Author: Nathan Mattise

"You can't turn on the TV or read the newspaper without hearing about a corporate hack," actor Rami Malek tells the camera; maybe he is an Ars reader after all. The Mr. Robot star appears almost immediately in Mr. Robot Decoded, a one-off documentary airing tonight on USA (11:05pm ET). But unlike the series at large, Malek isn't the star here. Writers and technical experts from the show's staff take center stage with TV critics and real-life security professionals. Their goal isn't to overthrow virtual financial prisons à la the show's "fsociety" hacker collective; they just want everyone to know more about Mr. Robot's subject matter and to realize how exceptional the show is at depicting and predicting real-world drama.

Decoded does well to include a handful of notable names: Jeff Moss (DefCon founder), Lance James (chief scientist at Flashpoint), and Peiter "Mudge" Zatko (leader of the L0ght hacker collective who later joined DARPA) all chime in on various topics. A lot of the extremely technical nerding out may have been left for the cutting room floor, however. These experts instead lay out many of the basics for the world depicted in the show: What is hacking? What's a DDoS? How come password cracking seems so easy? The special spends equal time relaying network news-level detail on major events like Apple v. FBI, the Ashley Madison hack, and the Sony data dumps. (It's a lot of old-hat stuff for Ars readers.)

In this sense, Decoded works best as a recruiting tool to get non-tech-savvy friends up to speed enough to appreciate the relevance and tech mindfulness of Mr. Robot as opposed to something like CSI Cyber. The documentary seemingly acknowledges this target audience, too. It starts with a brief (and major, spoiler-free) plot recap of season one to introduce major characters and explain the worldview of Elliot Alderson. Series stars like Portia Doubleday (Angela), Christian Slater (Mr. Robot), and Malek appear interspersed between the technical discussions to praise the storytelling and explain how much they learn through osmosis on set. Series creator Sam Esmail even chuckles in victory after Malek and Carly Chaikin (Darlene) proudly declare they now tape their webcams.

After last year's inaugural PC Gaming Show at E3—a slow, sometimes painful rollout of games followed by lengthy interview segments—we weren't sure what to expect in the 2016 sequel. But today, a slew of developers offered PC gamers much quicker teases and blurbs about some titles to watch for within the next year.

In total, roughly titles were shown off. There was also expansion pack and video card news plus a lengthy appreciation of the mouse and keyboard from Warren Spector. While light on hard details like release dates, overall the show presented a diverse array of games that spanned gameplay genre and developer pedigree. Above is information on everything we took in, and below are some select notes on titles that looked particularly promising.

Ark Survival Evolved showed off a Primitive Plus mod, coming late July to players. The mod will apparently be good for roleplaying, playing on a high technology tier, creating your own storefronts. The team presenting mentioned that the goal is to create a pack of creatures, play with them, raise babies, and level them up. Players will be able to go through lifecycles from babies to adults, and the team snuck in some cheeky additions like a mate button and a poop button. (Our Sam Machkovech likened it to "Ultima Online but with DINOSAURS!")

When announcing Gears of War 4 at its E3 event today, Microsoft unveiled a new gaming feature called Xbox Play Anywhere. Essentially, this initiative allows a gamer to purchase a title once but still have the option to play on console and PC.

As perhaps the headlining feature of Xbox Play Anywhere, multiplayer across platform will become a reality. With Gears of War 4, for instance, the co-op modes will support this crossplay between Windows 10 and Xbox One users. Progress and achievements will be shared on Xbox Live across these platforms at no additional cost.

In addition to Gears of War 4, Microsoft announced that Forza Horizons 3 will be another upcoming Xbox Play Anywhere title. Additionally, the game will allow for four player campaign co-op for the first time. And this version of the game will feature "the largest car roster ever seen in Horizon," according to Ralph Fulton from Playground Games.

ABITA SPRINGS, Louisiana—To the uninitiated, folk art seems decidedly lo-fi. As opposed to the classical techniques and aesthetics shown off at a fine art or modern art museum, folk art runs a gamut of adjectives: utilitarian, decorative, junky, profound, recycled,, crafty, and more.

But at the Abita Mystery House, artistic curators have increasingly embraced the idea of our vintage technology taking on second life as folk art. Enter the old gas station turned museum, and circuit boards from long deceased computers, televisions, and other gadgets line the ceilings. Art Deco style robots (or bots made from more unused circuit boards) stand at attention to take visitor tickets.

Artist John Preble started putting together the museum in the 1990s; culture vultures as big as Mike and Frank from the History Channel's American Pickers have descended upon it since.

Car Seat Headrest's Teens of Denial, released yesterday on Matador Records, sounds like 2002. To these ears at least, it brings to mind the debut album from turn-of-the-century alternative hero Ben Kweller (Sha, Sha). While being perfect soundtracks for a windows-down spring drive, these records also make you think. Thoughtful yet obtuse lyrics cause you to ponder a track long after it ends, and the compositions seem to offer new musical ideas every listen as they eschew typical song formats and instrumentations.

