Psychonauts Run the Laugh Track

A platformer? With a funny script? Sign me up!

This new video game looks like a cross between Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels and a classic jump-and-run like one of the early Super Mario games. This is the video game I've been looking for for years! Nobody makes games in the platform action genre anymore, and that's my favorite... I still enjoy playing the original Rayman now and then.

Add in the eccentric humor that is littered around the Psychonauts official web site, and it seems perfect.

Car Computers Track Traffic

This is pretty amazing: GPS-equipped handheld computers are creating a city-wide network that determines which areas of the road are most congested (based on actual current vehicle speeds) and audibly recommends alternate routes for those commuters lying in the wake of current and potential pileups.

This is still an experimental pilot program, but the concept is definitely on the right track. I even see such a program developing (after quite a while) into the computer-controlled automatic driving machines present in certain stories of Asimov. If every car gets hooked up to the network, so the vehicles can "know" each others' precise position, that technology could definitely be harnessed to automate safe driving. Of course that would open up the possibility to giving individual vehicle speeds to local authorities, and possibly allowing police to issue citations for unseen law-breaking, with an efficiency that even unattended red-light cameras have failed to attain.

But I'm getting way ahead of myself. This technology, as used for traffic control and management, is definitely in its infancy, but the idea as it stands is wonderful.

Murphy resigns

Mayor Dick Murphy announced yesterday his plans to step down as San Diego's leader.

Personally, I'm happy about that. Mayor Murphy (thank goodness we won't have to call him that anymore after July 15) has always seemed to me just about as progressive, and as useful, as a stick immobilized in dirt at the bottom of Lake Hodges. Ron Roberts and Donna Frye have both announced their candidacy for mayor if the City Council should decide that an election will determine Murphy's replacement.

I think that an elected governor will be seen in a much more positive light than a Council appointee, and there is almost no doubt in my mind that Ron Roberts would win an election against Donna Frye. I believe that the last election (in which I voted for Roberts) was only close because Roberts and Murphy split the Republican vote against Frye; if only one Republican is on the ballot it should greatly decrease Frye's chance of becoming mayor.

Who votes a surf-shop owner mayor of the seventh-largest city in the US, anyway?

Vintage Video Games Go Highbrow

This article from Wired is about an art exhibit with pieces inspired by 1980s video games. It's a really cool idea!

Rise of the Green Machine

This is a great article about hybrid cars. It seems that, though various auto makers are embracing the hybrid model, Toyota has the most-developed hybrid engine since its Prius has been around for eight years.

Also... my wife and I are getting a Prius! We put our name on the waiting list at a local dealer not long ago, and I just got a call today that a new high-mileage wonder will be waiting for us sometime in the first week of May.

I can't wait to have it! My wife (the environmental scientist) is going to get to drive it to work, but I'll be able to take it out on nights and weekends.

Condo conversions transform market

This looks cool - at first I was a little bit puzzled by all the projects I had heard of to convert apartments into condominiums, but the fact that these conversions are providing less costly roads to home ownership is quite a benefit, especially here in San Diego.

That doesn't mean I'll want one, though... my wife and I will still be holding out for a detached residence (that is, whenever we decide we're done being renters). Apparently our apartment complex has applied with the city to see if it can get permission to convert to condos, so we might not have too long to wait until we have to become homeowners.

Copyright Reform to Free Orphans?

This looks promising... I work in music publishing, and copyright issues abound. A lot of people like to write songs using existing themes, and finding copyright owners can be quite tedious (thankfully, that part isn't my job).

/me crosses my fingers and prays for this reform to work out

Today's Verse of the Day from Bible Gateway

Very apropos for April 15:

--

Romans 13:6-7 (New International Version)

This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God's servants, who give their full time to governing. Give everyone what you owe him: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor.

Wired News: Surprises Lurk in Satellite Snaps

This is really cool. First of all, just the fact that Google has added satellite images to its spectacular mapping service. This really helps to see how the terrain actually looks when charting directions to a new destination, and it's much better than attempting to interpret Mapquest's decision that one particular turn should be called a "slight right."

However, the thrust of this article from Wired is in the unexpected discoveries people are making in the satellite images. One searcher found a picture of the area in which the makeshift town for Burning Man is constructed, showing a skeletal outline of its not-currently active streets. Also, there are pictures of sports arenas, and even historical images taken by satellite including one of a firefight in Najaf in 2003 and an early glimpse of last year's devastating tsunami.

I've even found an aerial picture of my apartment building. And my parents' house, and the house I lived in when I was a kid. In fact, many people have taken screenshots of Google's image of their hometown, annotated them with favorite hangouts, friends' houses, etc., and posted them on the Internet social photo-sharing site Flickr.

Google maps is now much more than a map. Its satellite images make it an interactive reminiscence tool.

Americans Wage E-War on Big Oil Over Fuel Costs

This is a good idea... better than any of the gasoline boycotts I've ever heard of. Instead of deciding not to buy gas on one particular day, the plan is to *never* buy gas from Exxon/Mobil stations. The idea is that Exxon/Mobil will lower prices to get customers back, and it will trigger a gas price war that will lower the price at the pump at stations nationwide.

This is easy for me, because I always buy gas at Shell anyway. I've got a Shell credit card that refunds me 5% of any purchases I make from them. So this boycott means I won't have to make any changes at all. In any case, I heartily support boycotting Exxon/Mobil. I realize that foreign oil prices are rising, but the current price spike can't *entirely* be the fault of Middle Eastern oil barons.