1. Tetris is based on an ancient Roman puzzle called Pentamino
2. Over 86 million units have been sold worldwide to date, eclipsing sales of Michael Jackson’s Thriller album (best selling album of all time at approximately 56 million copies)
3. The Tetris logo was designed by legendary record sleeve artist Roger Dean, who created famous album covers for rock giants Yes in the 1970s
4. The game inspired a terrible single in 1992 by Dr Spin, featuring samples of music composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber
5. In September 2002, Faiz Chopdat, 23, of Blackburn, was jailed for four months after refusing to turn off his mobile on a flight from Egypt to Manchester. The crew asked him three times to switch off the phone, which was interfering with the plane’s communications system, but each time Chopdat turned it on again. He was playing Tetris.
6. The world’s smallest game of Tetris took place under an electron microscope using 42 glass ‘microspheres’ at the Department of Physics of Complex Systems in Amsterdam
7. Brown University in Rhode Island, US, was turned into the biggest game of Tetris in 2000, when the windows of the 14-storey building lit up as the shapes ‘fell’. It was visible for miles.
8. Yuri Yevushenko, director of the Russian Academy in the 1980s, claims Tetris is so successful because “unlike American games it is not about murder, shooting or chasing; it is about building and order.”
9. In a recent US study at the Harvard Medical School’s department of psychiatry, 27 Tetris players spent seven hours a day, for three days, playing the game. Many had ‘Tetris dreams’.
10. There is an online Church of Tetris website, which attracted hundreds of visitors per week.
Jun 15
O.O
WOW… Oh geeze, I hear the Tetris theme in my head now.
HAHAHAHAH! Number 6 got me cracking up!
So all those hours of sitting in class playing Tetris gave me those dreams…. cool!
I love tetris!
“5. In September 2002, Faiz Chopdat, 23, of Blackburn, was jailed for four months after refusing to turn off his mobile on a flight from Egypt to Manchester. The crew asked him three times to switch off the phone, which was interfering with the plane’s communications system, but each time Chopdat turned it on again. He was playing Tetris.”
The funny thing about this is that cell phones don’t actually interfere with communications systems, the reason they are forbidden in airplanes is that due to the current satellite/tower technology, cell phone companies cannot track which service carrier you’re using on a flight, therefore it is free long distance calling to anywhere or anyone in the world. How many thousands of people do you think forget to turn their cell phones off on airplanes every day? I myself no longer turn mine off.
^no, actually cellphones DO interfere with both comm systems and radar. Only newer phones have low emissions of radiation and thus the interference is unnoticable.
If one person on the plane doesn’t turn their’s off it won’t be a problem, if most forget it won’t be a big problem, if all are talking on the phone on the same time (and you know people do that)… they’ll be looking for the blackbox the next day
Never had a tetris dream before… but I did have tetris hallucinations once ^_^ It was fabulous. Really gave me something to do during math class
“^no, actually cellphones DO interfere with both comm systems and radar. Only newer phones have low emissions of radiation and thus the interference is unnoticable. ”
Gil….I pity your parents.
And why is that? Do you pity my degree too? Put your mobile on the monitor and call it see what it does.
Nr. 7 is actually incorrect, Brown University doesn’t hold that record. The Electrical Engineering Faculty of the Delft University of Technology (the Netherlands) had a Tetris game on 15 floors of their building back in 1995. As a student there I was able to play a game while watching from my 16th floor appartement appr. 1 km away. The Guinness Book of Records and the BBC back me up on this fact:
http://www.etv.tudelft.nl/vereeniging/archief/lustrum/90/english.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/718009.stm
“The group, Tech House, says it is currently the world’s largest fully functional Tetris game. The current record holder according to the Guinness Book of World Records is a Dutch effort that lit up 15 floors at Delft University in 1995.”
why would anyone leave their cellphone turned on when flying anyway? if you can’t talk on it? does anxiety overwhelm people because they might miss a call? and have to find out about it later, rather than knowing at the time someones calling and that you can’t answer?
save your batteries power if you absolutely depend on the phone and don’t knock me outta the sky because you’re selfish