Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you Should Know
Speaker 1: from House Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to
Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant
Speaker 1: with his hair looking mighty fine. Today is a good
Speaker 1: hair day. Yeah, oh, it's a great hair day. Thanks man. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're doing great. You're feeling good, pet people energy and happy.
Speaker 1: My hair is happy, yeah, Chuck, Josh, Hey man, let's
Speaker 1: before we get started, we should plug Facebook, Twitter and
Speaker 1: your mom's cooking. Uh, my mom's cooking is great. Facebook.
Speaker 1: You can find us at Stuff you Should Know in
Speaker 1: the search bar, and we're personally interacting. Now. It's not
Speaker 1: a ghost writer, it's not it's not a net bot.
Speaker 1: And you'll be able to tell because it's clearly our
Speaker 1: silly and a in voices. Yeah, and we chuck started
Speaker 1: the trend that solved a big problem of saying, hey,
Speaker 1: Chuck here because our profile pictures the album art for
Speaker 1: our podcast. I don't want people to get what we're
Speaker 1: saying confused, but me, my words are my words. I
Speaker 1: don't want them to be like I didn't know Josh
Speaker 1: was an old crotchety man. Yeah, he's just a young jerk.
Speaker 1: I didn't know Chuck was in a fight club. Um.
Speaker 1: So that's Facebook, and we already had a page, but
Speaker 1: we consolidated him. If you were a fan of the
Speaker 1: old page, they ain't around anymore. Joined the new one,
Speaker 1: will you. Let's get with it and Twitter. We're tweeting
Speaker 1: at s y s K. Podcast is the name of
Speaker 1: our account and should be funny and fun and I'm
Speaker 1: trying to follow Cocoa's lead. Oh yeah, well I was
Speaker 1: anti Twitter until I saw Comen O'Brien's I think I
Speaker 1: told you that, and they were just they were funny,
Speaker 1: and I thought, you know what, I could do that? Yeah,
Speaker 1: well of course you can. You're Chuck Bryant characters. I
Speaker 1: can do that. Yeah, we're t he in sixty pal
Speaker 1: that was it. I don't know and I will figure
Speaker 1: it out alright when it cuts me off in the
Speaker 1: middle of the sentence. Alright, So we're doing with plug
Speaker 1: Fest two thousand ten, right, okay, Chuck, Josh, Mr Jake
Speaker 1: Jillen Hall. He uh, he's finally arrived. Donnie Darko himself. Yeah,
Speaker 1: h much to his chagrin. He was not a member
Speaker 1: of the cast of the Fine Fine Picture Hot Tub
Speaker 1: Time Machine, but he was cast in the starring role
Speaker 1: for Prince of Persia the Sands of Time or something. Right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I saw the trailer for that the other day. As
Speaker 1: a result, Mr Gillen Hall will now have his own
Speaker 1: Lego Mini figure. Well, and as a result, he's very
Speaker 1: buff now you see it. He got all the jacked
Speaker 1: up for the for the role as the Prince of Persia. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but again, what we're focusing on here is the Lego
Speaker 1: Mini figure. Well, but is the Mini figure buff? It
Speaker 1: has stubble and there's something of a resemblance to Hi,
Speaker 1: which is that really kind of a new trend among
Speaker 1: Legos really to look like the thing or to just
Speaker 1: be branded like that. Well both they started branding or
Speaker 1: working with licensed brands with Star Wars and they were like, oh,
Speaker 1: we don't know, this kind of goes against our corporate
Speaker 1: philosophy letting kids use their imagination. All of a sudden,
Speaker 1: sales weren't through the roof. And they're like, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: so this is what this is the way we put
Speaker 1: it now. Uh, we let kids imaginations run wild with
Speaker 1: the added element of storytelling. So which is cool? Lego Lego,
Speaker 1: the Lego Group is what they're called. From what I understand,
Speaker 1: it is a pretty great company, to tell you the truth.
Speaker 1: And we should say, well, this is a no way,
Speaker 1: in no way our Chuck and I Wilfer Brimley esque
Speaker 1: compensated endorsers. Yeah, when we do a brand name like this,
Speaker 1: don't don't think that we're we're shilling because we just
Speaker 1: have chosen some of these iconic brands to cover because
Speaker 1: I think it's interesting. It's part of pop culture, it's
Speaker 1: part of who we are, and people seem to dig it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So anyway, now we're not getting rich off the Legos unfortunately.
Speaker 1: So to answer your question, Um, they started doing the branded,
Speaker 1: the licensing, branding sets like Star Wars. I think that
Speaker 1: there was their first big hit. Indiana Jones was another
Speaker 1: big hit. Harry Potter obviously, but um, it wasn't until
Speaker 1: they started, um and until they released the Lego basketball set.
