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Filed under: Fun, Kids, Windows, Macintosh, Freeware, Time-Wasters

Lego Digital Designer: virtual brick-building fun - TimeWaster

I've always enjoyed assembling models and contraptions out of Lego, and my four-year-old son is becoming quite a fan, too. Unfortunately, dad's stash doesn't always have all the fancy bricks required to meet his design requirements.

Thankfully, the good folks at Lego offer the Digital Designer, a 22mb free download that offers a rich, 3D program for crafting creations on your Windows PC.

We've been using it for quite a while, and the latest version sports a more polished interface, wider selection of pieces and backdrops, and reduced CPU and memory loads. It runs beautifully on my Frankenlaptop, a Core2 T5200 with integrated Intel video.

The interface is easy to understand, and several "starter kits" are included. They're a good way to see Digital Designer's impressive capabilities at work.

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Filed under: Design, Fun, News, Freeware

Lego's response to hacking its product: hack away!

lego designerIn a rare, extremely cluetrain response from a corporation whose product has been hacked, Lego is actually welcoming the modification to its 3D design program that will enable users to avoid purchasing too many extra blocks when making custom kits. The backstory is that last month Lego launched a new program that lets users make custom Lego designs using the provided free 3D design software, then actually order the kits that would create their custom models. The trouble is, users would sometimes end up over-ordering too many extra bricks because of the way brick packages or 'palettes' contained multiple bags of bricks. The software would generate an order based on which palettes to order, causing a glut of extra bricks -- so users created a database of the type and number of bricks in the bags, and modified the software to display the number of bags to order instead of palettes, bringing the cost of many custom pieces down. Instead of flipping out about users hacking their software, especially when the net result is a loss of revenue for the company, Lego is embracing the modifications. Lego senior producer Ronny Scherer said, "It was a puzzle to us. They took us completely by surprise. We think it's great." Wow, a company embracing its users' efforts to make its tools more useful -- how unfortunately novel.

[Via Slashdot]

Featured Time Waster

The World's Hardest Game 2.0 - Time Waster

So, just how good at time waster games are you? Think you've got the stuff? Well, The World's Hardest Game 2.0 doesn't think you do. Yes, amazingly, it's possible to have a sequel to a game called "The World's Hardest Game". It doesn't seem logically possible, since if the first one was actually the world's hardest, how could another one come along and share the moniker? It made me doubt the name in the first place. That is, until I tried the game. The mechanics of the game are very simple. You are a small red square, ...

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