BeardedGingerWonder @ BeardedGingerWonder @feddit.uk

Posts

4

Comments

882

Joined

2 yr. ago

I've got a helmet like that, only works on women though...

I wouldn't be surprised if he came up with it tbh, dude has a doctorate in economics and been the Governor of the Bank of Canada and the Governor of the Bank of England, he's certainly got the experience to know how to play with an economy on a massive scale.

Yeah makes sense, Focus definitely ends production at the end of the year. Always been a fan of Fords in general, decent quality, decent price, just all round decent cars.

I've definitely missed an apostrophe there.

Mid century capitalism was certainly more worker focussed. CEOs salaries were more like single digit/low double digit multiples of average worker salaries. Profit got reinvested into development. Companies would literally brag about how well their employees were paid. This is the era that saw the US become a powerhouse globally.

Then Jack fucking Welch came along. He's the motherfucker that started this crap with closing marginally profitable departments because it increased the overall profitability of the company as a %, which increased the stock price.

Meh, once they grow up their things aren't nimble enough to assemble stuff any more. Waste of energy training them.

But, like, the market is still down.

You make a fair point, my comment was more to say that US brands can make a good sensible car if they want to and be damn successful at it. I'll be a little sad when they discontinue the focus. Have they stopped Mondeo estates as well?

I guess the Puma/Capri combo are a more euro-centric SUV.

I'm mildly impressed no-ones downvoted me to hell yet.

There are definitely a few other brands and stores I've kept off the list - just because I've not used them/built them/heard significant things about them before. One other thing to mention, the postage on big sets can be significant (like 50% of the price of the set sometimes on Marstoy, you can save £20-30 by not buying near Christmas or Chinese New Year) - sometimes it's sensible to throw another 4-5 small cheap sets in if you're buying something big from YOURWOBB or Marstoy because the shipping on them is basically free.

Apt+snap

I'm not sure I'd go to the lengths of using OMV just to have a samba share.

So, as far as I'm aware BlueBrixx use a brick manufacturer called gobricks in China - these are generally considered top tier. Mould King also use gobricks - they do some good start wars/space/car stuff (not clone kits, Mould King are pretty legit, as far as I'm aware they license/pay MOC designers for plans for the most part as well).

Other brands I don't have experience with (but have a really good rep) are CaDa, Pantasy and Rastar. CaDa and Rastar both license IPs.

IMO JieStar are also a pretty good brand, they are a brick manufacturer and a set manufacturer. I've never had an issue with a JieStar set, their bricks/clutch is a little tighter than Lego which is sometimes beneficial, sometimes a little annoying, but it's never caused an issue. (I've build a couple of 5k+ brick sets from JieStar - worst I had was a single malformed brick that I just hid). They make clone kits and original IP. (Some cool little 50 pc sets you can pick up for £1-2.

Reobrix is the other brand I like, they use JieStar bricks but make their own sets and license MOC designer work. Have some interesting aircraft/vehicles. Their cars are good, their B2 bomber was a bigger set, some of it was a little fiddly, but it holds together - it had 1-2 bricks missing, but I picked up replacements on bricklink for pennies.

I also pick up the odd no-name brand from AliExpress, tbh they've mostly been fine too, a couple were mediocre (I didn't have high expectations £15 for 1000pc sets, they were fine for the price tbh, the bricks were fine for one set, a bit too little clutch on the other - but honestly both look fine when they're assembled. I wasn't disappointed considering the price).

In terms of ordering -

YOURWOBB Youmko/Barweer Marstoy

I've ordered from all 3, they've all delivered what they said they would. YOURWOBB doesn't do clone sets, all original IP (and you can sort by brand) youmko are a mix, though mostly original stuff. Marstoy officially don't sell clone sets, however they do sell "Brick kits". If you go on the site you'll see a lot of stuff with names like M12345 - take M off the name and reverse the number, this is the corresponding Lego set (eg. M12345 would be Lego set 54321)

There's loads on AliExpress too - usual rules apply here, but choice, buy an item that has a lot of buyers with good reviews. If you buy a MOC off AliExpress chances are the original designer isn't being compensated - many people will go and buy the design off rebrickable to compensate the designer, but no obligation.

For minifigs there's:

RebuildVenus

This is the same company as Marstoy, free shipping over $17.

Showing my ignorance here, but would genuinely like an explanation - aren't/weren't compromised exit nodes a thing?

The funny thing is, the one American automaker that made an effort did quite well and we sometimes forget they're American, namely, Ford.

I mean, I'd much rather smell of fruit custard than smoke.

Jesus fuck that name needs some work, common brown snake, could we not have went with "Antipodean Death Bringer" or something like that

I try and just ignore it and read what I'm interested in regardless. From what I hear about the YouTube algo, for instance, clickbait titles are necessity more than a choice for YouTubers, if they don't use them they get next to no engagement early and the algo buries that video which can impact the channel in general.

Oh my, no the other way round, spreadsheet loads the data and let excel handle it. I think you can probably even embed python at this point. I'm not seriously advocating for this approach either, to be clear.

Caps lock, no fax urinal