news.buyenne.com

Enlarge (credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

Less than a year ago, an international team of astronomers put the star TRAPPIST-1 in the news. TRAPPIST-1 itself is unremarkable, belonging to the class of small, dim stars known as "ultracool dwarfs." Rather, it was the presence of three planets orbiting the star that made the news. While they probably orbit too close to support liquid water, TRAPPIST-1's proximity to Earth—it's less than 40 light years away—makes detailed observations of any planetary atmospheres a realistic possibility.

But the orbit of the outermost planet, TRAPPIST-1d, wasn't well defined by the initial observations, causing its discoverers to go back for some followup observations. Those turned up four more planets, three of which are likely to be in the habitable zone of their host star. As the orbit of the outer one is, once again, certain, more observations will undoubtedly be in the works. Who knows what they'll turn up?

The TRAPPIST family

TRAPPIST-1 got its name from the telescope that first spotted the planets, the Transiting Planets and Planetesimals Small Telescope, although researcher Emmanuël Jehin noted, "By the way, Trappist is the name of a famous Belgian special beer." It's a Belgian project that searches nearby dwarf stars for the presence of planets, since the dim star would make observations of planetary atmospheres much easier. The team's first telescope is based in Chile's Atacama desert, but it has since added a second in Morocco.

Elle Cayabyab Gitlin

There aren't many events in racing quite like the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb. The second-oldest race in the nation, it wends its death-defying route up the side and over the top of Pikes Peak, just outside of Colorado Springs. Cars and motorbikes race against the clock, starting at 9,390 feet (2,862m) for their "race to the clouds." In recent years, the annual hill climb has become something of a testbed for electric vehicles. They suffer no altitude-related drop in power, unlike the internal-combustion-powered competitors, and the 12.4-mile (19.99km) course is right-sized for batteries.

Even being a spectator requires a little more commitment than your average race. Things get going early on the mountain, and fans who want to see the action from above the tree line need to be there well before dawn. Thankfully this year, there's an alternative. The race organizers and a company called Matchsports have joined forces to livestream it, no mean feat considering the challenges involved.

Enlarge

If you've been putting off grabbing a few useful things from Amazon, today might be a good day to stock up, as Amazon has announced a one-day promotion: an $8.63 coupon, applicable to many orders over $50.

The coupon expires at midnight Pacific on Wednesday, February 22, and it has that funny number because Amazon is using the coupon to brag. The online retailer topped the national Harris Corporate Reputation Poll in rank this week with a score of 86.27, which Amazon is rounding up for its coupon. The Harris poll measures large American corporations over a number of metrics, including "social responsibility," "emotional appeal," and "workplace environment"—and Jeff Bezos is probably stoked to score high in that last category, all things considered.

Amazon's 2017 score is the top out of 100 American companies, beating tech companies such as Apple (82.07), Netflix (79.86), Hewlett-Packard (77.83), and more. The bottom-ten list includes a few companies that have seen their share of bad news on Ars Technica recently, including Comcast, Charter, and Volkswagen.

Enlarge (credit: Webpass)

Google Fiber's new wireless Internet division is apparently ready to expand. The company's Webpass subsidiary says in a job listing that it is "searching for a General Manager to launch our Seattle market." The new GM will be "directly responsible for the growth of our local telecom network and revenue" and will oversee construction and installation schedules.

Webpass, which offers up to 1Gbps upload and download speeds for $60 a month and without data caps, was purchased by Google Fiber in October 2016 and already sells wireless home Internet service in Boston, Chicago, Miami, San Diego, Oakland, and San Francisco. (Advertised speeds are anywhere from 100Mbps to 1Gbps, depending on location.) GeekWire, which wrote about the Webpass job listing yesterday, notes that the plan "would bring Google’s wireless option to Seattle’s dense urban center where creating a new physical fiber network can be expensive and impractical."

Google Fiber is known primarily for its fiber-to-the-home service that it offers in nine metro areas. But the Alphabet-owned ISP recently decided to reduce its staff and "pause" fiber operations in 10 cities where it hadn't fully committed to building. Fiber deployments are still planned for a few cities where Google Fiber had committed to building, namely Huntsville, Alabama; San Antonio, Texas; and Louisville, Kentucky. Another planned deployment in Irvine, California, which Google Fiber had described as definitely moving forward, was then canceled. San Francisco was also previously slated to get fiber, but it will have to make do with Webpass wireless.

Enlarge / The cast of the new MST3K, complete with robot pals. (credit: Netflix)

The crowdfunded 14-episode revival season of Mystery Science Theater 3000, the '90s cult favorite about making fun of bad movies with your robot pals, will officially hit Netflix on April 14. The show's deal with Netflix was announced by series creator Joel Hodgson last summer, and Hodgson revealed the launch date to the project's Kickstarter backers early this morning. Production wrapped on the new season back in October, and in recent weeks, small groups of Kickstarter backers have gotten to see the premiere episode at a handful of "Red Carpet Kickstarter Screening" events.

The crowdfunded MST3K revival project was announced in late 2015, and it managed to raise $6.3 million in Kickstarter pledges and other donations. The size of the project and the show's enduring popularity 16 years after its cancellation attracted some reasonably big-name talent to the project both in front of and behind the camera, including Felicia Day and Patton Oswalt as series regulars and a list of guest stars that includes Jack Black, Joel McHale, Jerry Seinfeld, and Mark Hamill. Jonah Ray, the show's new host, was already an established comedian when he was hired, and the show's head writer, Elliott Kalan, was also the head writer for the Jon Stewart-era Daily Show and co-hosts the successful Flop House film podcast on the Maximum Fun network.

Hodgson has said in interviews and Kickstarter updates that maintaining the lo-fi homemade feel of the original show is important to him, but this is undeniably a flashier production than the old show. A handful of the writers and performers from the old show, including Bill Corbett (the second voice of Crow), Kevin Murphy (second voice of Tom Servo), and Mary Jo Pehl (late-series villain Pearl Forrester) will be returning as writers or in guest appearances, though others have been content to merely wish the new project well.