Speaker 1: They started messing with skin tone. Up until that point,
Speaker 1: if you had a Lego character, even if it was
Speaker 1: based on somebody, um, it was yellow. And they for
Speaker 1: a while there, they were a sexual right, they were
Speaker 1: neither male nor female. Right. In four when they released
Speaker 1: the first figures, they had a neutral facial expression. They
Speaker 1: were genderless and race less, but in a in a
Speaker 1: kind of a backhanded nod to women. The female character
Speaker 1: was the first gender specific character introduced, wait for it,
Speaker 1: as a nurse, yeah, for their hospital play set. Right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: because there's no such thing as male nurses. Right. Yeah? Interesting? Yeah,
Speaker 1: well that was better than at least they made her
Speaker 1: a working woman, and they didn't say the first one
Speaker 1: is you know, Betty homemaker, right, or a homeless person. Yeah,
Speaker 1: let's start at the at the begin we got plenty
Speaker 1: of This is a stat heavy extravaganza. Yeah. Yeah, Chuck's
Speaker 1: all excited. That's why your hair looks so good. It's
Speaker 1: standing up in excitement. Uh. Legos, Josh, like you said,
Speaker 1: the Lego group, they employed about five thousand people. They
Speaker 1: got about a hundred and fifty designers of eighteen nationalities
Speaker 1: on their team, and they began way back in nineteen
Speaker 1: thirty two. And I love this guy's name, Old Kirk Christensen. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and his first name is O. L. E. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: we are we've decided to refer to him as Old
Speaker 1: Kirk Christensen, Old Kirk Christensen, do you remember when we
Speaker 1: went to Tamburg and we found out one of their
Speaker 1: vice president's name was Odd John. We're like, this is
Speaker 1: the most punk rock telecommunications firm. We never well, no,
Speaker 1: it's that Odd is actually a very common name in
Speaker 1: in uh Norwegian countries. Wait wait, let me just double
Speaker 1: check my facts. Is Denmark Norwegian country? Yeah, we got
Speaker 1: that wrong with another ones and we heard about it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we did. That's a in podcast correction. We don't usually
Speaker 1: do that, so Old Kirk Christensen. Yes, he comes up
Speaker 1: from Denmark, from bill and Denmark, which is where the
Speaker 1: corporate headquarters still are. Yeah, the first Lego land is
Speaker 1: still there, that's right. Um. He at first joshed me
Speaker 1: things out of wood, wooden toys and things like that,
Speaker 1: little ladders, and he did so until nineteen sixty when
Speaker 1: the warehouse burned was destroyed in the fire. And I
Speaker 1: thought it was then that he said. It would have
Speaker 1: been a much better story if he would have said, oh,
Speaker 1: I need to work with plastic now, but that's plastic inflammable. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because he uh, he started working with plastic long before that. Um,
Speaker 1: and I think nineteen seven plastic not coincidentally, that's the
Speaker 1: year that his son took over. Yeah, and his son
Speaker 1: started saying, we need to plastics, it's the way of
Speaker 1: the future, and they started tinkering around with legos, right well, yeah,
Speaker 1: the first one, the first thing they made in was
Speaker 1: the automated binding brick and that was kind of like
Speaker 1: the first modern Lego brick, but it didn't have the tubes.
Speaker 1: We'll get to the construction in a minute, but it
Speaker 1: didn't have the tubes, a little interior tube, so it
Speaker 1: wasn't things weren't a stable, so it was sort of
Speaker 1: like just the beta version, right, um, but what was
Speaker 1: it Night? That's when they came up with the current design.
Speaker 1: It's called studding tube coupling system, which, like you said,
Speaker 1: we'll describe in a second. But the cool thing about
Speaker 1: it is it hasn't changed since then. And so if
Speaker 1: you have a brick that was made night and you
Speaker 1: go buy a set today, they'll work together. That is
Speaker 1: I think one of the cooler facts of this whole thing.
Speaker 1: I got one for what's the term lego is actually
Speaker 1: uh an abbreviation of two Danish words, right, leg and goot,
Speaker 1: which put together means play well, So he combined the
Speaker 1: two into Lego. What old Kirk Christensen didn't know was
Speaker 1: that lego in Latin actually means I put together. Really,
Speaker 1: he had no idea, and I bet people think that's
Speaker 1: why he named it. That look at you, josh at
Speaker 1: you so h like I said, or like you said,
Speaker 1: was when they kind of finished the design of the
Speaker 1: modern brick and the rest is history. In the in
Speaker 1: the sixties and seventies, they started introducing other other facets
Speaker 1: to the to the Legos besides just the brick. For instance,
Speaker 1: the Lego technique technique but not technique. It's really technic,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. I'm reading between the lines.
Speaker 1: It hit the market in seventy seven, and uh Mine
Speaker 1: Storms Robots made their debut in ninety eight, and that
Speaker 1: was actually a collaboration with m I T the Technology
Speaker 1: Media Lab there. Yeah, in the eighties, right eighty four
Speaker 1: or something. Uh no, late nineties. I think they got
Speaker 1: together with a starting in like eighty four. Then maybe
Speaker 1: it took that long. Yeah, I could see that. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And also their designers. You would think that all of
Speaker 1: their designers have art school backgrounds or some sort of
Speaker 1: engineering design backgrounds, not necessarily true, my friend. While most
Speaker 1: of their designers do have that, the company says that
Speaker 1: all designers are hired based on their hands on work
Speaker 1: and a face to face interview, And you don't necessarily
Speaker 1: have to have an art background. If you are a
Speaker 1: natural Lego place at designer, that's what you are. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that means you and I could go and try and
Speaker 1: do that. Let's let's give it a shot. We may
Speaker 1: have to, so, Chuck. Over the years, you just spanned
Speaker 1: a few decades. You know, Legos were named Toy of
Speaker 1: the twentieth Century by Fortune magazine in two thousand. Yah,
Speaker 1: I saw that. Yeah, good for them too. Did you
Speaker 1: have Legos? Oh? Yeah, of course I didn't. What I know.
