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Enlarge / This box of 1,200 pounds of remaindered DS cartridges isn't literally what's being sold by GameStop, but it gives you the general idea of what's available in this sale.

A decade or so ago, I remember my local GameStop location had a clearance sale on the last of its dwindling NES and SNES stock, selling any loose cartridges for prices under $10. I skipped out on those deals back then, but I think about that clearance a lot today—especially every time I see some of those cartridges going for prices easily 10 or 20 times the price on eBay and the like.

I bring that up now because it looks like GameStop is doing a similar "everything must go" closeout clearance on its stock of Nintendo DS titles. Nearly 900 DS games that were previously selling used for about $5 (already not a princely sum) are now clearance priced for anywhere from $1 to $3 at GameStop's website.

Obviously, that list of clearance-priced games includes a lot of truly unsellable crap: mini-game-filled shovelware; cheap-o "Brain Training" knockoffs; simplistic "Imagine"-style simulation games; and the worst kind of quickly licensed cash-ins that the bloated DS library has to offer. But if you're willing to do some digging and consult some old reviews, there are a few true classics and interesting experiments to be found from the wide-ranging, freeform era of pre-smartphone touchscreen game design.

Enlarge (credit: Getty | LARS HAGBERG)

In a new 400-page analysis that blows through the current state of scientific knowledge on the health risks and benefits of marijuana, one of the strongest conclusions is that it can effectively treat chronic pain in some patients.

The sweeping report, released Thursday by the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine, covered more than 10,000 scientific studies and came to nearly 100 other conclusions. Those mostly highlight unanswered questions and insufficient research related to health effects of marijuana, as well as several risks. However, the firm verification that marijuana does have legitimate medical uses—supported by high-quality scientific studies—is a significant takeaway in light of the Drug Enforcement Administration’s decision in August to maintain marijuana’s listing as a Schedule I drug. That is, a drug that has no medical use.

The new report also strongly concludes that the Schedule I listing creates significant administrative barriers for researchers wishing to conduct health research on marijuana and its components—an issue Ars has previously reported on.

Enlarge (credit: Babak A. Tafreshi/Wikimedia)

There are times in nature where the way things work at small scales has a remarkable impact that is only apparent when you zoom out. These emergent behaviors or patterns can produce the amazing coordination of a school of fish or the tidy geometry of patterned ground in permafrost. Such things can seem almost impossible at first glance, but it's been possible to work out the underlying processes.

In some calm, protected patches of Andean snowfields, the snow has seemingly been sculpted into evenly spaced blades, crowds of elegant spires called penitentes. The sculptor here is physics. Feedbacks take slight dimples in the snow surface and exaggerate them until a field of penitentes develops with stable spacing between spires.

Several factors drive this pattern. First, sunlight reflecting off the steep walls of the pentitentes is focused on the low spots. The tops of the thin blades or spires are better at giving up the heat from the sunlight they do absorb, accentuating the contrast. Finally, the air plays a role. Penitentes only form in calm, dry places, where sublimation of snow directly to water vapor dominates. As the thin surface layer of air between the blades or spires warms, its relative humidity falls, enabling more sublimation from the low spots. (The thickness of this air layer is actually what determines the spacing of the penitentes.) Add it all together, and snow is disappearing from the low spots faster than the tips, making the penitentes more and more jagged.

Enlarge / Leeor Ben-Peretz is the executive vice president of the Israeli firm Cellebrite. (credit: JACK GUEZ/AFP/Getty Images)

On Thursday, Vice Motherboard reported that an unnamed source provided the site with 900GB of data hacked from Cellebrite, the well-known mobile phone data extraction company.

Among other products, Cellebrite's UFED system offers "in-depth physical, file system, password, and logical extractions of evidentiary data," and is often the go-to product for law enforcement to pull data from seized phones and other devices.

In a statement, Cellebrite called this hack "illegal" and noted that "the company is not aware of any specific increased risk to customers as a result of this incident; however, my.Cellebrite account holders are advised to change their passwords as a precaution."

