Time Gentlemen

I love point-and-click adventures as much as the next person. Actually, that hoary old platitude is an outright lie, in this case; I love them a great deal more than the next person, assuming of course that I am not standing next to Ron Gilbert.

Anyway, it’s a great time to be me, or someone like me, or like Ron Gilbert, because there are quite a few excellent point-and-clicks from a variety of different creators. There’s Telltale’s new episodic Monkey Island games that kicked off earlier this week. There’s the remake of the original Monkey Island on Xbox Live next week. LucasArts has also re-released several classic games on Steam.

But I haven’t actually played any of those yet. What I’ve been sinking my capacity for item-based puzzle solving into is a pair of adventures called Ben There, Dan That! and Time Gentlemen, Please! Created by a small indie team, these two games are professional, polished productions all the way through. While the free-of-charge first game does have some rough edges and is not especially complex or lengthy, the $5 sequel is every bit as detailed, internally consistent, funny, and engaging as the best output of classic-era Lucas or Sierra.

Andrew Vestal’s raves about the game, specifically its profane, unapologetically British, pitch-perfect comedy writing, got me into the series. Although you don’t have to play Ben There, Dan That before Time Gentlemen, I’d recommend it — the first game is free, and though not quite as awesome as the second, it’s still well worth playing through.

But Time Gentlemen, Please is the indie masterpiece, a point-and-click that loves the genre it’s in. The writers do poke fun at the conventions of the genre from time to time, and occasionally make casual reference to the classic games that inspired them, but it’s not a complete and total shattering of the fourth wall. The puzzles are mostly fair — there were a couple things that I’d have changed about Ben There, but Time Gentlemen has a better hint system in case you don’t know what you’re supposed to be doing.

Another EV Hits the Dirt

Brembo, Ohlins and Acerbis are some of the elite parts found on many elite motorcycles worldwide. But this time they’re found not on the many, but the few - an electric motocross machine.

The evolt Bull1 joins the green two-wheel off-road scene alongside the Zero X, the Quantya track and the bike KTM is working on. The Bull1 is the newest addition to evolt’s stable including a trail bike and scooter, but how does it measure up?

Let’s just say that based on the specifications, it may be an interesting race.

Want more? Here it is:

• Motor: Brushless 84Volt 3.500rpm
• Nominal power: 10Kw (13.4hp)
• Max power: 33.5Kw (50hp)
• Nominal torque: 23 ft-lb
• Max torque: 35.4 ft-lb
• Batteries: 28 cell Lithium Polymer 96Volt 30Ah
• Range: 2 hours off-road ride
• Speed: 43-55 mph
• Weight: 209-231lb

What else? How about a regenerative braking system linked to the back brake to recapture the energy when slowing. But don’t worry, if you want to lock-up that back wheel you’ll have a traditional brake back there too.

Want to get sloppy? A fully waterproof brushless motor made in (get this) Italy says get dirty, have fun and hose it down without a worry. And to top it off, the battery pack sustains in excess of 1,500 charges, with a two-hour endurance and one-hour charge time. Get two and ride all day!

The only downside we see is the absence of the sound of a hive of angry bees at the start of a race.

Photo: evolt

Amid Arms Race, U.S. Trains Up South Sudan Army

The conflict in Sudan’s Darfur region gets the most headlines. But the simmering north-south conflict has the potential to eclipse Darfur. While the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) forbids both sides from rearming, strong evidence suggests the two may be tooling up in advance of a crucial 2011 referendum that could lead to independence for the south. Last year, the Khartoum government confirmed the purchase of around a dozen MiG-29 fighter aircraft; and earlier this week, Jane’s Defence Weekly used satellite imagery to track apparent shipments of heavy weaponry to the government of South Sudan.

The South is also benefiting from some low-key military support from the United States — albeit in a very limited way. The State Department last year awarded a contract to security firm USIS to send training and advisory teams to Juba, the capital of South Sudan, Danger Room has learned. The teams will provide training and mentoring to Sudan People’s Liberation Army soldiers and senior officers, teaching them how to shoot, move and communicate like a conventional military.

In a recent interview with Danger Room, a State Department official said the purpose of this program — the price tag of which has not been disclosed — is “take them [the SPLA] out of the bush, basically, within the construct of the CPA – as a force that can come together in a unity government. Or if in 2011, the south secedes, that force could become the element of a South Sudan that’s sovereign.”

In support of the peace deal, the Department of State is helping transform the SPLA from a guerrilla force to a regular military. Depending on the outcome of the referendum, that force will either become the standing army of an independent South Sudan or become part of Sudan’s national army. Sudan is currently under sanction, but the United States government has authority to provide non-lethal equipment to support security sector reform in south Sudan under a presidential waiver. “We have not provided arms and ammunition,” the official said.

Bush’s Secret NSA Spying May Have Tainted Prosecutions, Report Warns

The Justice Department needs to investigate whether the secretiveness of Bush’s warrantless wiretapping program tainted terrorism prosecutions by hiding exculpatory evidence from defendants, an oversight report from five inspectors general warned Friday.

The report (.pdf), mandated by Congress, also warned that President’ Bush’s post-9/11 extrajudicial intelligence programs involved unprecedented collection of communications, and that the government needs to be careful about storing and using that data.

Senator Russ Feingold, Wisconsin Democrat who sits on the Intelligence committee, said the report showed the programs were “outrageous” and called for more declassification.

“This report leaves no doubt that the warrantless wiretapping program was blatantly illegal and an unconstitutional assertion of executive power,” Feingold said. “I once again call on the Obama administration and its Justice Department to withdraw the flawed legal memoranda that justified the program and that remain in effect today.”

The government has only admitted to eavesdropping on calls and e-mails where one end was overseas and one person was suspected to be a terrorist. It has never officially confirmed that it sucked in the telephone records of millions of Americans or eavesdropped wholesale on the internet, despite repeated media reports and confirmations from Congress members. But the report makes clear that there were more intelligence programs that the so-called “Terrorist Surveillance Program” that the administration acknowledged after the New York Times revealed in December 2005.

Self-Irrigating Desert Plant Discovered

Ecologists had been puzzling over the desert rhubarb for years: Instead of the tiny, spiky leaves found on most desert plants, this rare rhubarb boasts lush green leaves up to a meter wide. Now scientists from the University of Haifa-Oranim in Israel have discovered that ridges in the plant’s giant leaves actually collect water and channel it down to the plant’s root system, harvesting up to 16 times more water than any other plant in the region.

“It is the first example of a self-irrigating plant,” said plant biologist Gidi Ne’eman, a co-author on the paper published in March in Naturwissenschaften, a German journal of ecology. “This is the only case we know, but in other places in the world there might be additional plants that use the same adaptions.”