Month: May 2016

When every game of Stellaris is set up semi-randomly, it's hard to make sure every game is interesting.

My favorite memory from a grand strategy game comes from the original Master of Orion. It happened late in an epic campaign, in which the entire galaxy had been colonized and everyone was cozy in an alliance. The galaxy had been at peace for a while, if tenuously, with me as one of the surviving seven or so empires.

Then, suddenly, the game triggered a random event that caused my ambassador to try to kill a rival leader. The tenuous peace was shattered, war was declared, and two massive alliances tore the galaxy in half. It was like World War I in space after the assassination of some alien archduke.

Ever since then, I’ve been looking for a game that combines complex strategic systems with random events so magnificently. It’s a difficult combination to find and perhaps an even harder one to design. Designing a game that’s both random and consistently engaging is a problem I thought about constantly during my recent time with Stellaris, Paradox’s latest epic space strategy game.

(credit: Brightsource Energy)

This week, some misaligned mirrors at the nation's biggest solar thermal energy plant caused an electrical fire that took out one of the plant's three boiler towers. The fire comes as the plant has been under pressure from the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) for failing to meet its productions targets in the two years since the plant opened.

The solar thermal plant, called the Ivanpah Solar Power Facility, is distinct from photovoltaic solar plants in that it doesn't use solar panels. Instead, it relies on an array of 78-square-foot mirrors, known as heliostats, to direct the hot desert sun to one of three 459-foot-high boiler towers. The heat creates steam in the boiler towers, which powers generators to create energy, which is then sold to PG&E and Southern California Edison.

On Thursday morning around 9:30 am, according to the Associated Press, some poorly-aimed heliostats focused the sun's energy about two-thirds of the way up the tower instead of at the boiler at the top of the tower. This caused electrical cables to catch fire, melting and scorching steam ducts and water pipes on the tower. Even though the plant reported that its personnel put the fire out within 20 minutes, NRG Energy told the Associated Press that it did not know when the tower would be back online. A second tower is also down for maintenance, leaving only one boiler tower producing energy for Ivanpah.

July 29 confrontation between Rohnert Park officer David Rodriguez and resident Don McComas. (credit: YouTube)

It's been months since Ars reported about a Northern California police officer who unholstered his gun and looked ready to shoot a man whose crime appeared to be nothing more than filming that officer scouring the neighborhood.

Officer David Rodriguez was placed on paid administrative leave pending an investigation by officials from Rohnert Park, a city about 50 miles north of San Francisco. But his job was restored after the police department said the law enforcement official did nothing wrong. The video of the incident went viral and has been seen nearly half a million times on YouTube alone. The incident, in which Rohnert Park resident Don McComas and the officer were both filming each other, underscores that we are indeed living in a YouTube society—one in which there is distrust between the public and citizenry and one where footage speaks louder than words.

McComas is now suing the officer and the city of Rohnert Park for unspecified damages over the July 29 incident, among other things claiming a breach of his constitutional right of assembly and speech. McComas claims he was in front of his own residence putting a trailer to his vehicle when Rodriguez, who the department said was searching for parking scofflaws, drove up. McComas began filming with a mobile phone.

NASA/IMAX Corporation

A sunrise showcases the Earth's thin, thin atmosphere.

10 more images in gallery

The movie A Beautiful Planet lives up to its name. Earth is a planet, it is beautiful, and arguably it has never looked this good before. To capture imagery for this IMAX movie, NASA delivered 4K cameras to the space station in 2014, marking the first time 4K resolution cameras have been used to make a commercial film in orbit. Nevertheless, if you’re remotely interested in space, you’ve probably seen images and videos like these before.

That’s because astronauts have been taking amazing photos of planet Earth, with increasingly sophisticated cameras, during the 15 years the International Space Station has given them a semi-permanent platform to do so. Two years ago, NASA even activated several commercial HD video cameras on the exterior of the station to provide around-the-clock views of the planet in high definition. Earth—our pale blue dot, the cradle of humanity, an oasis of life in a cold, dark universe—has become an easy story to tell.

What has proven far more difficult for NASA and journalists to capture is the immensity and scope of the International Space Station. Even though it flies only a few hundred miles above Earth, the station still advances human spaceflight. Yet the station remains an abstract concept when compared to something as concrete as a rocket launch or a space shuttle. Is the station a tin can? Is it cramped? Just what is it like to live aboard?