Indiana Jones v. Communism, the Golden Era of Computing Groups, and more of our favorite 2020 (non-COVID) longreads

[View this email in your browser]( [Open Ars Technica in your browser]( If we're all being honest, any retrospective of the year 2020 starts and ends with COVID-19. Our [big initial guide to the basics of the coronavirus]( remains one of our most read stories of 2020 for a reason. But, this being Ars, of course we had plenty of other big stories worth remembering as we all (eagerly) prepare to close the book on the last 12 months. In 2020, Ars had its usual tentpoles—thousands upon thousands of words spilled on operating systems from [iOS]( to [Android]( to [MacOS](, for instance, or granular analysis of [new consoles]( and [games](. And we had some of our signature topics coming up in new ways, like programming language deep dives (how about [Julia for scientific mathematics](?) or interesting happenings in space (what [OSes dominate up there, again](?). [Freakin' Sid Meier]( had an Ars byline and a [never-before-seen Mission Control prank]( debuted publicly via our humble site. As always, we'd encourage readers to peruse [the full list of Ars 2020 features]( (or at least [our favorites from the first half of the year]() when considering what you'll stan for with #longreads or #longform across the Internet. But for this week's Orbital Transmission, we're highlighting our favorite Ars stories from the last six months. From 1980s text-adventures to extreme weather problems that weren't, there was still plenty to read about even if the virus occupied permanent space in all of our minds. —[@NathanMattise]( Dealmaster's Deal of the Week Dealmaster's Deal of the Week Sonos One SL for $139 at Sonos (normally $179) The Sonos One SL takes the [rich sound and ease of use]( of the standard Sonos One but strips away the built-in microphones for voice assistants like Alexa. This rare discount is only $10 off the best price we've seen. [Also at Amazon](. [$139 at Sonos]( Orbital Transmission 12.09.2020 Orbital Transmission 12.09.2020 [(image) ]( If you can't leave the house, these makers ship the adventure to you [Read Full Story »]( If you can't leave the house, these makers ship the adventure to you So many of the things we all liked to do—travel, sports, pubs, live performance—have been rendered moot due to the COVID-19 pandemic dominating life in 2020. For puzzle and adventure lovers, you can add "escape rooms" to the list of luxuries lost. But luckily a generation of creators has been adapting in real time to ship "mystery boxes" to your home to bring all of us bored couchsitters a different but highly engaging experience. Ars' Kate Cox is an avid fan of these new creations, and in her December feature she takes readers through how this genre came to be and what is out there for folks looking for a new challenge (a highly enjoyable one). Prepare to alter your holiday wishlists accordingly. [Read Full Story »]( [(image) ]( Indiana Jones and the illicit, communist-police-bashing, text-based adventure [Read Full Story »]( Indiana Jones and the illicit, communist-police-bashing, text-based adventure Any time writer Andrada Fiscutean wants to travel us through time to the interesting tech underground of various communist European countries of the 1980s, please sign us up. In her latest time capsule long read, Fiscutean examines a novel gaming scene in the former Czechoslovakia: When young tech-savvy citizens wanted to protest the regimes of the time, they often did so by building illicit text-based adventure games centered on American pop culture heroes from Indiana Jones to Rambo. The Adventures of Indiana Jones in Wenceslas Square in Prague on January 16, 1989 puts the famous archeologist when and where some infamous Czechoslovak protests took place, and Fiscutean wonderfully breaks down this overall scene, the mysteries behind this particular game, and the modern effort to port these old games for modern players to enjoy via Web browser. [Read Full Story »]( [(image) ]( Hurricanes are bad, and bad hurricane evacuations can make things worse [Read Full Story »]( Hurricanes are bad, and bad hurricane evacuations can make things worse COVID-19 indisputably ranks as the story of 2020. But for the "others receiving votes" vying for a distant second and third, it's been a hellluva year for extreme weather in the US. Ars' Eric Berger knows this topic firsthand, being [a resident of Houston who survived Harvey](. And when Hurricane Laura mercifully missed Houston this time in September, Berger took the opportunity to bring readers behind the scenes of the tense, imperfect, and high-stakes decision making that happens as a city, its leaders, and its weather scientists weigh whether or not to call for evacuations in the days leading up to landfall. When done poorly, lives are lost. And when done properly, usually no one notices... until you bring readers along for the process, that is. [Read Full Story »]( [(image) ]( Whenever we can gather again, let's do it at computer group meet ups [Read Full Story »]( Whenever we can gather again, let's do it at computer group meet ups No matter what happens in a given year, one of the cornerstone genres of Ars longform always proves to be "tech history" (see today's [origin story for C](, for example). And one of this year's most fun and oddly relevant (as we navigate a time where we can't gather together) is writer Esther Schindler's love letter to a lost era of computer groups. Back in the days where learning every aspect of a Linux distro couldn't happen via YouTube, computing enthusiasts instead found coffee shops and hotel ballrooms to gather and swap tips, try out new products, and just generally geek out about various hardware and software they adored. The computer group scene included such bigwigs as Bill Gates and has birthed an entire generation of tech leaders, and through Schindler's deep dive it's easy to understand the appeal (even before you fall down the rabbit hole of all those newsletters being available online right now). [Read Full Story »]( [(image) Condé Nast Spotlight | The breaking news and top stories everyone is talking about. All in one place. The most popular stories from Vogue, GQ, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Wired, Architectural Digest and more. 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