But Teens of Denial couldn't possibly exist 15 years ago—least of all because songwriter Will Toledo hadn't yet turned 10 years old. Toledo instead stands as a "new" voice among a younger generation of musicians (ala Chance The Rapper, age 23, or Torres, age 25) who grew up alongside our current digital music ecosystem. As such, Car Seat Headrest's first original album for a label represents a culmination of many changes the industry has gone through in the past decade-plus: instant accessibility to vast catalogues; the democratization of recording and releasing; the need to share it all immediately.

And if Teens of Denial stands as a sign of the times, things have turned out all right for us fans.

"When you think about [Michoud's] history and its heritage, we did the external tank here," Bobby Watkins, the current director at NASA's Michoud Assembly Facility, told Ars in late 2015. "That was really our heritage. We built 135 tanks here at Michoud, and that serviced the shuttle program for years."

Yesterday, NASA ended one of the most notable chapters in its history. External Tank 94 (ET-94) left the Michoud Assembly Facility, meaning the site no longer houses any of the iconic fuel containers that helped shuttles reach space since 1981.

ETs were the orange-ish foam-covered containers attached to the shuttle in order to carry large quantities of fuel and oxidizer. (The first few ETs were painted white—with Michoud employees once even running to a nearby Sears and buying out the store's supply in order to meet a deadline—but NASA eventually learned this did not protect against ultraviolet light and ditched the paint to further reduce weight.) They were massive creations; even lightweight versions like ET-94 came in with jaw-dropping specifications: 65,000 pounds, 154-feet long, and more than 27 feet in diameter. During lift-off, ETs would transfer the fuel and oxidizer to the space shuttle main engines before detaching and falling back to the ocean.

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MICHOUD, La.—Obviously, NASA's novel plans for its Space Launch System (SLS) and the Orion capsule require state of the art tools and engineering. But all those strategies, machines, and flight hardware don't appear out of thin air. While much of NASA's work is built on the shoulders of giants so to speak, they also find partners to continuously perform essential research and development.

At the Michoud Assembly Facility outside of New Orleans, that means NCAM. The National Center for Advanced Manufacturing is a research-oriented partnership between NASA, the state of Louisiana, and local colleges and universities such as LSU and the University of New Orleans. At its essence, NCAM sits very nearly at the start of the facility's SLS and Orion workflow. After all, before the most advanced tools at Michoud can be utilized and the best engineered materials can be implemented in NASA hardware, someone needs to do the thinking. Since 1999, this has been NCAM's role—ideating, researching, and developing various tools and materials to help NASA continually improve its work (SLS and Orion included).

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MICHOUD, La.—Look at NASA's high-profile Orion spacecraft, and you may get a funny feeling of familiarity. While the modern crew vehicle recently made its big screen debut in the Oscar-nominated The Martian, any lingering deja vu more likely comes from a different place. With the Orion module, there's more than a passing resemblance to its predecessor—the one from the Apollo program.

"To the untrained eye, it looks very much the same," says Jim Bray, Lockheed Martin's Director of the Orion Crew Module. Bray's been working and thinking about Orion since helping Lockheed win the contract in 2006, and even he can admit it looks "very similar" to Apollo.

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MICHOUD, La.—The scope of NASA's Space Launch System is unlike anything the organization has taken on before, and that's not only true of its deep space aspirations. Size factors in too.

In terms of mere height, the SLS rocket will end up nearly 38-stories tall. Building and assembling something that unfathomably massive and unique (remember, it must traverse treacherous space environments) requires equally impressive tools. Luckily for NASA, that's exactly what its Michoud Assembly Facility can offer.

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MICHOUD, La.—Bobby Watkins hears it all the time. He's on a plane with some work materials, and a neighbor will notice the unmistakable "meatball." (That's a loving nickname for NASA's iconic blue spherical logo shared by many around his office.) Watkins isn't in transit to Houston, Florida, or Southern California, however, so onlookers inevitably ask, “You work for NASA? Why are you going to New Orleans?”

Watkins doesn't just work for NASA; he's the current director at the space organization's Michoud Assembly Facility. The 800+ acre campus sits about 15 miles east of New Orleans, and NASA has operated it since the 1960s. But despite the long history, Michoud feels like NASA's hidden chapter. Glitzy shuttle launches and major research breakthroughs tend to happen elsewhere, and unlike the other nearby facilities—Mississippi’s Stennis, Alabama’s Marshall, or Florida’s Kennedy Space Center—Michoud doesn’t even offer public tours anymore. The low profile does not equate to low organizational priority, however. Since the days of Saturn I and Saturn V, every major NASA initiative that takes to the stars physically passes through Michoud, Louisiana.