Enlarge / FBI Director James Comey testifies Tuesday before the Senate Select Intelligence Committee in the Dirksen Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill. (credit: Joe Raedle, Getty Images)

It's been a head-scratching few months for FBI Director James Comey. It all started last July, when Comey said Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton should not be prosecuted in connection to her use of a private e-mail server during her tenure as secretary of state. He next spoke about the situation on October 28—less than two weeks before the election—saying that the bureau discovered more e-mails relevant to the criminal inquiry that needed to be examined. Days later, on November 6—just two days before the election—Comey announced that everything was hunky dory and the newly discovered e-mail was unrelated to the Clinton investigation from July.

The whole situation prompted many after the election to conclude that Comey's actions helped thwart Clinton's chances of winning the presidency. Now, the entire Comey saga will be investigated by the Department of Justice's inspector general, and his investigation will conclude well after Donald Trump assumes the presidency on January 20.

Inspector General Michael Horowitz said the main purpose of his examination is to investigate "[a]llegations that Department or FBI policies or procedures were not followed in connection with, or in actions leading up to or related to, the FBI Director’s public announcement on July 5, 2016, and the Director’s letters to Congress on October 28 and November 6, 2016, and that certain underlying investigative decisions were based on improper considerations."

Greetings, Arsians! Courtesy of our partners at TechBargains, the Dealmaster has returned with a big batch of deals for your consideration. The top item today is a Dell Latitude 14 7000 for $729—that's $220.99 off the MSRP. The Latitude 14 7000 has a 14-inch 1080p display, Intel Core i5-5200U, 4GB of RAM, a 256GD SSD, Windows 10, and a Gorilla Glass touchscreen. In addition to that enticing offer, we have a ton of other deals below.

• Dell Latitude 14 7000 Intel Core i5-5200U 14" 1080p Business Laptop with 256GB SSD & Win 10 Pro (Only 3.5lbs) for $729.00 (use code: GMSAVE100 - list price $949.99).
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• AmazonBasics 8-Pack Pre-Charged AA NiMH Rechargeable Batteries for $15.99 (list price $19.99).
• Alienware 13 R3 Intel Core i5-6300HQ Quad-Core 1080p 13.3" Gaming Laptop w/ 256GB SSD & 6GB Nvidia GTX1060 GPU for $1169.99 (use code: TENOFF - list price $1399.99).

Laptop & Desktop Computers

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For more Desktop Computer deals, visit the TechBargains site.

Enlarge / The Switch's HD screen is reportedly a little smaller than that on an iPad Mini.

Nearly 22 months after it was offhandedly announced as Project NX (the "dedicated game platform with a brand-new concept") and nearly three months after it was first unveiled in a short trailer, Nintendo will publicly finalize the details of its upcoming Switch console in worldwide events tonight and tomorrow.

The news starts Thursday, with a livestreamed event out of Japan (with an English language option) at 11pm Eastern time (8pm Pacific). That will be followed by a short presentation from New York City at 9am Eastern time Friday morning and hands-on events in New York, Japan, and England where members of the press and invited guests will get a chance to play the system. Members of the public will then be able to try out the Switch through a promotional tour running over the next few weeks and at conventions like PAX.

Ars will be on hand to bring you the news as it happens, and we'll provide hands-on impressions, photos, and video of the hardware itself. But before it all goes down, here's what we know and what we're expecting from Nintendo's new console.

Rudy Giuliani explains the cyber. (credit: Fox & Friends, Fox News)

On Fox News' morning show Fox & Friends, former mayor (and frequent proxy for Donald Trump) Rudy Giuliani announced that he would be coordinating a cybersecurity advisory group for the Trump administration.

Giuliani's bona fides for this role apparently spring from his time as chair of the "Cybersecurity, Privacy and Crisis Management Practice" at the New York law firm Greenberg Traurig, a position he assumed a year ago. However, it's not clear that Giuliani has ever had any direct experience in cybersecurity law or policy. Giuliani previously was a partner in a Houston-based international law firm Bracewell (formerly Bracewell & Giuliani) for over 10 years, and he ran his own security consulting firm based on his mayoral experience and credibility from New York City's measures taken after the September 11, 2001 terror attack. But Giuliani is really counting on private industry to provide all the answers.

"The President-elect decided that he wanted to bring in on a regular basis the private sector—the corporate leaders in particular and thought leaders in particular for cyber, because we're so far behind," said Giuliani. "And it's his belief which I share, that a lot of the solutions are out there, we're just not sharing them. IT's like cancer—there's cancer research going on all over the place. You'd almost wish they'd all get together in one room, and maybe they'd find a cure."