The game of Tetris

To understand Tetris, you have to dive into the game itself. It’s simple, yet complex. The player doesn’t have to fight too many graphics. There are no characters or structured plots. The game of Tetris is all about rotating falling pieces of “puzzle” to create a solid. Once you do this, the pieces disappear. As you go through each phase of the game, the pieces start falling faster. It’s tough to beat the speed and build your perfect puzzle before the tower of pieces hits the top. Then, you start all over again.

The inventor

Russian computer engineer Alexey Pajitnov was 29 when he invented Tetris. While working as a coder for the Soviet Academy of Sciences, Pajitnov was creating his game on the side. For the name, he joined his favorite sport of tennis with the word “tetromino.” He created Tetris for fun. He was surprised when it became a hit. The way it became a hit was even more of a surprise.

Illegal activity

During the 1980s, it was illegal to do private business in the Soviet Union. Pajitnov worked with his colleagues to port it into a PC format. They shared the game with friends. Tetris was smuggled into Hungary next. It began to move across Europe. Finally, Robert Maxwell’s company, Mirrorsoft got ahold of it. They decided to put out the first commercial versions of Tetris.

Time to license

Tetris was developed at the Soviet Academy of Sciences. This meant the game belonged to the Soviets instead of Pajitnov. The people that bought or even owned rights to Tetris could possibly lose them unless they challenged the Soviets. Henk Rogers, a Dutch computer programmer, changed all of this. He brokered a big deal with the Soviet company, Elorg. This deal changed Tetris to a handheld version. Rogers took this version to Nintendo to work with the Game Boy. Robert Maxwell and Andromeda’s Robert Stein were fighting to secure the rights at the same time. It was no good. Rogers held the rights in his hands.

The release

The release of Tetris gets a little tricky. It was licensed for other consoles besides the Game Boy. A Tetris game developed for the Nintendo by Atari was also in the works. Remember, the rights were hard to come by, and Atari didn’t have the rights to make the game. There were approximately 100,000 copies of these games in existence. There was also the Sega Mega Drive version. It was developed, but couldn’t get the licensing. These are still floating around, but a very rare find.

A big hit

Tetris made its way around the world, even with all of the obstacles. Besides the video game world, it also hit the music scene with its recognizable sounds. The music was created by Hirokazu Tanaka. This music was so popular that theater composer Andrew Lloyd Webber released a mixed version of the theme song.

Next time you sit down to play a game of Tetris, think back on these crazy facts. It was a game that was smuggled out of the country to make a huge hit across the globe. A game of little puzzle pieces smuggled its way into our video game-loving hearts.

The honey mushroom or as it is known in scientific communities, the Armillaria Ostoyae, is the largest living thing in the world. A blue whale is up to 26 meters long while the Armillaria Ostoyae has an outline of nearly six kilometers. The massive mushroom started as just a single tiny mushroom that you would not even be able to see with a microscope. From there it grew and grew to spread its filaments through a forest. It can be found in a forest in Oregon covering 2,200 acres.

If it is difficult to understand the size of this incredible mushroom, imagine 1665 football fields and you are pretty close. Before you jump in your car and head for Oregon to get a photo with the biggest living thing in the world, you need to understand a little more.

The mushroom is not one giant mushroom that stands tall over the trees of the forest or anything like that. The fungus is under the soil and so it is not possible to see the full extent of it with a simple photo. The only evidence of it overground is the clumps of mushrooms that pop up in the area. They all belong to that one organism. 

The only reason scientists were even able to find it was because there were complaints that the trees were dying. No one understood why until one scientist sampled some of the mushrooms and found they were all the same living thing. The fungus is stealing nutrients and water from the trees above the soil and killing each one in the process. Scientists are still determining what to do with the massive mushroom as although it is killing all the trees in the area it has reason to be left to survive given its incredible accolade and the fact that it has been part of nature for millions of years.

