Google Transit helps you find routes on public transportation

by Jordan Running Dec 8th 2005

Google Local is great, but if you live in a big city and aren't the driving sort, or are just visiting, their driving directions are all but useless. Google Transit is attempting to solve that particular problem by giving you travel routes by foot, bus, and train. Right now they only have routes for Portland, Oregon (and are of course promising many more cities soon), but it's still pretty impressive to see in action. Google Transit knows not only the public transit routes but also the schedules, so you can pick your departure time or it'll let you choose between the next four departures for the start of your journey. If Google can deploy this for enough cities and make it as accurate as a good hotel concierge, this could be invaluable to tourists. Be assured that Yahoo! and Microsoft have taken note of Google Transit as well.

P.S. Take note of the URL, yet another in Google's long line of inconsistencies. Why not transit.google.com or local.google.com/transit? (The latter works, but then, oddly enough, so does calendar.google.com/transit.)

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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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