now leaving for ToyFair on Sunday, there won't be
much I can say here or do.  [...]
TLC's actions would not stop me from adding this feature to our site.

In lugnet.publish, Kevin Loch writes:
I knew there would be some interesting issues around the whole minifig thing.

I would like to know exactly what you expected. Particularly, how I would feel
(as you are replying to my message here). I only posted to this thread because
"the whole minifig thing" is quite personal to me.

To be clear I *did* get the idea from Suzanne's minifig generator,
not the Mindstorms site.

To be clear, where you took the idea from was not the issue.

However.... I never planned to have an interactive generator, rather just
a selection of (say 50-100) scans.  Since todd demonstrated how easy it is
to generate a large number of quality renderings, That would generate
better results than the scans (assuming he let me use them).

So, you plan to generate minifigs using the scans I did? (!)
I will not give permission to republish images taken from my site. See fine
print on the site:

"The Minifig Generator was created by Suzanne D. Rich  © 1997. LEGO® is a
trademark of the LEGO Group of companies which does not sponsor, authorize or
endorse this site. Images of LEGO® brand products found here, although recorded
by Suzanne D. Rich, still remain part of the LEGO Group's trademarked visual
identity. Suzanne D. Rich can not grant permission for any such images to be
downloaded or linked to. They may NOT be republished without permission from the
LEGO Group. Please help to keep their trademarks strong. Read and heed the LEGO
Group's Fair Play document."

Not to mention the weeks of work I put into those images. They are not straight
scans. They were carefully adjusted in Adobe Photoshop to be precisely matching
in size, color and proportions.

I have to catch a train now.

-Suz.

    
          
      
Subject: 
Re: Announcing Brickshelf.com Gallery for everyone!
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.publish
Date: 
Sun, 13 Feb 2000 16:22:48 GMT
Reply-To: 
lpieniazek@novera.NOSPAMcom
Viewed: 
1956 times
  

Heavily snipped

Suzanne D. Rich wrote:
Kevin Loch said:
In lugnet.publish, Suzanne D. Rich writes:

However.... I never planned to have an interactive generator, rather just
a selection of (say 50-100) scans.  Since todd demonstrated how easy it is
to generate a large number of quality renderings, That would generate
better results than the scans

(assuming he let me use them).
broke out for emphasis

So, you plan to generate minifigs using the scans I did? (!)

I suspect Kev might, IF you gave permission. I doubt he'd do it without
your permission. He doesn't operate that way.

I will not give permission to republish images taken from my site. See fine
print on the site:

"The Minifig Generator was created by Suzanne D. Rich  © 1997. LEGO® is a
trademark of the LEGO Group of companies which does not sponsor, authorize or
endorse this site. Images of LEGO® brand products found here, although recorded
by Suzanne D. Rich, still remain part of the LEGO Group's trademarked visual
identity.

Suzanne D. Rich can not grant permission
broke out for emphasis

for any such images to be
downloaded or linked to. They may NOT be republished without permission

from the LEGO Group.
broke out for emphasis

Please help to keep their trademarks strong. Read and heed the LEGO
Group's Fair Play document."

I'm not sure I agree with 100% of this fine print. Where I think it
breaks down is that the permission to republish images (for
noncommercial, fannish use) typically rests with the image originator.

Specifically, Fair Play says that scans of Lego trade dress items (in
images that TLC produced such as instructions or catalogs) may indeed be
used by fans, although it does not specifically address photographs or
scans of physical items themselves. By inference, though, it is OK to
create such images. Else all of us who have personal creation websites
(whether the items on them are photoed or generated with LDraw or POVray
or whatever) are in a lot of trouble. Surely that's not what is
intended, so as is usual in IP law, we reason from intent and from
similarity. MOCs are similar to scans in that they involve TLC trade
dress elements, but they are different in that they aren't works of TLC,
they are works of others. Therefore they are more weakly protected.

Now, given that we have the right to create and display MOC images, who
has the right to decide whether they can be reproduced? They're TLC
trade dress, but to say that no one can link to images or web pages in
the general case is unenforcable. They're your copyrighted material. To
say that ANYONE cal link to them (if they're works that are not
copyrighted by TLC per se, that is, they are your original works and
therefore you hold the ocpyright) and you have no control or
responsibility, is also incorrect.