It may come as a surprise that the largest living thing in the world is a mushroom but when you understand it is an underground fungus spreading through a forest it makes a little more sense. There are likely many more of these mushrooms in the world today that people have not realized are one organism.

The world has progressed quite significantly from the very first mobile device.

All it takes to capture a picture on today’s smartphones is a swipe or tap rather than a button, and we can live stream footage from any location. It’s easy to forget that these conveniences emerged within the past few decades due to technological advances, but we do just that.

For this reason, we figured it would be instructive to travel back in time and investigate the origins of the first cell phone and other significant developments that led to our current state of affairs.

What was the First mobile phone in history ever made?

The Motorola DynaTAC 8000x is the world’s first commercially available mobile phone. It was released to stores in the United States in 1983.

The invention of the first cell phone

The traditional birthdate of the first mobile phone is 3rd April 1973. On this day in history, the very first documented cell phone call occurred.

Even yet, it is interesting to note that the first attempts at building a mobile phone date back to the 1940s. These earlier models were more akin to a 2-way radio than modern cell phones.

The Genius Behind the First Cell Phone

Motorola, led by John F. Mitchell and Dr. Martin Cooper, created the first cell phone. In spite of competition from Dr. Joel Engel and the team at AT&T, Motorola was the first company to market the first device after successfully implementing their idea.

The First Mobile Phone Call

As mentioned above, we see that the first mobile phone call happened on 3rd April 1973. Using the Motorola DynaTAC 8000x, Martin Cooper called AT&T’s Dr. Joel Engel, marking the first-ever mobile phone call.

As Cooper puts it, he told Joel, “I’m calling you from a real cellular telephone. “A hand-held mobile phone,” It seems like there was dead air on the other end of the line when he tried to make contact. Perhaps there were some kinks to iron out, or Dr. Engel was simply at a loss for words.

The Cost of the First-Ever Cell Phone Call

The original cell phone, released in 1983, saved consumers $3,995. That is about $10,000 in terms of today’s currency.

The Weight of the First Cell Phone

The weight of the first cell phone was extremely high compared to the standards of the present devices. The Motorola DynaTAC 8000x was around 23cm (9 inches) and weighed approximately 1.1kg (2.5 pounds). Its battery life was roughly 30 minutes during calls and 6 hours in standby mode.

Tracing the Origins of the Smartphone Today

Let’s trace the path from the DynaTac 8000x to today’s smartphone. Read on to understand how the smartphone we use today came to being.

The First Mobile Phone with a Camera

The Samsung SCH-V2000 was the first mobile phone to incorporate a camera. The phone had a 20-photo capacity but no transfer options. Instead, it required a network connection to a computer before it could view the images.

Many people consider the Sharp J-SH04 the first camera phone because although it was not the first one, it was the first with photo-sharing capabilities.

Both phones first appeared on store shelves in 2000 in Asia. We can indeed say that these phones have an advanced state of the art in mobile communication by one significant step.

The First Smartphone Ever Made

IBM released the Simon Personal Communicator (SPC) in 1994, widely regarded as the first smartphone. The hefty gadget included a touchscreen, email, and other preinstalled features like a calculator.

The First Flip Mobile Phone

In 1996, Motorola introduced the StarTAC, the first flip-style mobile phone.

However, the NEC TZ-804 can rightfully claim to be the first flip phone. The gadget, which was first introduced in 1991, seems to have been forgotten by history.

The First Internet Access Cell Phone

First introduced in 1996, the Nokia 9000 was the world’s first mobile phone to provide Internet connectivity. WAP technology was once synonymous with something very different from what it means now.

This phone, also called the “Communicator,” was designed to fold up like a laptop computer and equipped with a complete Keypad.

The Fox tunnel in Alaska is not capable of time travel but it does allow you to walk into history. The tunnel was built in 1963 and goes 50 feet underground and is 360 feet long. What is truly remarkable about this tunnel is that it bores through permafrost. Permafrost is any ground that remains frozen for at least two years, it is permanently frozen. This is special because it can trap things in time and preserve them in the original state. Walking through the Fox tunnel is, therefore, like walking through time. The deeper in the tunnel you go the further back in history you are surrounded by. 

