Month: November 2016

Enlarge / Look! I can make glowing green circles with my mind! (credit: Marvel Studios)

Doctor Strange officially opens up the Marvel movie universe to sorcery. The results feel like a grown-up Harry Potter tale with a little Iron Man thrown in for good measure. There’s even a magical school for adults where the soon-to-be-Avenger learns to jump between universes and fight with glowing CGI whips. Fast-paced and fun, the movie only lags when it comes to the magic itself.

Benedict Cumberbatch plays celebrated neurosurgeon Stephen Strange as a quippy jerk who loves fast cars and expensive watches. Basically, he’s Tony Stark with two commas in his bank balance instead of three. He’s focused on his work to the point of egomania.

His girlfriend Christine (Rachel McAdams), his patients, and even his own safety take a backseat to his next groundbreaking operation. Which is why Strange is looking at fMRI images of a brain on his mobile while driving a sports car in the rain. His hubris literally sends him careening off the road and into a ditch, leaving his hands utterly shattered.

(credit: Aurich Lawson)

It's no secret that presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump cannot stomach one another; they seemingly disagree on most everything. Before the last two presidential debates, they didn't even shake hands. But even in this contentious election cycle, there's one thing these two (or four, if we're including the major third-parties) agree on...

You have a right to marijuana for medical or recreational purposes.

Where a president stands on marijuana means a lot, at least for those partaking in or profiting from the marijuana industry. Today, the federal government still classifies marijuana as a controlled substance, the same category as heroin. Yet four states—Alaska Colorado, Oregon, Washington—allow recreational marijuana, a status directly in conflict with federal law.

Welcome to Ars Cardboard, our weekend look at tabletop games. Check out our complete board gaming coverage at cardboard.arstechnica.com.

Depending on whom you ask, I either cannot remember anything or I have a mind like a steel trap. My lovely wife would argue for option one, offering up as evidence my inability to remember family events and the location of common household items. I would counter by reciting the starting defense for the 1977 AFC Championship Denver Broncos (Carter, Chavous, Alzado, Swenson, Gradishar, T Jackson, Rizzo, B Jackson, Foley, Wright, Thompson), childhood addresses and phone numbers, and the only US president who served two, non-consecutive terms (Grover Cleveland).

Sure, keeping those datapoints in long-term storage isn’t all that useful most of the time, but they have led to my history of domination in Trivial Pursuit (I’ve only lost once in the countless games I've played since the game debuted in the 1980s). So when Nate Anderson showed up at my house a couple of weeks ago with a new trivia game called America, I was intrigued.

Enlarge (credit: Getty | FREDERIC J. BROWN )

Whatever happens November 8, marijuana won. It’s hit an all time high in popularity—60 percent of Americans now support legalization. That handily beats both major-party candidates in favorability. Twenty-five states and Washington, DC have already legalized it for medical use. And come election day, nine states will decide whether to loosen laws further (five voting on legalization, four more on medical use).

The psychoactive plant is no longer the gateway drug of deadbeats and loafers; it’s becoming acceptable socially and politically. And with the public opinion that it’s largely harmless, users have stoked hopes that it can safely and effectively treat a range of medical ailments, from chronic pain and migraines to epilepsy and autism

Marijuana advocates are delighted by these shifts, of course. But as voters, lawmakers, patients, and doctors look to make informed decisions on legislation and usage, they’re coming up with questions—and some are pretty simple. Are there long term effects? What diseases or symptoms can it really treat? In which patients? And how? What strains and products are best? Is it OK to mix it with prescription meds? What all does marijuana’s 60 or so active cannabinoids do in our brains exactly?

Enlarge / Mike Harktop checks the beans in his solar roaster. (credit: Megan Geuss)

PUEBLO, CO—Even if you park a few blocks away from the Solar Roast Coffee building, you can smell the acidic odor of roasting coffee beans wafting down Pueblo’s Main Street.

I was out in the area for an unrelated story and had heard that Solar Roast was a cool place to sit and work. But when I found out that the coffee shop was also the retail face of the only major commercial solar-powered coffee roasting company in the US, I e-mailed owner Mike Harktop to see if I could get a tour. He congenially agreed.

Move over Elon Musk, this business is OG.