Month: October 2016

Ariel Waldman has worked with NASA, the National Academy of Sciences, and hundreds of citizen scientists and inventors to make sure humanity gets to space. For our seventh episode of Ars Technica Live, we got her uncensored opinions about what it will really take to inhabit the Solar System. It's a lot harder and weirder than you might think.

We began by talking about how Waldman became a "space activist," which is not a job description you hear very often. While she was in design school, she fell in love with space and applied for jobs that would allow her to pursue that interest. Luckily, NASA was hiring non-scientists to work on outreach programs, and that's where her career started.

Since then, she has set up Spacehack.org, a directory of space projects that need your help, even if you're not an astronaut (or astrophysicist). And she has worked on a National Academies committee to advise the US government about how it should plan for the future of human spaceflight.

Enlarge / The 3D art tilts toward the cartoon-ish side.

This time it’s not just Civilization’s version of history that’s virtually spotless and free of pesky complications. Sid Meier’s Civilization VI is a nearly spotless game—freer of the menu-diving, micromanagement, and spreadsheet reading than just about any turn-based 4X strategy game I've yet played.

If you’ve ever wanted to try your hand at exploring, expanding, exploiting, and exterminating ahistorical societies, but were always too afraid of numbers to give Civ a shot, there’s never been a better time to dive in. Newcomers will also be spared the trouble of un-learning all the franchise lessons that Civ 6 throws out of the series’ window. Civ 6 is both the easiest-on-the-eyes Civilization yet and the series’ biggest departure from tradition (among the mainline “numbered” games, that is).

But Civ’s newfound cleanliness comes at a cost that’s not immediately obvious. While most new mechanics are easy to spot, established Civ conventions aren’t well explained this time around. That’s thanks in part to a greatly reduced “Advisor” system. In previous Civ games, AI advisors for military, economics, and culture popped up to give you detailed advice on what step to take next and why.

The concept is still there in Civ 6, but the uniquely themed talking heads have been replaced by just one. As before, her icon appears next to suggested projects. Yet she gives no details on why she’s suggesting you should build a Granary, Settler, Warrior, or what-have-you. You’re forced to take an educated guess.

Enlarge (credit: Scott Eisen/Getty Images)

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has reopened an investigation into the Hillary Clinton e-mail scandal, Rep. Jason Chaffetz, (R-Utah), tweeted Friday.

FBI Dir just informed me, "The FBI has learned of the existence of emails that appear to be pertinent to the investigation." Case reopened

— Jason Chaffetz (@jasoninthehouse) October 28, 2016

NBC news subsequently tweeted a letter written by FBI director James Comey to lawmakers, including Chaffetz. The letter said the the FBI has "learned of the existence of emails that appear to be pertinent to the investigation" and is taking "appropriate investigative steps to determine whether they contain classified information."

Developing.

Enlarge (credit: Greenlight Community Broadband)

A municipal ISP that was on the verge of shutting off Internet service outside its city boundaries to comply with a state law has come up with a temporary fix: it will offer broadband for free.

The free Internet service for existing customers outside Wilson, North Carolina, will be available for six months, giving users more time to switch to an alternative. But Wilson also hopes that six months will be enough time to convince elected officials to change the state law that prohibits the municipal ISP from selling Internet service to non-residents.

As we've covered previously, the Federal Communications Commission voted in February 2015 to preempt laws in North Carolina and Tennessee that prevent municipal broadband providers from expanding outside their territories. Greenlight Community Broadband in Wilson subsequently began offering service outside of Wilson.

Enlarge / The apparently hacked tweet that led to so much Internet drama this morning.

Despite what you may have seen tweeted or written, it doesn't appear that Hello Games founder Sean Murray (or anyone else at the developer) actually admitted that No Man's Sky was a mistake this morning.

To be sure, the Hello Games Twitter account did send the tweet pictured above, saying directly that "No Man's Sky was a mistake" just before 9am Eastern time this morning. The tweet was deleted about 10 minutes after going up, and the Hello Games account was set to "protected" at about the same time.

Many initially assumed the tweet was the result of a hack, especially given the odd posting method via LinkedIn, a platform that has had its own share of security problems. But things started to get confusing when various news outlets reported that someone using an e-mail account associated with Murray attributed the tweet to "a disgruntled employee" and said Hello Games was "currently trying to sort out the issue."

(credit: Master OSM 2011)

Imagine if, during the Jim Crow era, a newspaper offered advertisers the option of placing ads only in copies that went to white readers.

That’s basically what Facebook is doing nowadays.

The ubiquitous social network not only allows advertisers to target users by their interests or background, it also gives advertisers the ability to exclude specific groups it calls “Ethnic Affinities.” Ads that exclude people based on race, gender and other sensitive factors are prohibited by federal law in housing and employment.