Permafrost is found close to the north and south poles and covers 85% of Alaska today. Today the tunnel is used for scientific exploration and to provide a greater understanding of permafrost. Yet it was originally built to test whether the surface could be used as a viable bomb shelter.

At the greatest depths of the tunnel, the walls and fossils are as old as 40,000 years. Throughout the tunnel, there have been discoveries of ancient bones from bison, horse, and even mammoths. The tunnel is proving incredibly useful for a wide range of studies. Experts believe that the surfaces inside the tunnel are similar to those on Mars so it is being used by those both interested in the Earth and in space. It is being used by animal experts to understand how ancient animals roamed the Earth. It is being used by climate change experts to understand how important permafrost is and what it melting may mean for our world.

There is a growing fear that melting permafrost may mean disaster for our world. Many now believe that the permafrost is holding many materials frozen that we don’t want to let out. If it melts it could unleash havoc on Earth. There may be viruses there that our modern world has no vaccines for. While that is one unknown there is a more concrete fear about carbon emissions. Permafrost holds frozen carbon in place and as it melts it releases more and more carbon. Each year it is estimated that the melting permafrost is placing as much carbon into the environment as the transport activities of France. Clearly the permafrost and the Fox tunnel hold the answers to some very important questions.

While you can’t visit the tunnel, as it is used for private research, you can explore it through a virtual online tour. We have done the tour and found it absolutely fascinating. The research conducted in the Fox tunnel is incredibly important for a wide range of scientific areas. While the permafrost may spell disaster for our carbon emissions we are only at the beginning of understanding what treasures it holds. While it may hold disaster it may hold the answers too.

For example, when this Bosnian man found a gigantic rock in the woods around his home, which turned out to be almost perfect. According to researchers, the 3-meter-wide stone bullet could have been made by an unknown civilization who lived in the area more than 1,000 years ago …

The ‘Pyramid of the Prairie’ stands alone in a desolate place in the American state of North Dakota. This strange building was once an important stronghold in the Cold War and served as a military base. The complex was built in the mid-1970s and cost no less than 5.4 billion (!) Euros.

The Katskhi Pillar is a 40 meter high limestone rock that is located in the Georgian village of Katskhi. In the past, the high, natural pillar was a place of worship and it was called “the pillar of life.” Already in the 4th century this was a beloved place for monks who like to sit or stand on the top to pray. There they felt closer to God.

A few years ago the Argentinian Jose Antonio Nievas made a special discovery in a riverbank near the South American city of Buenos Aires . It looked like a huge shield that possibly came from a Glyptodontidae, a prehistoric type of armadillo that has been extinct for some 10,000 years. The black scaly shield lay ‘hidden’ in a mud pool …

The Havasu Falls is a hidden gem in the United States. The waterfall is located in the state of Arizona, in the famous Grand Canyon. It is almost impossible to get around, there is first a walk of about 13 kilometers in advance where you have to walk through various gorges . The beautiful 37-meter high natural phenomenon is on the grounds of the Havasupai Indians.

There is a strange sculpture in the Atacama desert in Chile . A huge hand looms out of the sand, far away from civilization. The symbolism of the 11-meter-high sculpture is twofold because it represents both human suffering and the vast emptiness of the desert …

A few years ago, researchers discovered a mass grave in the same desert in Chile containing no fewer than forty dead whales. How the animals came to an end millions of years ago was a mystery. The five million-year- old skeletons were uncovered along the length of two football fields in one of the driest places in the world …

Although the English king Richard the Third died as early as 1485, the body of the royal was not found more than 500 years later. Under a parking lot in the British city of Leicester, the remains of the unfortunate king (who is also called one of the worst kings of England) were found in 2013

For many decades, movie producers and book publishers have perfected the art of making their works more horrifying just by adding the words, “inspired by true events”. Some of these movies are made up of stories that people have come to believe over time. Other horror content creators draw inspiration from age-long tales but one common feature they all have is that they are terrifying in their way. You might just want to know the stories behind some of the classic horror movies, so let’s dive into a few;

The exorcist.