Speaker 1: You know what's funny is I noticed that they're only
Speaker 1: sold in the hundred and thirty countries. I did a
Speaker 1: little background check, Chuck, right, Um, it's not unequal access
Speaker 1: to sanitary drinking water that keeps underdeveloped countries underdeveloped. Turns
Speaker 1: out it's lack of an access to legos. Is that
Speaker 1: what it is? Yeah? Well, they teach you how to
Speaker 1: build and construct things and play together. That's all you're
Speaker 1: all thumbs today, isn't it. Yeah? I mean I was
Speaker 1: into Lincoln logs and because you know, I was born
Speaker 1: in the nineteen thirties and log cabins were how we
Speaker 1: had to do things back in my day. And then
Speaker 1: I had an erector set, which was pretty awesome. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I never get into a directors set. Yeah, that was fun.
Speaker 1: I was kind of been. I was like, look at
Speaker 1: all those Gears employees, what is this? And hot wheels.
Speaker 1: I just want to snap box together hot wheel model cars.
Speaker 1: I was into model cars. Yeah. I would get them
Speaker 1: and I would then destroy them at some point later
Speaker 1: on with firecrackers and stuff. We're not recommending that you
Speaker 1: do that, No, we're not. It's very dangerous. So I
Speaker 1: was saying you you spanned several decades when you gave
Speaker 1: those stats, and in the meantime people have come up with, um,
Speaker 1: some pretty cool uses of Legos have done some pretty
Speaker 1: cool things with them. There is if you go onto YouTube,
Speaker 1: there is a thriller done in Legos, all fourteen minutes
Speaker 1: shot for shot, and it was clearly done in like
Speaker 1: an old like sixteen millimeter camera and it hasn't made
Speaker 1: the jump to digital all that well, but still it's
Speaker 1: pretty impressive. There's some Star Wars stuff on there I've
Speaker 1: seen recreated definitely. Did you know there's a Boba fette
Speaker 1: Lego character. I didn't know that, but it didn't dude
Speaker 1: and Chewbacca, Well there should be icons um in I
Speaker 1: think two thousand eight, Lego and Kellogg's combined shared the
Speaker 1: Blindingly Obvious Danger Award from Consumers International for producing the
Speaker 1: Lego fund snacks, which are gummy fruit choose that look
Speaker 1: exactly like Lego black. Yeah, that's that's like the bag
Speaker 1: of glass from the old right, Yeah, or the super
Speaker 1: Happy fun Ball Yeah yeah, um, and so of course
Speaker 1: those were discontinued in two thousand and eight. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: not a very good idea. And there was a guy
Speaker 1: out there who's actually in the article and there's a
Speaker 1: cool picture of it in the article. Who created the
Speaker 1: um a life size replica of Han Solo frozen in carbonite. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I got info on that guy, do you really? Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's he's a real artist. Yeah he is, you can tell. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we'll get to him later too. That okay. Um. And
Speaker 1: then lastly, Chuck mc escher relativity. Yeah, you know, the
Speaker 1: steps going different, the startas that he did it in
Speaker 1: Legos It is amazing see. That's impressive to me. What
Speaker 1: come on, hand, strong hands? Please? Can you disappoint me today?
Speaker 1: That's all right, I'm just over it. How many times
Speaker 1: can I see that stair thing? You know what? Each
Speaker 1: time you gaze upon it, you're still like riveted, aren't you? Do?
Speaker 1: You know the incredibly disordered or highly ordered brain structure
Speaker 1: requires to see things in that kind of perspective. That's amazing.
Speaker 1: It's not I'm not saying he's a dummy. I'm just
Speaker 1: tired of looking at it. I think we should talk
Speaker 1: about how lego bricks are made. It's a good idea,
Speaker 1: Uh josh. They start out with plastic granules as a
Speaker 1: little plastic, yeah, plastic. It is Acra Loni trial Beautadine
Speaker 1: styrene or ABS. We'll call it a BS, and a
Speaker 1: b S comes to the factory, well, we'll call it factory.
Speaker 1: It's a manufacturing facility um in in drows. I have
Speaker 1: fourteen silos that it are. These things are vacuumed into
Speaker 1: these silos and all in all a factory has a
Speaker 1: close to a million pounds of this granulated plastic, right,
Speaker 1: and all the plastic has already died, so they've got
Speaker 1: fifty two different colors. Yeah, they don't need to worry
Speaker 1: about all that. You wouldn't want to have to color
Speaker 1: it there too. I wonder where that's made initially interesting.
