Reader2: del.icio.us for booklovers

by Marc Perton Sep 6th 2005

If you're looking for something to read but don't know where to start, you could always ask a friend (or Amazon.com) to recommend something. Or, you could try out the latest social bookmarking service, Reader², which is a del.icio.us-style service for books from the folks who brought us MyProgs. So far, members have tagged over 4,000 books, with a heavy emphasis on Douglas Adams, Neil Gaiman and J.K. Rowling. Yes, there's a lot of sci-fi and fantasy there now, but like any other social service, it's all about the people who add to it. So, if you'd like to see Shakespeare or Dickens move up in the ranks, get in there and start tagging.

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Civiballs is a beautiful, soothing physics puzzle Time Waster

I have an absolute weakness for physics games, and while Civiballs isn't the strongest physics-based game, what it lacks in the physics department it makes up for a few times over in style and fun.

In Civiballs, you are presented with a few colored balls, and your goal is to get those balls into the same-colored urn on the level. The "civi" part of Civiballs is that there are 3 sets of levels to play, each representing a different civilization. While the civilization doesn't affect gameplay, the artwork for each level is beautifully themed to it's appropriate era.

To play the game, you are given only one tool - a sword with which to cut the chains that are holding the balls. The puzzle part of the game is in figuring out what order, and with what timing to cut each chain. Do it right, and all the right balls end up in the right urns, with no stray balls entering an urn (a no-no). Do it wrong, and you get to start over again.

Civiballs is not terribly deep on gameplay; the entire game can be completed in about 15 minutes. But if you enjoy this type of game, it will be a very enjoyable 15 minutes.

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