n2doc
n2doc's JournalInside The Post-Minecraft Life Of Billionaire Gamer God Markus Persson
By Ryan Mac, David M. Ewalt and Max Jedeur-Palmgren
It’s 7 p.m. on a Monday in Stockholm, and Markus Persson sits on the terrace of his ninth-story office, sipping the speedball of alcoholic beverages, a vodka Red Bull. Three hours ago he committed to not drinking today, still in recovery from a 12-drink Thursday bender while nursing an ear infection. Yet here we are, embracing heavy-handed pours of Belvedere while surveying the workers in adjacent high-rises hacking away at their keyboards.
“He looks worried,” says Persson, pointing to a man in a building across the street rubbing his face and staring blankly into a computer screen.
After a few more seconds of looking at the man, Persson seems bothered by the scene and darts inside. For the better part of the last five years the 35-year-old Swede was that guy, a man who constantly stressed about his creation, Minecraft, the bestselling computer game of all time. Even calling it a game is too limiting. Minecraft became, with 100 million downloads and counting, a canvas for human expression. Players start out in an empty virtual space where they use Lego-like blocks and bricks (which they can actually “mine”) to build whatever they fancy, with the notable feature that other players can then interact with it. Most players are little kids who build basic houses or villages and then host parties in what they’ve constructed or dodge marauding zombies.
Truly obsessed adults, though, have spent hundreds of hours creating full-scale replicas of the Death Star, the Empire State Building and cities from Game of Thrones. The word “Minecraft” is Googled more often than the Bible, Harry Potter and Justin Bieber. And this single game has grossed more than $700 million in its lifetime, the large majority of which is pure profit.
“It doesn’t compare to other hit games,” says Ian Bogost, a professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology who studies videogames. “It compares to other hit products that are much bigger than games. Minecraft is basically this generation’s Lego or even this generation’s microcomputer.”
more
http://www.forbes.com/sites/ryanmac/2015/03/03/minecraft-markus-persson-life-after-microsoft-sale/
Sen. Warren joins growing list shunning Netanyahu
WASHINGTON — Sen. Elizabeth Warren said late Monday that she will not attend Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's address Tuesday to a joint meeting of Congress, joining a growing list of Democrats avoiding the speech.
Like others in her party, the Massachusetts Democrat cast her objections as a protest against House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, who invited Netanyahu, more than a protest against the Israeli leader.
"It's unfortunate that Speaker Boehner's actions on the eve of a national election in Israel have made Tuesday's event more political and less helpful for addressing the critical issue of nuclear nonproliferation and the safety of our most important ally in the Middle East," she said in a statement to The Boston Globe.
Boehner announced the invitation to Netanyahu — who is deeply skeptical of the Obama administration's nuclear negotiations with Iran — the day after President Obama gave his State of the Union Address and asked Congress to hold off on additional sanctions on Iran while the negotiations were ongoing.
more
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2015/03/03/warren-democrats-netanyahu-boycott/24305849/
Scott Walker has a weird theory about unions and foreign policy. We made it a quiz
by Amanda Taub
Saturday morning, Wisconsin Governor and GOP Presidential hopeful Scott Walker said that he believes the "most significant foreign policy decision of my lifetime" was when President Reagan fired 11,000 striking air traffic controllers in 1981. "It sent a message not only across America, it sent a message around the world," Walker asserted, that "we weren't to be messed with."
That's right: Walker believes that Reagan's union-busting was more important than any other US foreign policy decision since 1967, the year Walker was born. And no, in case you're wondering, this wasn't an accidental gaffe: Walker has repeated this theory multiple times to different audiences. This was just the latest instance. In his book, Walker wrote that Reagan firing the aircraft controllers "not only stiffened the spines of members of Congress, it also stiffened the resolve of our allies, it also encouraged democratic reformers behind the Iron Curtain. It helped win the Cold War."
This is certainly an unusual theory of US foreign policy. But to give it the credit it's due, we've created a handy quiz to help you decide if you agree with Walker's theory.
http://www.vox.com/2015/3/3/8136165/walker-union-foreign-policy
(note, the poll at the link is worth taking....)
Was firing the air-traffic controllers really the most consequential US foreign policy decision since 1967?
Homer Simpson predicts Mass of the Higgs Boson
'If you work it out you get the mass of a Higgs boson that's only a bit larger than the nano-mass of a Higgs boson actually is.
'It's kind of amazing as Homer makes this prediction 14 years before it was discovered.'
He added: 'One of the equations relates to Fermat's Last Theorem, and my first book was about all about this notorious equations, so leapt out of the screen.
'My PhD is in particle physics, so I was similarly shocked by Homer's equation predicting the mass of the Higgs boson.'
more
http://closedpress.com/homer-simpson-predicts-mass-of-the-higgs-boson/
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2975606/Did-Homer-Simpson-discover-HIGGS-BOSON-Maths-1998-episode-predicts-particle-s-mass-14-years-CERN.html#ixzz3TG4VgewA
'Spocking' Laurier on $5 not illegal, says Bank of Canada
The death of Leonard Nimoy last week inspired people to post photos of marked-up banknotes on social media that show the former prime minister transformed to look like Spock, Nimoy's famous Star Trek character.
Actor Leonard Nimoy, who played the ultra-logical character Spock in the TV series Star Trek, died on Friday, Feb. 28, 2015, at age 83 at his L.A. home. His wife, Susan Bay Nimoy, confirmed to the New York Times that he had end-stage chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
For years, Canadians have been wielding pens to draw Spock's pointy Vulcan ears, sharp eyebrows and signature bowl haircut on the fiver's image of Laurier.
Contrary to what many believe, the Bank of Canada said Monday it's not illegal to deface or even mutilate banknotes, although there are laws that prohibit reproducing both sides of a current bill electronically.
Nonetheless, bank spokeswoman Josianne Menard pointed out there are reasons to resist the urge to scribble on bills.
more
http://www.cbc.ca/news/arts/spocking-laurier-on-5-not-illegal-says-bank-of-canada-1.2978860
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