A 1970’s classic that was inspired by an exorcism that took place on a young boy in Maryland. It was reported in the papers that the boy screamed and cursed violently in a language he never knew before which was Latin. This story inspired the production of the 1971 novel and 1973 movie, both titled “The Exorcist”. A publication made in 1999 through an investigation revealed that the boy most likely had psychological issues and the Latin he spoke was the mimicry of the priest’s words. Even with these findings, some didn’t care about what happened that day.

The Amityville horror.

The story behind this movie stems from a homicide that occurred in Amityville, New York. Not long after this event, the family that purchased the house, the Lutz, reported experiencing paranormal activities like sighting red-eyed creatures and their family members levitating during their sleep. Their claims inspired the 1979 classic titled “The Amityville Horror”. These claims were later debunked by an eyewitness who said everything was made up.

The haunting in Connecticut.

Most times, the phrase “based on a true story” is enough to convince people about the non-fictional origin of movies. This can be said about the 2009 classic, “the haunting in Connecticut”. This story was inspired by a documentary made by famous ghost hunters, the Warrens. They reported the experiences of the Snedeker family who claimed that they were raped by demons in their rented apartment in Connecticut.

The serpent and the rainbow.

Have you ever imagined a horror classic with an Indiana Jones concept? This is what you will find in the 1988 classic titled “the serpent and the rainbow”. The story was adapted from a 1985 publication of a Harvard scientist who claimed to have discovered the secret of Haitian societies to bring back people from the dead as zombies. Even though his claims were debunked by a scientist, his story became a source of the horror classic.

Nosferatu.

This comes in as one of the oldest horror classics and tells the story of the popularly acclaimed vampire, Count Dracula. The story was adapted from the stories about a 15th-century ruler of Wallachia Romania named, Vlad Dracula. The name Dracula means “devil” in the Wallachian language. Even though few changes were made in the movie, the core still centered on Dracula and his exploits as a monster.

Other notable mentions are; the conjuring, Annabelle comes home and the nun. These movies are the 21st-century releases based on the claims of famous ghost hunters Ed and Lorraine Warren. Believing in these stories depends on how well the movie producers can convince their audience using the phrase “based on a true story”.

A shipwreck was found just off the coast of South American Colombia last year. It turned out to be the Spanish trading ship the San José, which was sunk on 8 June 1708. Converted to today, the treasure that was found to be worth about 14 billion euros! There are, however, more lost treasures that you can still find today with a little luck.

In 1933, Mexican millionaire Leon Trabuco decided to hide part of Mexico’s gold reserves in the desert. The businessman had bought the gold to sell it on to the United States market because he was convinced that the US dollar – due to the Great Depression – would devalue quickly and so the gold prices would rise.

However, having around 16 tons of Gold involved enormous risks, so Leon decided to bury the ‘treasure ‘ in a sparsely populated area in New Mexico, on the border with his homeland. The place had to remain secret, so the millionaire never exactly disclosed the location. When he died he took it with him to his grave …

Arthur Flegenheimer, also known as Dutch Schultz, was a remarkable Mafia figure in the 1930s. Arthur was seen as the leader of the Jewish-German Mafia in New York. There he earned millions of dollars in the production and sale of alcoholic beverages during the prohibition, lotteries, and other illegal practices.

He hid the money in an iron vault that he would have buried in the Catskills Mountains. Shortly thereafter, however, the criminal was killed in a restaurant in New Jersey. The vault containing around 7 million dollars has never been found to date …

Blackbeard was the nickname of Edward Teach, a notorious pirate who was active in the Caribbean in the early 18th century. Although Blackbeard had had a short career as a pirate (from 1716 to 1718), he was notorious and famous. With his weapons and long black beard, he formed the typical image of a frightening pirate.

