I think ars technica writes bad articles, but on a very wide range of subjects. Very few of the writers seem to be have specialized insight into a particular area rather than a general engineer / nerd bent. For me as a game developer, I find their game reviews to be the worst. Every now and again they will have one and they are always massively unbalanced. Just a regular guys unfiltered opinion, may as well go on any random message board and get hundreds of equally or more valid 'reviews'. They'll often pan a good game because they thought it was hard, you can hear their 'frustrated cus bad at vidya games' coming through in the article. I think its obvious that one of the writers was playing the game anyway and decided 'hey I can milk an article out of this' .

They probably know already most of their readers are in the science camp, so it's just catering to their base. Plus, as the other poster pointed out, it's a way to show independence from their owners. (Conde Nast likely just happy they're able to profit from both sides)