Speaker 1: I don't know, but I did a little background check
Speaker 1: and a B S is actually a very safe plastic.
Speaker 1: It doesn't contain thouts or bispin als. Well. Yeah, because kids,
Speaker 1: despite everything you tell them, are probably gonna put a
Speaker 1: lego in their mouth at one point or not, whether
Speaker 1: it's a lego or a lego fruit too. Right, I
Speaker 1: could see that meeting though. I sort of see it like, boy,
Speaker 1: it's really unsafe to eat these, but they want to
Speaker 1: eat them, so let's just give them when they can eat.
Speaker 1: And then after they're like, oh, Jerry put in like
Speaker 1: a sound effect of somebody slapping their own forehead. So
Speaker 1: what happens from here, buddy, is they take these granules
Speaker 1: and they use a process called injection molding and some
Speaker 1: it's all this is machinery pretty much, of course, and
Speaker 1: they melt the stuff down fifty degrees. Yeah, they're not
Speaker 1: made by hand. Is that a surprise? Right? The four
Speaker 1: degrees it melts the plastic, it injects it into the
Speaker 1: molds and applies between twenty and a d fifty tons
Speaker 1: of pressure. Right. The cool thing is it's these the
Speaker 1: dyes that they use to the injection molds that they use.
Speaker 1: The machining process is so precise. The most it's off
Speaker 1: is zero point zero zero two millimeters, which is relatively
Speaker 1: insignificant for the kind of um the kind of coupling
Speaker 1: system that Lego has used. But first, let's talk about robots.
Speaker 1: I thought you were good about to drop the knowledge
Speaker 1: there on that oats do it. You're talking about the
Speaker 1: interference fit. Yeah, that's what it's called, Josh. It is
Speaker 1: a tube that sticks. I'm sorry that the stud sticks
Speaker 1: into the tube, but it's slightly bigger, which is key
Speaker 1: because that means that presses it apart and allows it
Speaker 1: to stay together using friction. Right. And the the key
Speaker 1: to this chuck is you don't need any kind of fastener.
Speaker 1: It's all friction. It's all resistance. Uh. And that was
Speaker 1: that change in design that they achieved in nine eight.
Speaker 1: Before it was it lacked the tubes, I think, so
Speaker 1: that things would fall apart pretty easy. Now it's like
Speaker 1: once a Lego stuck, brother, it's stuck, well until you
Speaker 1: take it apart exactly. But I mean, think of how
Speaker 1: many pounds of pressure you have to use to overcome
Speaker 1: that friction fit. Yeah, that's true. It's a lot, like
Speaker 1: at least two that's true. So where were we pressure?
Speaker 1: They apply all that pressure, makes it into the little mold,
Speaker 1: takes only seven seconds and they spit it out. Cool.
Speaker 1: It goes into a conveyor, into a ben, goes from
Speaker 1: a bin into the packaging. We could get specific there,
Speaker 1: but it's not the most interesting thing in the world.
Speaker 1: I think the cool thing is is um they have
Speaker 1: robots that way the packages. The reason when you get
Speaker 1: a Lego set, you get different bags, right, because these
Speaker 1: designers have said, we need X number of these blocks
Speaker 1: and next number of these blocks, and they put them
Speaker 1: in different bags so that you can just throw these
Speaker 1: um this prescribed assortment of of bags in a box
Speaker 1: and there's your place set. Right. And then they have
Speaker 1: robots that way the bags before packaging to make sure
Speaker 1: they weigh the precise amount. Pretty cool. And if they don't,
Speaker 1: that's when humans come in. Yeah, humans come in and
Speaker 1: do a little q A along with machines. Machines perform
Speaker 1: the drop torque, tension compression bite and impact tests and humans.
Speaker 1: The Bye test is my favorite. Humans. He's a little beaker.
Speaker 1: I guess the size of a child's epiglottis maybe to
Speaker 1: make sure that it can't um a piece, can't, you know,
Speaker 1: choke a kid to death, because that's a really important
Speaker 1: step in this whole process. Definitely, And the tests, and
Speaker 1: one of my favorite stats, Josh is, out of every
Speaker 1: million Lego pieces made, only about eighteen failed these tests.
Speaker 1: That is point zero zero zero two. No, yes, point
Speaker 1: zero zero zero two. I see four zeros. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: said three and I said four. No, you said three
Speaker 1: zero zero zero zero two. And the castle walls are counterclockwise. Uh.
Speaker 1: And this, like you said, Josh, takes place in bill
Speaker 1: and Denmark. But they have they moved a lot of
Speaker 1: their manufacturing to the Czech Republic because they were kind
Speaker 1: of losing money there and laying people off and after
Speaker 1: the mid nineties, and so they had to make a
Speaker 1: little cheaper and I guess labor whatever is cheaper over
Speaker 1: there in in the Czech Republic must be I guess.
