Meet my new favorite chocolate cake recipe! It’s rich, chocolatey and indulgent, and secretly somewhat wholesome. Almond flour forms the base, which is why this cake is wonderfully tender and well-suited for gluten-free eaters. The cocoa powder largely covers up the almond flavor, though. It’s simply delicious.

This cake is plenty sweet but not too sweet, so it’s perfect if you enjoy dark chocolate. You can play up the almond factor by topping it with sliced almonds for a fun everyday snacking cake, or turn it into a special birthday treat by spreading frosting on top. I prefer this one to most bakery cakes!

The recipe is easy to stir together by hand. I’ve made it with our five-year-old’s help several times. I don’t think you could mess it up if you tried. If you’re familiar with Italian torta Caprese or French chocolate financiers, this cake reminds me a bit of both.

Continue to the recipe...

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More Americans are rejecting everything they’ve been taught about food.

A Russian military satellite maneuvered in "extreme proximity" of a commercial Earth-imaging satellite in recent days in the first known example an unsanctioned rendezvous in low-Earth orbit, according to the orbital intelligence company LeoLabs.

The Russian spacecraft, Kosmos 2612, "conducted a deliberate series of maneuvers toward ICEYE-X36, a US-operated commercial imaging satellite," LeoLabs said. "Kosmos 2612 closed from hundreds of kilometers away to extreme proximity to ICEYE-X36. It then maneuvered around ICEYE-X36, remained nearby for an extended period, and then began moving away."

US military officials and independent analysts have tracked Kosmos 2612 since its April launch on a Soyuz rocket from a spaceport in northern Russia. Within weeks, it became apparent that at least four of the six satellites from that launch were stalking ICEYE-X36 after they adjusted orbits to line up with the orbit of the ICEYE spacecraft.

Russia's modus operandi

The situation remained stable until last week, when Kosmos 2612 began rapidly moving toward ICEYE-X36. By Friday, Kosmos 2612 was holding station 2 to 3 kilometers away before shifting positions ahead of and behind the ICEYE satellite, LeoLabs said. The satellites were within 500 meters (1,640 feet) of one another over the weekend, and "likely quite a bit closer than that," said Adam Marsh, LeoLabs' vice president of technical solutions.

LeoLabs operates a global network of radars to track objects as small as 2 centimeters, about the size of a marble, in low-Earth orbit. The proximity of Kosmos 2612 and ICEYE-X36 "occasionally made it difficult to distinguish the two spacecraft independently," LeoLabs said.

"This was not a routine conjunction or 'fly by,'" LeoLabs said. "The sequence included a controlled approach, changes in relative position, close-proximity loitering, additional small maneuvers, and a controlled departure. The behavior is consistent with sophisticated rendezvous and proximity operations (RPO)."

Satellites often fly near one another in orbit, usually by happenstance and at high closing velocities. Russia has previously deployed satellites in orbits close to the US government's most sophisticated and secret spy satellites. The difference this time is that Russia's target was a commercial satellite. Kosmos 2612 got much closer to ICEYE-X36, then stayed a while. The deliberate nature of the Russian maneuvers makes this weekend's event "strategically important," LeoLabs said.

"To my knowledge, this is the first LEO rendezvous of two active satellites where the owner of one of the sats (satellites) did not give approval," Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist who tracks global launch and satellite activity, wrote on X.

"There are parallels that have happened in geosynchronous orbit, but they’re not even close to the same as this," Marsh told Ars. "As far as this kind of event, rendezvousing in, staying there for a few days, and getting very, very close in low-Earth orbit, this is the first time we’ve ever seen this without consent. We’ve seen them test it with their own satellites before, but not like this."

As of Monday, Kosmos 2612 is moving away from the ICEYE satellite at a relative velocity of about 10 mph (17 kilometers per hour), according to Marsh.

ICEYE is a Finnish company with a fleet of high-resolution radar imaging satellites capable of resolving features on Earth's surface through cloud cover or darkness, which inhibit conventional optical reconnaissance satellites. The company has launched 80 satellites to date, and four more ICEYE satellites are set to launch this week on a SpaceX rideshare mission.

The company's US subsidiary, ICEYE US, owns the ICEYE-X36 satellite. ICEYE satellites provide imagery to numerous military users, including Ukraine, which has used ICEYE's "near-real-time space-based intelligence" since the Russian invasion in 2022. A Russian government official in 2022 said civilian satellites supporting Ukraine's military are a "legitimate target."

Taking out a single satellite in a constellation of dozens would have little effect on ICEYE's capacity to support its customers, which also include the US military and several European defense ministries.

"We are aware of the situation and tracking it closely," an ICEYE US spokesperson told Ars. "Our constellation architecture is designed for continuity and resilience."