In his two years as a pirate, he gained serious wealth. While the Spaniards were busy obtaining gold and silver from Mexico and South America, Blackbeard waited patiently with his crew. At the right moment, they attacked the loaded ships and thus stolen treasures of enormous value. Blackbeard buried it and was the only one who knew the location. When he was murdered in 1718, he took it to his grave.

A hidden treasure is said to have been buried on the Canadian island ‘Oak Island’. Although the precise location is known, this has not yet led to results. So far only earth and branches have been found.

Einstein’s aptitude for mathematics and hard sciences was apparent even when he was a small boy. Born in 1879 in Ulm in what is now modern-day Germany, Einstein flourished in academia, teaching himself higher math from the age of 12. He added philosophy to his intellectual pursuits three years later and learned to play the violin as a teenager after becoming enamored with Beethoven as a boy. At the precocious age of 17, he enrolled in a teaching degree program at Zurich Polytechnic, graduating in 1900 – the same year. Despite his early discovered aptitude and mastery of physics and math, he could not find a teaching position after graduation, and so took a position as a patent clerk in Bern, Switzerland, while pursuing his PhD., which he obtained only five years later from the University of Zurich.

While working mainly with electrical device patents, Einstein began work on his most famous and groundbreaking work: his theory of special relativity. The theory was published in an article, “On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies,” the same year he received his doctoral degree, in one of four groundbreaking papers he produced in 1905. In another of these four papers, matter and energy equivalence is discussed, leading to his iconic equation “E=mc^2”, the basis of modern studies of nuclear energy (“Does Inertia of a Body Depend Upon It’s Energy Content?”). Work by other physicists during the 1940s would lead to the development and production of both atomic weapons and power. Atomic weaponry was posited in a letter by Einstein to Franklin Roosevelt at the beginning of World War II, which Einstein came to later regret due to the awesome destructive power and deadly force of nuclear fission. Atomic power proved to be the cleanest energy source outside of solar and wind turbine energy.

Einstein changed the study of physics forever as a young man, standing on the shoulders of giants, as Isaac Newton, the man whose work was the basis for a lot of Einstein’s work, once wrote. From Einstein’s breakthroughs, the world has made further breakthroughs, both challenging and solidifying Einstein’s theoretical models, especially in the fields of quantum mechanics and gravitational waves. Both his contemporaries (Bohrs, Schrodinger, and Planck, to name a few), as well as his academic successors, have, in turn, stood on Einstein’s shoulders.

Before looking into Roberts’ claims, it is important to examine the life of Billy the Kid in greater detail. Billy the Kid was born as Henry McCarty in 1859 and eventually adopted the name William Bonney. Orphaned at 15, the Kid turned to a life of a crime, committing his first murder at only 17 years old. Bonney later joined the New Mexico-based posse known as the Regulators and ruthlessly squashed any attempt at bringing him to justice. The Kid could only outrun justice for so long, however. On July 14, 1882, Sheriff Pat Garrett caught up to Billy the Kid in Fort Sumner, New Mexico. Waiting in ambush in the Kid’s darkened bedroom, Sheriff Garrett fired twice, hitting Bonney in the chest and putting an end to the outlaw’s life.

After his death, Billy the Kid became an American legend, his story inspiring countless books and films. Despite Garrett’s account, many men nevertheless came forward claiming to be Billy the Kid and that they had survived the 1881 shooting. One such man was Brushy Bill Roberts. Roberts entered into the Kid’s legend in 1948, when attorney William Morrison heard reports of the elderly man claiming to be the Kid. Morrison became intrigued by Roberts’ claims when known associates of Billy the Kid came forward and alleged that Roberts was the genuine outlaw and gunslinger of legend.