Speaker 1: So that's why it's there now. So check they're making
Speaker 1: a thirty seven thousand Lego sets every hour. Sets sets,
Speaker 1: not bricks and UM, I believe I saw a statistic that, um,
Speaker 1: every seven seconds, another Lego set is sold. Yeah, we
Speaker 1: have some of those fun stats will save the end
Speaker 1: all that time. Sorry for jumping ahead though, That's okay. So, Josh,
Speaker 1: Let's say you wanted to build a Lego project, but
Speaker 1: not a you know, not a little tiny thing to
Speaker 1: put in your pocket, a pocket model. Let. So you
Speaker 1: want to build something kind of big and cool. The
Speaker 1: first thing you need to do is, well, it depends
Speaker 1: what kind of guy you are. I'm a kind of
Speaker 1: guy just dives in and starts building. But that's why
Speaker 1: I'm not an architect or a builder. What you should
Speaker 1: do is plan it out a little bit and decide
Speaker 1: how large you want it, because then you're gonna you know,
Speaker 1: that'll tell you how many bricks you need, how long
Speaker 1: it's gonna take, and that determines your scale, and from
Speaker 1: there you can just kind of move on and be creative.
Speaker 1: You can sketch it out if you want, if you're
Speaker 1: into that, or you could use computer software. You can
Speaker 1: it's pretty awesome. Actually, UM, there's three different types of
Speaker 1: software as far as I know. There's Lego Digital Designer
Speaker 1: UM and that's actually available for for use for free
Speaker 1: on the website. Pretty cool. You can either download it
Speaker 1: or I believe you can go to Lego dot com
Speaker 1: and use it. UM. There's also l draw, which is
Speaker 1: based really a type of CAD computer aided design software UM.
Speaker 1: And then there is brick Smith that's it on brickman
Speaker 1: man UM and people use these to do things like, oh,
Speaker 1: I don't know, create the statue of Liberty with UM
Speaker 1: a lightsaber, Yeah, that's a fun one, or a scale
Speaker 1: replica of the Brooklyn Bridge or right, you know, yes,
Speaker 1: Lego Land had pictures of that. Actually, I'll show you. UM.
Speaker 1: The thing I thought was cool is when they some
Speaker 1: tracy for this article interviewed this the one guy that
Speaker 1: you're talking about, Nathan Sawaya Sawaya, and he he's you know,
Speaker 1: it's sort of like real architecture and real building techniques,
Speaker 1: like you should stagger your your bricks for a wall
Speaker 1: because it's sturdier, and you can put for hollow things,
Speaker 1: you can put interior columns, and it sort of follows
Speaker 1: the same rules of standard architecture, which I thought was
Speaker 1: kind of neat. Right, and this isn't lost on Lego
Speaker 1: was UM they've recently released the Lego Architecture series. Did
Speaker 1: you check these out? No, dude, they have, Um, they
Speaker 1: have a couple so far. They have the Googgenheim Okay, UM,
Speaker 1: my favorite. They have falling Water. Very nice. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: pretty sweet. Um. And they have some uh iconic landmarks.
Speaker 1: I think the space needles one of them. But it
Speaker 1: looks pretty slick. What if I was like Frank Woyd, right,
Speaker 1: I'd come across this table square houses please. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: we've been trying to figure out how to do a
Speaker 1: Frank Lloyd Wright podcast and we got i'd say, pretty
Speaker 1: far into the research process to do it, and I
Speaker 1: figured out, like, we we can't do this. It's just
Speaker 1: too visual us sitting around describing falling water like somebody
Speaker 1: should slap us in the face. Yeah. It'd basically just
Speaker 1: be like, it's so awesome. No, really, it's awesome, and
Speaker 1: there's a river that runs underneath. Its awesome. I'm done that, okay. Um.
Speaker 1: If you're If you're interested, there is a book called
Speaker 1: the Unofficial Lego Builder's Guide from Alan Bedford and um
Speaker 1: and a publication online called Brick Journal, and you can
Speaker 1: get like tips on building big things. There because if
Speaker 1: you never tried, either you're you know, a genius and
Speaker 1: your innately able to do so, or you're gonna fail miserably. Well.
Speaker 1: One guy who was interviewed for the article who did
Speaker 1: the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Yeah, yeah, as
Speaker 1: part of like his whole town he was building. No,
Speaker 1: it wasn't it was. I think it's like Chris Doyle. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Chris Doyle. He said, he just starts like he he
Speaker 1: has a rough idea of what he wants to do,
Speaker 1: but you know, he just goes to town. Basically, That's
Speaker 1: what I would do. Yeah, it can be done, yeah,
Speaker 1: but mine probably wouldn't succeed. And then if you are
Speaker 1: into robotics, electronics that kind of stuff, you can use
Speaker 1: Legos too. Yeah, they've got new robot versions have like
Speaker 1: microprocessors and motors and gears. There's a guy who used
Speaker 1: who used Legos to create an automatic book scanner. Wow.
Speaker 1: I know, especially if you love books and you love Legos,
Speaker 1: then uh. There's also a seed launcher that somebody made
Speaker 1: using Legos that that was pretty awesome to us. Um.
