Month: January 2016

Depending on your perspective, it was a war or just a violent encounter between two groups. Left in the shallow waters of a lagoon in Nataruk, Kenya, the victims' skeletons were preserved for 10,000 years in the positions they held in death. There were 21 adults and six children. Some still had stone weapons lodged in their bones. Their skulls were fractured by blunt force trauma. A pregnant woman appears to have been bound, her hands and feet tied together, and left to die. Another woman's knees were broken, one of her feet fractured, and her hands bound. Her skeleton was surrounded by fish, as if her attackers decided to cover her in garbage.

Due to a fluke of geology, the aftermath of this massacre was preserved in lagoon sediments until 2012, when several of the skeletons were exposed by winds on a long gravel bar running parallel to the dunes that now blanket the area. The victims were killed at the edge of Lake Turkana, whose shores have today shrunk by 30km. In the early Holocene, when these people were still alive, the region was full of hunter-fisher groups living on the bounty of the lake and its surrounding land.

Archaeologists have little evidence of war during this period in human history, when Homo sapiens was still largely a nomadic animal. Many would argue that war is an outgrowth of the settled life, when people began to stockpile foodstuffs in their homes, thus making themselves targets for groups who needed or wanted more. The famous historian Lewis Mumford once argued that cities were originally built as war machines. Conflicts that occurred before we raised city walls and armies, he believed, could not truly be called warfare. But the authors of a new paper in Nature call that assumption into question. They chronicle the violent deaths of these 27 people in ancient Kenya and ask whether it might not be one of the first records of human warfare in history.

Kickstarter has posted its post-mortem on how Europe’s most-crowdfunded project suddenly collapsed, marking the first time the company has hired a reporter to examine a failed project.

In a 13,000-word article first sent to backers of the Zano handheld drone and then re-posted on Medium, journalist Mark Harris concluded that Wales-based Torquing Group over-promised and under-delivered due to incompetence rather than malice.

"I don’t think any amount of time or money with those people would have resulted in a success," Harris told Ars. "I got the impression they were in over their head. They were out of their depth."

As soon as I saw optional star ratings being given for my performance on each mission in Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak, I was dubious about the campaign's length. The addition sent a small, clear signal: "Here's a thin excuse to play again on a higher difficulty." I'm not normally one to fetishize a game's length, as has been recorded on this very site numerous times. In the case of a Homeworld game, however, length can be a critical factor.

That’s truer than ever with Deserts of Kharak, because this new standalone game is actually a prequel to Homeworld, the original seminal space fleet strategy sim that Relic released back in 1999 (not to be confused with the recently Remastered re-release). That game began with the lost Hiigarans taking their first fledgling steps into space after millennia of grounding. Deserts of Kharak, as the name implies, takes place during their planetside exile. Here, tanks and mobile railguns take the place of interceptors and bombers, though the latter pair does make an in-atmosphere appearance here and there.

Homeworld, on-world

While the environment and style of strategy has changed, quite a lot of what makes Homeworld recognizable still remains. The music still swells with drums, strings, and the Armenian duduk (I'll admit I had to Google that last one). The technology is still flat, broad, and lifeless in a familiar way, just as the Battlestar Galactica reboot aped as much of the series' sense of style.

What carries over mechanically is... well, the way things carry over. Resources, vehicles, upgrades, and other elements developed in one mission can still be carried over to the next. The same goes for any losses that you incur, which makes every skirmish matter. Every loss—every second spent micromanaging conflict and harvesting—weaves a story of desperation.

Tesla is suing a Swiss parts vendor that the electric-vehicle maker said produced a defective hydraulic system for the Model X's signature, vertically opening winged doors. Hoerbiger's prototype never was used in Tesla's latest electric car, and Tesla had to retool "the entire vehicle in order to support a different engineering solution," Tesla claims.

According to Tesla's lawsuit (PDF), filed Tuesday in San Francisco federal court:

On numerous occasions, Tesla notified Hoerbiger of the multitude of defects with its product. While Hoerbiger insisted it could fix the problems, Hoerbiger failed to do so.

Instead, Hoerbiger provided a product that never came close to being ready for production. For example, the system was prone to overheating, which caused it to shut down—making the doors inoperable—when Tesla stress-tested a prototype vehicle. The doors also did not open with the speed or symmetry that Tesla required, including when a prototype vehicle was parked at an incline or when the system was exposed to extreme temperatures. Hoerbiger's doors also “sagged” beyond Tesla's specified tolerance levels.

Furthermore, the product persistently leaked oil, both internally and externally, which, as Hoerbiger acknowledged, was entirely unacceptable, negatively impacting performance as well as leaving unsightly markings and stains inside the vehicle. In sum, Hoerbiger's prototype never came close to fulfilling the promises made by Hoerbiger. Ultimately, the deficiencies in Hoerbiger's product made it an unworkable engineering solution for the Falcon Wing doors of the Model X.

The hydraulics maker declined Ars' request for comment. But the suit, which seeks millions in damages, notes that the parties are disputing whether "Tesla was contractually obligated to purchase production parts from Hoerbiger and whether Hoerbiger is entitled to recover for Tesla's decision not to purchase such parts." Tesla said Hoerbiger's demands are "unreasonable."

As record months piled up, it became clear a while ago that 2015 was going to be the hottest year on record. Now the final numbers are coming in—and like the official times from a race between me and Usain Bolt, they’re hardly a surprise.

Just as La Niñas hold down the global average temperature because of the cool ocean water rising to the surface in the eastern equatorial Pacific, El Niño conversely pushed the average temperature up. And 2015 saw a doozy of an El Niño that rivaled the monsters of 1997 and 1982. As the long-term trend of global warming continues, El Niño years are likely to be your record-setters.

The US saw the second-warmest year on record for the Lower 48 (2012 is still tops), and the third wettest year as Oklahoma and Texas set records. California, however, had its 13th-driest year, with the promise of El Niño rains yet to deliver. The UK had its sixth-wettest year on record, but not quite as warm—15 years have been warmer.

A man who pleaded guilty last year to pointing an airsoft rifle-mounted laser at a Fresno, California Police Department helicopter was sentenced Tuesday to six months in prison and three years of supervised release.

Johnny Quenga’s saga began on March 5, 2015, when FPD helicopter pilot Ken Schneider was on routine patrol at 500 feet in the air. (Ars flew with Schneider as part of our 2014 feature on laser strikes.)

According to an FBI affidavit, both Schneider and Tactical Flight Officer Jeffrey Logue were struck several times by Quenga’s laser. Logue then used the on-board Forward Looking Infrared (FLIR) camera to determine that the laser emanated from a particular intersection in the Pinedale neighborhood of Fresno. Logue radioed down to officers on the ground, who attempted to find the suspect.