That is, YOU control who can or can't link or copy these images. You can
set things up technically so that no one can link. You can't technically
stop image capture, although you can legally stop it, (by lawsuit for
copyright infringment) you hold the copyright.

In fact, I would argue that you have some obligation to ensure that
images that you create are NOT used in ways that TLC doesn't sanction,
to the extent of assisting TLC in asserting rights to their trade dress,
but that's a different issue.

OK, so are the results of the minifig generator a MOC? I would argue
that they are. Putting minifigs together in random ways is essentially a
MOC. Now, it's a slightly different MOC than if you actually put them
together physically, but physicality is not required. No one would argue
that Bram's pentawhatzits isn't a MOC, whether he actually realised it
in physicality or not.

SO, this statement " Suzanne D. Rich can not grant permission for any
such images to be
downloaded or linked to." is, IMHO, incorrect. UNLESS you have reached
some special legal arrangement with TLC about these images different
than most of the rest of us have. (most of us have no special
arrangement with TLC, we are merely bound by Fair Play) That may well be
the case, but if so you probably ought to explicitly say so in the fine
print because as it stands, I feel it's misleading to those that might
want to model after it, it draws invalid inferences.

Now, all that said, you may well not want to give Kev the right to use
these things. You, after all, put a lot of work into them, and
brickshelf, after all, may be viewed as a (friendly) competitor to
Lugnet. It has implemented some (relatively minor) things of the Lugnet
Manifesto faster than Lugnet itself has. (Huw's site can also be viewed
as competition in that it also implemented some things in the manifesto)
Competition is good. It drives feature set improvement. The Pause DB
search and org features are better now than they were before Huw did his
reorg with new ways to get at the info.

But that doesn't mean you have to HELP your competition and so you are
under no obligation to allow Kevin to use these images to make his site
more fun. Kevin may well have to do the hard work of scanning, resizing,
cleaning up, etc... himself. If he did so, the resulting images (derived
from the the resulting MOC behind them) would be his, not TLC's
copyrighted work.

But the conclusion that someone else HAS to reproduce your work in order
to get the effect because you CAN'T grant the rights may not be a valid
one. It's YOUR choice. That's my opinion anyway.

Not to mention the weeks of work I put into those images. They are not straight
scans. They were carefully adjusted in Adobe Photoshop to be precisely matching
in size, color and proportions.

And that's why you may well not want to grant permission. I have stuff I
did that took a lot of work that I assert copyright on and have no
intention of granting blanket permission to. But it's my decision, not
TLC's. I care a lot about this discussion for that very reason. If my
MOCs are not mine to decide what to do with, and my MOC images are not
mine to do what I want with, subject only to Fair Play (not defaming or
infringing on TLC branding or copyrights or trade dress, or leaving
false impressions with consumers), it takes a lot of fun out of the
game.

I have to catch a train now.

Lucky you! best way to travel.

--
Larry Pieniazek - lpieniazek@mercator.com - http://my.voyager.net/lar
http://www.mercator.com. Mercator, the e-business transformation company
fund Lugnet(tm): http://www.ebates.com/ ref: lar, 1/2 $$ to lugnet.

Note: this is a family forum!

     
           
       
Subject: 
Re: Announcing Brickshelf.com Gallery for everyone!
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.publish
Date: 
Sun, 13 Feb 2000 17:25:41 GMT
Viewed: 
2126 times
  

Larry Pieniazek <lar@voyager.net> writes:
No one would argue that Bram's pentawhatzits isn't a MOC, whether
he actually realised it in physicality or not.

I'm getting mentioned quite a lot today :)  For anyone interested, the
name is bastardized Latin (using a dictionary, I don't speak Latin)
Five-  wing-  nifty suffix
Penta- pteri- goid
I _have_ built the model and its cradle, which actually holds it quite
well.  There is a bit of warpage in the horizontal axle-thingy, but I
have a ton of those from MindFest, so I don't mind.
However, there *are* a few models that I've never built...can you guess
which ones?[1] :)
--Bram


1) Shameless plug to build traffic.  (See sig for URL)