Speaker 1: And then one of the other cool things I saw
Speaker 1: it combines Legos with dominoes it's in a mechanical and
Speaker 1: automated domino stacker legs. Yeah, it looks at the important part. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was trying to picture that. I gotta no. I'm like, no, no,
Speaker 1: it's a playmobile, but it has water running underneath. It's
Speaker 1: so awesome. So I mentioned Nathan Sawaya. He is one
Speaker 1: of the pre eminent lego artists out of New York,
Speaker 1: of course, and he has a traveling exhibit called The
Speaker 1: Art of the Brick and a website too, and he
Speaker 1: tours the real museums. And the dude is got some
Speaker 1: serious talent. I mean, look at that. He did Starry
Speaker 1: Starry Night mosaic, he Didima statue. Ye oh, he did
Speaker 1: this one. That one is the favorite one I ran across,
Speaker 1: and we should probably describe it. Yeah. It is a
Speaker 1: yellow man looking upward and he's tearing apart his chest
Speaker 1: and inside his chest he's full of legos that are
Speaker 1: spilling out, and he's made of legos. You keep leaving
Speaker 1: that all of this is made of legos. Okay, all right?
Speaker 1: And then there's this other dude, Sean Kenny, and he
Speaker 1: is New York based two and I get the feeling
Speaker 1: that they kind of battle a little bit force well,
Speaker 1: New York Lego supremacy at least because both of their
Speaker 1: websites say our studio has more than one point five
Speaker 1: million Legos. Both of them have one point five million Legos.
Speaker 1: But I mean how many I could have one point
Speaker 1: five million Legos and do nothing with them and slap
Speaker 1: a website together. It's what you do with the legos,
Speaker 1: not how many you own. Well, let me show you
Speaker 1: what Shaun's done. He's done um work for companies like
Speaker 1: Google and Nintendo and JP Morgan and Samsung. And he's
Speaker 1: been featured on I mean everything, you name it, he's
Speaker 1: been featured. Has it been featured on Timmy Kim Well?
Speaker 1: Ah no, But look at this. He did a Yankee stadium.
Speaker 1: Check that out. And I hate the Yankees. I was
Speaker 1: gonna say, if I like the Yankees, I'd be really impressed.
Speaker 1: And he's pretty talented guy too. And he is a
Speaker 1: member of the what are called the Certified Professionals, and
Speaker 1: I think there's eleven of them. Now, Yeah, that Lego
Speaker 1: was actually certified these people as professional artists or whatever. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I got the impression that um, as he became better
Speaker 1: and better, he stopped paying for Legos along the way,
Speaker 1: and this is like ring ring, I need more Legos now,
Speaker 1: I would think, so I need grain And Old Kirk
Speaker 1: Christensen is like, okay, all right, Old Kirk, should we
Speaker 1: go off some of these fun facts? Yeah, Lego fun
Speaker 1: facts aren't all facts associated with Legos fun? Yeah? I
Speaker 1: think so. Okay. I like this whole around the world
Speaker 1: stuff though, because every company has one of these. Wait, first,
Speaker 1: have you been on Lego dot com recently? Did you
Speaker 1: go on for this? Yeah? Yeah, it was pretty awesome,
Speaker 1: wasn't it, like all the little movies associated with each one.
Speaker 1: I haven't been to Lego Land though, You've ever been there?
Speaker 1: One of their theme parks that they actually sold. You
Speaker 1: had a Merlin Entertainment or something like that to Merlin
Speaker 1: Olsen his ghost made a deal with Old Kirk Christiansen's
Speaker 1: passed away recently, didn't he very sad? Uh? Yeah? They
Speaker 1: sold those because they became unprofitable, so they kind of
Speaker 1: restructured and move some things around. Now they're in the
Speaker 1: in the red, in the black, in the Black fun facts. Josh,
Speaker 1: here we go. More than four hundred million children and
Speaker 1: adults will play with Legos this year. Yes, and I
Speaker 1: don't know what year they said that was, but it's
Speaker 1: probably every year. I saw the two thousand nine Investor
Speaker 1: Catalog or Um Perspectus, I guess, and it said that
Speaker 1: same stats. So you can put all your money in Legos.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna put a substantial amount of it actually privately owns.
Speaker 1: I don't think that's possible. M hm uh. If you
Speaker 1: built a column, Josh of forty billion Lego bricks, it
Speaker 1: would reach the moon. Had to count those zeros. I've
Speaker 1: got one, go ahead. Lego is the largest tire manufacturer
Speaker 1: in the world. Yeah, little teeny tires, pretty pretty cool. Sat.
Speaker 1: How many do they make a year? Oh? I don't know.
Speaker 1: Do you have that stat Yeah? I do, three six million.
Speaker 1: That's what I get to. Somebody else is in the
Speaker 1: two thousand nine Investor perspective on average, Josh, they are
Speaker 1: this is the one. This is my favorite one. There
Speaker 1: are sixty two Lego bricks for every single person on Earth. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I like that one too. Uh. Four billion hours. That's
Speaker 1: the amount of five billion, five billion hours. That's how
Speaker 1: much people will spend playing with Legos in a year
Speaker 1: on average, not one person, not per person, by everybody
Speaker 1: playing with Lego you had a fun fact. I'm not
Speaker 1: a fun fact. I mean there were more, but I've
Speaker 1: got one for you. Remember we talked about I'm fascinated
Speaker 1: with the mini figures, the mini figs as they call them.
