In Case You Forgot, Aliens Definitely Exist, And Other Facts
WHAT WE LEARNED THIS WEEK
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​Welcome to What We Learned This Week, a digest of the most curiously important facts from the past few days. This week: We haven't forgotten about the dang alien alloys, the video game industry needs to unionize and why cutting up your brand new tires is a bad idea.

Don't Sleep On The Alien Alloys

Perhaps you remember all the way back to December, when the freaking New York Times reported on a Pentagon program dedicated to researching the existence of unidentified flying objects. Not only was it insane that our very own government felt it necessary to spend $22 million to determine if we have indeed been visited by beings from another planet, but that the Pentagon had physical evidence — materials that baffled our nation's top people; the alien alloys — that something unknown to us had been here.

Granted, in terms of conspiracy theories, believing in aliens is fairly low stakes. It's not insane to logically believe that somewhere in the infinite exists life. It might be insane, however, to believe that aliens are among us. It's one thing to believe in the idea of aliens, it's another to look someone in the eye and inform them, "No really, aliens have visited us. They're here." This is all in spite of David Duchovny making a career out of playing a handsome alien-believing kook.

That said, this week New York Magazine made what might be the most comprehensive case towards it being "acceptable" to believe in extraterrestrial life here on Earth. They give 13 reasons, ranging from the aforementioned alien alloys, to long histories of alleged alien encounters to even science's gradual bend towards acknowledging alien existence.

After reading it will seem almost insane to not believe.

[New York Magazine]

The Video Game Industry Needs A Union

The collapse of Telltale Games, the developer largely responsible for reviving the adventure game genre with 2012's The Walking Dead, is a telling sign of the state of labor in the game industry, writes The Verge's Megan Farokhmanesh

As it turns out, making video games is very hard. It requires bringing together talented folks from almost every single creative field — engineers, artists, writers, musicians, actors and so on — to create a game that needs to be extensively tested, promoted and sold. What's more, video games also seem to attract The Most Online folks, who have zero qualms about posting about the delays, bugs and any other perceived slight.

The solution, Telltale and the market has seemingly decided upon, is to leverage the prestige factor of making a video game to force workers to work long hours to meet unrealistic deadlines. In Telltale's case it was growing too fast, demanding too much of their more experienced employees, burning them out and then relying on a constantly-shifting staff of new blood. The industry seemingly runs on exploiting the hope and ambition of young folks in order to meet deadlines.

If only there was a way for people who work in the video game industry to come together and demand certain limits for how long people should be asked to work. If only there was a way.

[The Verge]

Slicing Up Your Brand New Tires Is A Scam

Have you had the pleasure of buying a new set of tires for your automobile lately? Have you, in the process of buying four new pieces of rubber for your car, been asked if you wanted to get those tires siped — that is, have thousands of squiggles cut into the tread? Did you do it?

Well, according to Jalopnik's Jerry Smith, you shouldn't. In theory, the sipes increase the contact patch of the tire by allowing the tread to flex more onto the road. And in conditions where it's wet or icy, it does indeed improve grip. In fact, most modern winter tires sport sipes to facilitate this very specific use case.

Smith talked to a handful of tire manufacturers, and surprise, found that aftermarket siping is bad. As it turns out, adding sipes to tires that were designed to work without sipes changes how that tire grips and wears. In practice, adding sipes to an all-weather or summer tire makes the tire more squirmy, which leads to uneven wear and decreased grip in dry situations. 

So if someone is telling you that what your brand new tires need is a good slicing up before you jump out onto the road, maybe go somewhere else.

[Jalopnik]

<p>Steve Rousseau is the Features Editor at Digg.&nbsp;</p>

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