Month: December 2023

Cats have a well-deserved reputation for being independent-minded and aloof, preferring to interact with humans on their own quirky terms. So you'd never see a cat playing fetch like a dog, right? Wrong. That sort of play behavior is more common than you might think—one of our cats was an avid fetcher in her younger years, although she's slowed down a bit with age. However, the evidence to date for specific fetching behaviors in cats is largely anecdotal.

That's why a team of British scientists set out to study this unusual feline play behavior more extensively, reporting their findings in a new paper published in the journal Scientific Reports. The researchers concluded that most cats who like to play fetch learned how to do so without any explicit training and that cats are generally in control when playing fetch with their humans. Specifically, cats will play fetch longer and retrieve the thrown object more times when they initiate the game rather than their owners. In other words, cats are still gonna be cats.

Many different animal species exhibit play behavior, according to the authors, and it's most common in mammals and birds. When cats play, their behavior tends to resemble hunting behavior commonly seen in European wildcats and lynxes: rapid approach and retreat, leaping, chasing, pouncing, and stalking. Initially, as kittens, they engage in more social forms of play with their littermates like wrestling, and they tend to engage in more solitary play as adults—the opposite of dogs, who usually start playing with objects alone before transitioning to social play.

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If you've been too busy mourning the death of E3 to take part in this year's Ars Technica Charity Drive sweepstakes, don't worry. You still have time to donate to a good cause and get a chance to win your share of over $2,500 worth of swag (no purchase necessary to win).

So far, in the first few weeks of the drive, over 215 readers have contributed over $17,000 to either the Electronic Frontier Foundation or Child's Play as part of the charity drive (EFF is now leading in the donation totals by nearly $6,000). That's a long way from 2020's record haul of over $58,000, but there's still plenty of time until the Charity Drive wraps up on Tuesday, January 2, 2024.

That doesn't mean you should put your donation off, though. Do yourself and the charities involved a favor and give now while you're thinking about it.

While Doom can sometimes feel like an overnight smash success, the seminal first-person shooter was far from the first game created by id co-founders John Carmack and John Romero. Now, in a rare joint interview that was livestreamed during last weekend's 30th-anniversary celebration, the pair waxed philosophical about how Doom struck a perfect balance between technology and simplicity that they hadn't been able to capture previously and have struggled to recapture since.

Carmack said that Doom-precursor Wolfenstein 3D, for instance, "was done under these extreme, extraordinary design constraints" because of the technology available at the time. "There just wasn't that much we could do."

Wolfenstein 3D's grid-based mapping led to a lot of boring rectangular rooms connected by long corridors. (credit: Steam)

One of the biggest constraints in Wolfenstein 3D was a grid-based mapping system that forced walls to be at 90-degree angles, leading to a lot of large, rectangular rooms connected by long corridors. "Making the levels for the original Wolfenstein had to be the most boring level design job ever because it was so simple," Romero said. "Even [2D platformer Commander Keen] was more rewarding to make levels for."

Enlarge / Severe weather reports from Saturday across Tennessee and Kentucky. Note the cluster of tornado reports north of Nashville. (credit: NOAA)

Last weekend saw a tragic outbreak of tornadoes in Tennessee that killed six people and injured more than 80. In the aftermath of these deadly storms, video has emerged showing one of the tornadoes striking a power station, which appears to disrupt the circulation of the twister.

This has led to rampant online speculation—as tends to happen in 2023—about whether it’s possible to “blow up” a tornado. Take a gander at the video below:

Tennessee tornado 2023. Please be safe.

Friend from my wrestling academy captured this insane video in Madison. Please be safe. pic.twitter.com/2JDWNznfUn

— BD (@BrandonDavisBD) December 9, 2023

This tornado occurred between Madison and Goodlettsville, just north of Nashville, east of I-65. What you see is the tornado striking a power substation, followed by an explosion. The power substation belonged to Nashville Electric Service, which subsequently released a video from the substation on Monday showing the strike and explosion.