Speaker 1: If you're in the know, if you're one of the
Speaker 1: eleven certified artists. Um we uh. We talked about how
Speaker 1: they're they were originally gender neutral, um, race neutral. They
Speaker 1: were also emotion neutral too, And it wasn't until nine
Speaker 1: when Lego released their oil started releasing their Pirates set
Speaker 1: that they realized, hey man, we might need some facial
Speaker 1: expressions on these people. And they came up with a
Speaker 1: good figure and a bad figure and an I patched
Speaker 1: figure and I think scowl and smile to differentiate between
Speaker 1: the good guys and the bad guys. I'm sure from
Speaker 1: that point on they started having facial expressions for them. Uh.
Speaker 1: And I think I have one an other Yeah, I
Speaker 1: was Fisher Price. We should do a podcast on Fisher Price.
Speaker 1: That was my bag. I was way into that. I
Speaker 1: liked Playmobile, but I did love Legos as well. Um
Speaker 1: and then Chuck the Mini figs four billion of them
Speaker 1: on the planet. There's only six point five billion people um,
Speaker 1: four billion on the planet technically makes them the largest
Speaker 1: population group in the world because they're so tiny. That's
Speaker 1: so cute. And I think that's it, buddy, I think so.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's a lot more. We didn't cover all
Speaker 1: of it. No, there is something else. All the press
Speaker 1: you were talking about them selling Lego Land. They did
Speaker 1: this huge restructuring in I think two thousand four because
Speaker 1: they peaked in with their Star Wars sets and after
Speaker 1: that they actually started losing money, and you said they
Speaker 1: were back in the black. Part of it is because
Speaker 1: of their selling Lego Land restructuring the company. But um,
Speaker 1: one of the reasons, actually, probably the main reason why
Speaker 1: Legos took such a hit was because of Mega blocks
Speaker 1: no electronics. Oh, I thought their patent ran out too.
Speaker 1: That's something to do that. That was definitely part of it.
Speaker 1: But they think that the you know, Legos are having
Speaker 1: trouble competing with MP three players or video games are
Speaker 1: all that. So Lego remains optimistic, Buddy. I have a
Speaker 1: little tidbit of nice Danish optimism in broken English for you,
Speaker 1: courtesy of the Lego Group. You ready, yes, I quote,
Speaker 1: but the Lego group is in no doubt that the
Speaker 1: Lego brick will continue in future to be relevant to
Speaker 1: children of all ages period. A world of imagination and
Speaker 1: total absorption. Period. That sounds like they literally said that
Speaker 1: and their native language and then just typed it into baby. Well.
Speaker 1: You know they have the my nephew, uh know what
Speaker 1: plays with the the PlayStation game they have but Indiana
Speaker 1: Jones Lego game. Yeah, so they're trying to get a
Speaker 1: piece of that market too. I think they got a
Speaker 1: good piece of it. They have a Star Wars game too.
Speaker 1: I think they have more than the trilogy in Lego. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they'll be around. They're fine, I think so. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: that's it, man. If you want to see really honestly,
Speaker 1: I know we say this every time, like go read
Speaker 1: the article on the site. Sometimes we've covered the article
Speaker 1: gone beyond the article. This is not one of those cases.
Speaker 1: If you want to see just a series of super
Speaker 1: cool Lego pictures, um, a Lego brick field guide, complete
Speaker 1: with precise measurements, uh and just a bunch of other
Speaker 1: information that we didn't even touch on, type how Lego
Speaker 1: bricks work, because technically there isn't a word called legos,
Speaker 1: it's Lego bricks. But you know, hey, we named ours
Speaker 1: how legos work? Right, type how lego bricks work in
Speaker 1: the handy search bar at how stuff works dot com
Speaker 1: and it will yield that article right indeed, listener Milk,
Speaker 1: I wanted to give a little shout out. I had
Speaker 1: met a couple of fans this weekend. Finally it never happens.
Speaker 1: What about the Henry Clay people. Well, yeah, but I mean, yeah, sure,
Speaker 1: you're right, Okay, I'm gonna plug your album. Actually it's
Speaker 1: coming out in June. They got a new album coming out.
Speaker 1: But I'll wait on that plug when it's when. Interest Uh.
Speaker 1: Jerry and I over the weekend went to a play sorts.
Speaker 1: I think it's so cute you to your dating wildlife
Speaker 1: theater We're not dating, uh, called looking Glass Alice based
Speaker 1: on Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll and Doug and
Speaker 1: Lindsay or in the show Lindsay's Alice. And actually there's
Speaker 1: only five people in the show, so literally one whatever
Speaker 1: whatever percentage of the cast that is, are fans of
Speaker 1: the show. And so Jerry and I went with Emily
Speaker 1: with my wife and I met up with them afterwards
Speaker 1: in the green room, which was really green, and they
Speaker 1: were super cool and we're gonna take him out for
Speaker 1: barbecue while they're here, and uh, I just wanted to
Speaker 1: thank them. Are they still here? Yeah, they're there. It's
Speaker 1: like a six week run where you going for barbecue. Well,
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, like Daddy D's, but that's my
Speaker 1: friend little Dingy let me yeah, but it's really great barbecue.