Bram Lambrecht           / o   o \           BramL@juno.com
-------------------oooo-----(_)-----oooo-------------------
    WWW:   http://www.chuh.org/Students/Bram-Lambrecht/
-----------------------------------------------------------

      
            
       
Subject: 
Re: Announcing Brickshelf.com Gallery for everyone!
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.publish
Date: 
Sun, 13 Feb 2000 20:39:12 GMT
Viewed: 
2171 times
  

Bram said:
I _have_ built the model and its cradle, which actually holds it quite
well.  There is a bit of warpage in the horizontal axle-thingy, but I
have a ton of those from MindFest, so I don't mind.
However, there *are* a few models that I've never built...can you guess
which ones?[1] :)
The Zero.
Alan
This message's random set is: 6505,
http://www.lugnet.com/pause/search/?query=6505

     
           
      
Subject: 
Re: Announcing Brickshelf.com Gallery for everyone!
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.publish
Date: 
Mon, 14 Feb 2000 03:49:10 GMT
Viewed: 
1945 times
  

In lugnet.publish, Larry Pieniazek writes:
Heavily snipped
ditto.

brickshelf, after all, may be viewed as a (friendly) competitor to

I don't see it that way, although I can understand why some would.
I am not a big fan of duplicating other peoples efforts.
That's why I never made a set database, because a great one already
existed.

I was unaware that image hosting was in the Lugnet long-term plan.
It does seem to be a logical extension of the Brickshelf site,
which is essentially an image warehouse.  The gallery function grew out
of the need for people to host their personal images.  This was also
a great project for me to further develop my C skills with.

I guess you could consider the "Member Index" as a community which might
compete with the Lugnet community.  I expect the member index to become
irrelevant as soon as the "recent stuff" page is working.  I really had no
choice.  If people are going to upload images, they need verified accounts,
and you need some logical way to access/present that information.  The
member index is just a side-effect of the image warehouse, not the focus.
The focus is and always will be on the content.

KL

     
           
      
Subject: 
Re: Announcing Brickshelf.com Gallery for everyone!
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.publish
Date: 
Mon, 14 Feb 2000 04:58:17 GMT
Viewed: 
1928 times
  

In lugnet.publish, Kevin Loch writes:
I was unaware that image hosting was in the Lugnet long-term plan.

I'd say if anything it's in the really really long-term plan -- someday when
bandwidth grows on trees.  Image hosting was the very first thing Suzanne and
I talked about doing back in the summer of '96 but as soon as it became clear
that places like Geocities could do that sort of thing already, there didn't
seem to be much point in ever worrying about that.

What you've created is incredible, BTW, and far cooler than Geocities could
ever be for images and stuff!

--Todd

    
          
      
Subject: 
Re: Announcing Brickshelf.com Gallery for everyone!
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.publish
Date: 
Sun, 13 Feb 2000 17:55:00 GMT
Reply-To: 
cjc@newsguy.NOMORESPAMcom
Viewed: 
1836 times
  

On Sun, 13 Feb 2000 11:09:44 GMT, "Suzanne D. Rich"
<suz@baseplate.com> wrote:

However.... I never planned to have an interactive generator, rather just
a selection of (say 50-100) scans.  Since todd demonstrated how easy it is
to generate a large number of quality renderings, That would generate
better results than the scans (assuming he let me use them).

So, you plan to generate minifigs using the scans I did? (!)

I read that as "if Todd (assuming Todd has your permission to do so)
let me use them" I would use them.  Or, more broadly, "since this is
something people are already asking for, and since I've already put a
ton of work into putting together the other parts of this Gallery
which is probably the coolest thing people have seen in a long time,
sure, I'd make use of those images and save myself a little time, and
at the same time provide people with high-quality images - IF it's ok
with the person (people) who made the images."

I will not give permission to republish images taken from my site. See fine
print on the site:

"The Minifig Generator was created by Suzanne D. Rich  © 1997. LEGO® is a
trademark of the LEGO Group of companies which does not sponsor, authorize or
endorse this site. Images of LEGO® brand products found here, although recorded
by Suzanne D. Rich, still remain part of the LEGO Group's trademarked visual
identity. Suzanne D. Rich can not grant permission for any such images to be
downloaded or linked to. They may NOT be republished without permission from the
LEGO Group. Please help to keep their trademarks strong. Read and heed the LEGO
Group's Fair Play document."

