Month: May 2021

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If you use Alexa, Echo, or any other Amazon device, you have only 10 days to opt out of an experiment that leaves your personal privacy and security hanging in the balance.

On June 8, the merchant, Web host, and entertainment behemoth will automatically enroll the devices in Amazon Sidewalk. The new wireless mesh service will share a small slice of your Internet bandwidth with nearby neighbors who don’t have connectivity and help you to their bandwidth when you don’t have a connection.

By default, Amazon devices including Alexa, Echo, Ring, security cams, outdoor lights, motion sensors, and Tile trackers will enroll in the system. And since only a tiny fraction of people take the time to change default settings, that means millions of people will be co-opted into the program whether they know anything about it or not.

Enlarge (credit: Crevecoeur and Antoine 2021)

When archaeologists in the 1960s unearthed a 13,400-year-old cemetery at Jebel Sahaba in Sudan, it looked like they’d stumbled across the aftermath of a large-scale battle fought during the Pleistocene. At least half the people buried at the site, which straddles the banks of the Upper Nile, bore the marks of violence: broken skulls, arrow and spear tracks gouged in bones, and stone projectiles still embedded in their bodies.

The site now lies at the bottom of the human-made Lake Nasser, created by the construction of the Aswan High Dam in the 1960s. But the remains now reside in the British Museum’s collection (for better or worse), and anthropologists Isabelle Crevecoeur of the University of Bordeaux and Daniel Antoine of the British Museum recently re-examined the skeletons. With more modern microscope technology, the anthropologists noticed some skeletal trauma that the original archaeologists had missed. It turned out that about two thirds of the population of the ancient cemetery had bones damaged by either blunt-force trauma or—most often—by projectiles like spears and arrows. That included three out of four adults and roughly half the children.

Since the 1960s, archaeologists have thought of Jebel Sahaba as the earliest example of large-scale warfare between groups of people. But despite all the evidence of violence, the bones of the 13,000-year-old dead don’t actually seem to tell the story of a pitched battle with massive casualties. Instead, it looks like people along the Upper Nile Valley at the end of the Pleistocene lived with the constant threat of smaller-scale fighting, which affected men, women, and children alike. If you’re a gamer, think of it as living in a PvP zone in the midst of an environmental crisis.

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Update (05/31/21 11:30am ET): We've refreshed our deals roundup for Memorial Day proper to reflect expired deals and new offers we've found over the course of the weekend.

Original story (05/29/21 11:15am ET): Memorial Day weekend has arrived, which means it's time for a special holiday edition of the Dealmaster's usual deals roundup.

As is often the case, this year's crop of Memorial Day sales aren't explicitly focused on electronics as much as mattresses, appliances, and other home goods. Those who can hold out for more sweeping sales events like Amazon Prime Day or Black Friday will generally find better prices on a wider selection of tech.

Enlarge (credit: Charles Theel)

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

Stardew Valley: The Board Game was a surprise February announcement. Somehow this colorful collaboration between Cole Medeiros and Stardew Valley's sole developer Eric Barone was kept hush-hush for two years. When it was finally announced, it sold out quickly.

Given the long development time and the obvious demand, expectations were high for this cardboard adaptation to deliver on its potential. Unfortunately, there’s a few sticks and crumpled refuse mixed in with the game's gifts of starfruit and ore.

Trinitite specimens. (credit: mseery)

Update, 5/29/21: It's Memorial Day weekend in the US, and staff are trying to stay away from the keyboard accordingly. As such, we're resurfacing a few classic pieces from our archives. This one originally ran on September 1, 2014 and details a long weekend-appropriate road trip adventure to come face-to-face with an artifact of past military activity.

Four months ago in April 2014, Ars Technica sent me out to Alamogordo, New Mexico to be present at the unearthing of a landfill that was long-rumored to hold a trove of Atari games, dumped at the site after the video game crash of 1983. As I was preparing for the trip, my coworkers and I chatted about the event in the editors' IRC channel.

”When you’re hanging out in the trash dump be sure to look out for Trinitite,” automotive editor Jonathan Gitlin told me.

Enlarge / The sun shines through the treetops in the Arnsberg forest in Germany. (credit: Guido Kirchner/picture alliance via Getty Images)

What would rewilding mean for a country like the UK? Bringing back wolves and bears? Returning the land to how it looked in prehistoric times? How will people fit into this wild and unimaginably different place? Questions like these abound whenever rewilding is in the news.

In essence, rewilding involves giving more space and time to nature. Instead of managing ecosystems to preserve particular species, rewilding is intended to reverse environmental decline by letting nature become more self-willed. That means allowing wildlife the freedom to flourish and habitats to regenerate naturally.

But without clear principles to guide these processes, rewilding has become a trendy buzzword that is often used indiscriminately. This has invited wildly different interpretations, sparked debates, and caused controversy that has discouraged governments from developing it into policy.