Speaker 1: Daddy d Is is listening your barbecue rocks. I would
Speaker 1: recommend that. Or Fox Brothers. Well, Fox Brothers is a
Speaker 1: little more the kind of place you would want to
Speaker 1: take someone from out of town. But they're kind of
Speaker 1: into fat mats. They want to get fat mats. Okay,
Speaker 1: you know that made an appearance in Up in the Air.
Speaker 1: Yeah indeed. Yeah. Okay, Well that's it for the Atlanta
Speaker 1: barbecue scene, right, And I also wanted to shout out
Speaker 1: to uh. Emily had a craft show last weekend and
Speaker 1: one of her fellow crafters her name was Julie. Oh
Speaker 1: is it Julia? Now I feel like a jerk. It's
Speaker 1: just to say both. It's either Julie or Julia. She
Speaker 1: was really nice and what she does she has bought
Speaker 1: some of these and I've seen other people that do
Speaker 1: this now. And I'm mentioning it because it's just so
Speaker 1: cool those old print printing presses from like the eighteen hundreds. Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: you don't. She's resurrected these things and they're huge and
Speaker 1: she does like real printing on cards. Just no computers involved.
Speaker 1: It's just because those DAGNEVITC computers, I know. But that
Speaker 1: showed pictures are in front this huge machine and you
Speaker 1: crank it with your foot and it turns all these
Speaker 1: gears and just like the punk and she was, yeah,
Speaker 1: it is very steampunk. But her she has a website
Speaker 1: called red Bird Inc. Dot com. And I don't know,
Speaker 1: I think you should support people that like resurrect She said.
Speaker 1: Machines have been used in like seventy years. Why don't
Speaker 1: she got ahold of them? People used to have to
Speaker 1: walk uphill both ways in the snow to use those
Speaker 1: machines to print. All right, Josh, this is a listener
Speaker 1: mail in honor of Mother's Day that should come out
Speaker 1: sometime near Mother's Day. Hold on, we haven't even laid
Speaker 1: a part where we can do the music, Chuck, is
Speaker 1: it time now for listener mail? Yes, Josh said in
Speaker 1: JERRYO so, like I said, hopefully this will come out
Speaker 1: sometime around Mother's Day because is from Nora, signed Nora
Speaker 1: a mama from Missouri. Hello fellas. While driving my oldest
Speaker 1: son to start a freshman year of college this fall,
Speaker 1: I was trying to be cool. She put cool in
Speaker 1: quotes and ignore all the mommy emotions bubbling up so
Speaker 1: she was getting sad. Thank you for translating. For the
Speaker 1: hour and a half drive, my son out his radio
Speaker 1: iPod gizmo and entertained his brother and me with your podcast,
Speaker 1: starting with the one on a pumpty schemes. Uh, you
Speaker 1: know how to say it, clearly. We were totally involved,
Speaker 1: thought provoked, and sparked a great conversation for two. After
Speaker 1: handling the separation without too much embarrassment, and upon arriving home,
Speaker 1: I decided to go for a run to help shake
Speaker 1: off my mommy blues. The inspiration came to look up
Speaker 1: the podcast and load some on the iPod gizmo, thinking
Speaker 1: while running and listening, I headed that part. While running
Speaker 1: and listening, I was struck by the whole circle of
Speaker 1: my baby teaching me a trick or two as he
Speaker 1: heads off into the world. Now I get warm fuzzies
Speaker 1: each time I had out for a run and choose
Speaker 1: my topic. Didn't it And I look forward to running
Speaker 1: more than a half for a while, So extra bonus.
Speaker 1: Now my son, my youngest son, looks for podcast he
Speaker 1: wants to listen to with us on car trips. She's
Speaker 1: excited about. Yeah, we're bringing the intergenerational gap together. She says,
Speaker 1: hooray for more family time with the teenagers. Who knew
Speaker 1: every time you encourage emails At the end of podcast,
Speaker 1: I think about sharing our little story. The kids would
Speaker 1: roll their eyes if they knew, I wrote in, But
Speaker 1: they love what you do to and we hope you
Speaker 1: keep up the good work. And Nora mommy for Missouri,
Speaker 1: help your kids in college. Rolling his eyes at you
Speaker 1: right now, Yeah, that's what we hope. But there's a
Speaker 1: tear coming down from his eye as well. He's if
Speaker 1: he wasn't homesick before, he isn't now. Believe me. Well,
Speaker 1: if you work out or run or do any physical
Speaker 1: exertion while you listen to Chucking Me, we want a
Speaker 1: sample of your sweat. Put it in an email and
Speaker 1: send it to Stuff Podcast at how stuff works dot
Speaker 1: com for more on this and thousands of other topics.
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