Fun & Games

The latest DIY ideas, techniques and tools for bikes, rockets, R/C vehicles, toys and other diversions.

‘Second Life’ membership now free

‘Second Life’ membership now free

Sl The most Maker friendly MMORPG is now free to start – Linden Lab, maker of the popular virtual world “Second Life,” is making membership to its metaverse free. The company said that because free membership will likely prompt a significant number of people to join Second Life, revenue from virtual land the new members buy will probably make up for the loss of subscription fees. “We’re going to make more because some of the people who wouldn’t have otherwise signed up are going to buy land,” Linden Lab CEO Philip Rosedale said this week. Link and Second Life.

Play Oregon Trail

Play Oregon Trail

Ot1 G4 TV’s AOTS has links to the old favorite Oregon Trail as well as the emulators to run it. Try taking a journey by covered wagon across 2000 miles of plains, rivers, and mountains. Try! On the plains, will you slosh your oxen through mud and water-filled ruts or will you plod through dust six inches deep? [via] Link.

Home Made Portable Dreamcast

Home Made Portable Dreamcast

Davids-Portable-Dc-6 Starting from the beginning though, as even the designers of the real Dreamcast would have done, David sketched possible ideas of what he wanted the console to look like, which was followed by a clay mold, then a plaster cast of it. The next step involved taking a 14″ x 18″ sheet of plastic, and heating it up. Once that’s softened up, it sits on top of the plaster cast while a home made vacuum chamber (instructions on how to build one can be found here) sucks all the air out from around it, making it fall into the shape of the cast… Link.

Court WoWs with Battle.net bypass ruling…

Court WoWs with Battle.net bypass ruling…

Wow WoW. Earlier today, the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled against a group of gamers who wrote a work-around to Blizzard’s Battle.net multiplayer gaming service. The three programmers had written a program dubbed ‘BNetD’ that functioned similarly to Blizzard’s free service. The letter of the law may side with Blizzard, but it is hard to see how this is anything but a single-finger salute to their army of fans: play on our servers or not at all, is the message. Naturally it is Blizzard’s product, so they can do as they see fit, but this restriction is contrary to almost every multiplayer game on the market and only serves to limit their market. Link.