Seagate have never once secretly changed the underlying disk technology on a NAS grade drive to one utterly unsuited for use in a NAS drive and then sold it as a NAS grade drive at a premium price because it’s a NAS grade drive. So there’s that.
This is a surprisingly divisive topic every time I see it or suggest it. I reckon the divisor is “people who use and work across timezones a lot” and “people who don’t”. Fuck I hate timezones.
Old post of mine, I need to get round to making a comm for this stuff - in terms of European BlueBrixx and Cobi are all that I’m aware of, BlueBrixx use Chinese bricks too though, there’s not much avoiding it. As for a particular set, I’ve got a tallneck in the backlog that’s largely technic, is huge and is well under £200 delivered ~7k parts if I remember right.
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 -
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.
That’s not what that study says.
I’ve paid for the year, so I’ll do my damnedest to run up their gippity bill.
In general I’m not against how the lords operate - just pointing out these are specifically hereditary peers (of which there are 92) in addition to the life peers. Oh and the bishops, can’t forget the bishops.
Evan?