To verify Roberts’ claim, Morrison visited the aging cowboy at his ranch in Hico, Texas. Upon meeting Morrison, the older gentleman confessed to being Billy the Kid. Roberts regaled Morrison with tales of his exploits as an outlaw. Roberts also showed Morrison some of the scars he had from his life of crime, scars that Morrison believed matched those of Billy the Kid. After convincing Morrison that he was the genuine Billy the Kid, Roberts asked the legal expert for help in obtaining a pardon for his past life of crime. Roberts specifically referenced an 1878 proclamation by New Mexico Governor Lew Wallace promising a pardon for those who had participated in the Lincoln County War.

Morrison readily agreed to represent Roberts in his quest for a pardon. After several months of trying to get a meeting with Thomas J. Marby, who was the current governor of New Mexico, Morrison and Roberts finally got a chance to make their case before the state’s chief executive. According to Morrison’s own account, Governor Marby did not take Roberts’ claims seriously. Morrison recalled how Marby rolled his eyes after hearing Roberts’ claims and the meeting ended with the governor refusing to issue the pardon. In his reasoning, Marby cited his belief that Roberts was not the real Billy the Kid. Roberts died just a few weeks after his meeting with Governor Marby on December 27, 1950.

In examining Roberts’ claims, modern historians and investigators remain divided over whether he was the true Billy the Kid. On the one hand, friends and associates of Billy the Kid contend that Roberts was the genuine gunfighter of legend. However, experts on the Old West point out that while Roberts was illiterate, Billy the Kid had a reputation for excellent penmanship. Facial scans of Roberts and Billy the Kid are also inconclusive, and no DNA evidence has thus far been presented to prove that Roberts was Billy the Kid.

A tense confrontation occurred in the Baltic Sea near the Aland Islands on May 19, 1917. During the final quarter of the world’s first global war, a German submarine stopped a neutral Swedish merchant ship heading towards a Russian port. The German captain believed the S.S. Kyros carried supplies intended to aid Czar Nicholas II’s military efforts.

He permitted the crew of the freighter to evacuate into lifeboats before sinking the ill-fated vessel to the bottom of the icy sea. Its cargo, including 900 bottles of premium cognac and fine Benedictine brand liqueurs, chilled on the ocean floor some 253 feet below sea level. Fishermen trawled around the site for decades, oblivious to the wreckage below. Then, in 1999, a salvage team finally discovered the shipwreck.

A Stunning Discovery

Ocean X launched an ambitious effort to retrieve the cargo of the S.S. Kyros. They hoped to recover at least some intact bottles. The team previously found and salvaged a different ship transporting some 3,000 bottles of rare champagne across the Baltic. They successfully recovered and auctioned 2,000 bottles; the find eventually commanded prices ranging from $5,000 to $10,000 per bottle.

The salvage team obtained a pleasant surprise when they explored the remains of the S.S. Kyros. They recovered a veritable trove of rare (and often still securely sealed) alcoholic beverages. The contents included 50 cases of De Haartman & Co. cognac, a brand no longer in production. Additionally, the Swedish ship had carried 15 cases of Benedictine liqueur, a label owned by Bacardi. Now vintage and valuable as collector’s items, many of the sealed bottles reportedly appear intact. The salvage company ordered testing to confirm the condition of the contents.

Employing High Tech Salvage Tools

Divers have historically faced challenges performing salvage operations in the frigid, dark waters of the Baltic Sea. Poor visibility hampers recovery operations in many locations there. Reportedly, Space X relied in part upon underwater drones to help find and salvage the shipwreck site.

The use of remotely operated vehicles offered assistance in finding and collecting the scattered bottles from the depths of the ocean floor. Drones operate dependably in environmental conditions which imperil human safety. The retrieval of the WWI Era cargo holds the potential to yield interesting historical information. The salvage efforts demonstrate the utility of underwater drones as tools for conducting some types of challenging maritime archaeological research.