Short time-lapse of part of this morning’s first pass of ICEYE-X36 (59103) and COSMOS 2612 (68762) over South America under partly cloudy skies. https://t.co/t8RhwmKcV4

— s2a systems (@s2a_systems) October 18, 2026

Gen. Stephen Whiting, head of US Space Command, said in April that it was "evident" that Russia is operationalizing anti-satellite weapons. US government leaks have also suggested Russia is eyeing the placement of a nuclear weapon in orbit. The US military disclosed last month that it, too, has placed weapons in space, without elaborating.

There were no reports of physical damage to the ICEYE-X36 satellite by the time Kosmos 2612 started its retreat Sunday. But getting so close to a US-owned satellite with military utility was a provocation, said retired Lt. Gen. John Shaw, a former deputy commander of US Space Command.

"So far, the best interpretation of the Russian activity is clear messaging that they will intentionally conduct aggressive activity near platforms they perceive as actual or potential threats to their interests," Shaw said. "A broader point is the acknowledgment this activity in the space domain is not at all different from what we often see Russia conduct in the other domains—close-in aggressive and provocative behavior."

Russian Air Force aircraft routinely fly in a buffer zone near US and Canadian airspace, and fighter jets downed a US military drone over the Black Sea in 2023. "If the Russians were willing to do this to an unmanned US military platform, it would seem their threshold for attacking an 'unmanned' commercial space platform cannot be too different," Shaw said.

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Two Trump allies — Alina Habba Mildon and Richard Grenell — are locked in a raging dispute that has its roots in the battle for a share of the spoils in Venezuela.

Thailand introduced subsidies and tax cuts to encourage electric vehicle adoption. Now it is trying to recalibrate, alarmed by the threat to its industrial landscape.

A new bill proposed by Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) aims to establish new regulations that would ensure that "buying a video game would give the consumer ownership of the game rather than a license to play it," including assurances that they can continue to access the games for years after they are released.

The announcement names NBA 2K25 as an example of the problem the bill aims to solve; that game launched on September 6, 2025, but is scheduled to become unplayable on December 31 due to server shutdowns. The bill, which is called the Power to Players Act, directs the FTC to take action to prevent outcomes like that in the future.

Torres published the following statement on the bill:

When you pay for a game, you should own it. Consumers must have the right to own, the right to play, and the right to transfer the games they buy. A game that can be taken away the moment a company pulls the plug is not a purchase. It is a rental disguised as a sale. Families in the Bronx and across the country save up to buy these games, and they deserve better than a license that can vanish at any time. The Power To The Players Act ensures consumers own what they buy and can keep playing long after a company moves on.

"I think there should be a simple rule: if you pay for it, you own it," Torres told Kotaku. He called the new status quo the bill proposes a "restoration to the historical norm," referencing how most games were experienced by players back in the '90s.

A wider movement

The bill comes at a time when game ownership and preservation is a hot-button issue. Some consumers have been protesting Sony's announcement that it plans to discontinue releases of PlayStation games on physical media.

In its most recent financial earnings report, Sony revealed that digital downloads account for 82 percent of full-game unit sales across PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 for the covered fiscal year, suggesting that less than 20 percent of games are still purchased in physical media form. But the argument is that continuing to offer physical discs is not just about satisfying a minority of players' habits. Players hope it would aid with long-term preservation of games, which are sometimes delisted from digital marketplaces and then become inaccessible.

Physical discs don't solve the problem on their own, though. Many games sold on discs still require online servers to function, and generally, the end-user license agreements make it clear that the user is purchasing a revocable license, not actual ownership of the media, even if the files are burned onto something physical.

There are also numerous examples of games where the version that shipped on the disc was meaningfully distinct from the version players ultimately know because of patches. So it makes sense that consumers and their representatives are turning to legislation like this to drive a change in industry practices.

There have been activist and lobbying movements, such as Stop Killing Games, that have been advocating for change on this front, but different proposed bills around the world have suggested different kinds of solutions.

Potential technical concerns ahead

Some prior proposed legislation on this issue has required developers to keep servers running indefinitely, leading to criticism that those bills' authors don't understand the cost. This bill appears to take those criticisms into account—but at least as worded in the press release on Ritchie Torres' House of Representatives website, it could still face resistance.

While the announcement does not say the bill requires online servers to remain online, it requires normally online-only games to offer offline modes of play so players can keep playing long after servers might be shut down. The way some online games are engineered, that may not be feasible, so this could require developers to take very different approaches to some online games' architecture.

This bill's proposal does not guarantee it will become law; it still has a long path ahead, and most proposed legislation never even makes it to a vote. And since the full text of the bill is not yet publicly available, it's not yet possible to assess its effectiveness or enforceability.

There is another elephant in the room: Large language models and specialized coding harnesses have recently enabled a wave of decompilations and reconfigurations of both classic and contemporary video games and software. These projects are almost certainly currently illegal, but the scale of the movement is such that enforcement may be difficult. It's possible that these new tools will change the shape of the software preservation conversation in the coming months and years.

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