I read what Larry wrote.  I'm not a lawyer, though, so I don't really
have much of an opinion.  What he says seems well-thought-out, but who
knows.

Not to mention the weeks of work I put into those images. They are not straight
scans. They were carefully adjusted in Adobe Photoshop to be precisely matching
in size, color and proportions.

And I'm sure we all can appreciate the work you've put into it, just
like we can appreciate all the work lots of people have put into
sites, programs, etc that we've all come to know and love.

**If** the Lego Group issues aren't really an issue, this seems to
mainly boil down to a sharing/respect issue.  We've seen Kevin (and
Todd and others) be respectful and sharing before, especially in the
interest of doing cool things for the community.  Not sure why this
would be very different, but then again, it's not my stuff or my work
that went into it, so I wouldn't presume to tell you what to do with
it.

I'll like the Gallery whether it continues to have one minifig image
for everyone or many images from which to choose, including those we
might provide for ourselves.  The functionality is what really
matters, although the decoration would make it more
interesting/pleasing to look at and work with.


--
The parts you want and nothing else?
http://jaba.dtrh.com/ - Just Another Brick Auction

    
          
     
Subject: 
Re: Announcing Brickshelf.com Gallery for everyone!
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.publish
Date: 
Sun, 13 Feb 2000 23:29:53 GMT
Viewed: 
1936 times
  

In lugnet.publish, Suzanne D. Rich writes:

I would like to know exactly what you expected. Particularly, how I would feel
(as you are replying to my message here). I only posted to this thread because
"the whole minifig thing" is quite personal to me.

Since I had no intentions of using a "minifig generator", I diddn't think
you would be affected at all.  I did expect some discussion about the IP issues
with TLC.

To be clear, where you took the idea from was not the issue.

ok.


So, you plan to generate minifigs using the scans I did? (!)
I will not give permission to republish images taken from my site. See fine
print on the site:

Absolutely not!  I never said that!  In fact what I said is that I planned
to use my scans.  I think you are confusing my plan of allowing users to select
from specific minifigs and your minifig generator (clearly two different
functions).  And when I asked Todd to generate the 500 figs for me I had
assumed that they were renderings, generated on the fly, not your scans (that's
the way they looked to me).  The fact that (I thought) they were rendered
was why I figured they would be better quality than scans.  Please read what
I say carefully before you accuse me of trying to steal something.

KL

    
          
     
Subject: 
Re: Announcing Brickshelf.com Gallery for everyone!
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.publish
Date: 
Sun, 13 Feb 2000 23:55:55 GMT
Viewed: 
1921 times
  

In lugnet.publish, Kevin Loch writes:
So, you plan to generate minifigs using the scans I did? (!)
I will not give permission to republish images taken from my site. See fine
print on the site:

Absolutely not!  I never said that!  In fact what I said is that I planned
to use my scans.  I think you are confusing my plan of allowing users to
select from specific minifigs and your minifig generator (clearly two
different functions).  And when I asked Todd to generate the 500 figs for
me I had assumed that they were renderings, generated on the fly, not your
scans (that's the way they looked to me).  The fact that (I thought) they
were rendered was why I figured they would be better quality than scans.
Please read what I say carefully before you accuse me of trying to steal
something.

I think she misunderstood what you meant.  She'd been up most of the night
packing for a 6:45 a.m. train and had logged in quick just to check mail,
etc. and probably wasn't expecting to encounter anything out of the ordinary.
Probably read the message with a bit of haste and/or panic...

Apologies.

--Todd

   
         
   
Subject: 
Re: Announcing Brickshelf.com Gallery for everyone!
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.publish
Date: 
Mon, 14 Feb 2000 00:17:31 GMT
Viewed: 
1484 times
  

"Alan Gerber" <foofoogood@hotmail.com> writes:
Bram said:
However, there *are* a few models that I've never built...can you
guess which ones?[1] :)

The Zero.

Well, I admit that on the page of that model.  There are others :)
--Bram


Bram Lambrecht           / o   o \           BramL@juno.com
-------------------oooo-----(_)-----oooo-------------------
    WWW:   http://www.chuh.org/Students/Bram-Lambrecht/
-----------------------------------------------------------

 

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