Stuff You Should Know - Minecraft! Minecraft! Minecraft!

Episode Date: August 13, 2024

It’s so simple, yet so compelling: you mine blocks and cut down trees to put things together to make cool new stuff. There isn’t really a point and there’s not really a way to win. Minecraft is a non-game and it’s the second-most popular game of all time. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The summer of sports is on and I'm feeling the competitive spirit. Luckily, I have Monopoly Go. Over 150 million have downloaded it to play with other tycoons to expand their empire and their riches. And my favorite part is playing with my friends. It's such a rush to win special rewards with a buddy and a partner event. Or I can go after their fortunes to be a top tycoon. I can smash their landmarks, pull bank heists, or charge them rent like in classic Monopoly. So make your move and download Monopoly Go, now free on the App Store and Google Play. For so many people living with an autoimmune condition like myasthenia gravis or chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy, the emotional toll can be as real as the physical

symptoms. That's why, in an all-new season of Untold Stories, Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition from Ruby Studio and Argenics, host Martine Hackett gets to the heart of the emotional journey for individuals living with these conditions. To find community and inspiration on your journey, listen now on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey and welcome to the podcast.

I'm Josh and there's Chuck and Jerry's here too. This is Stuff You Should Know, the In Way Over Our Heads edition. The Help Parents Understand What Their Child Is Doing In Their Room All Day edition. I help parents understand what their child is doing in their room all day edition. I hope so. But I suspect that more than just parents are going to listen to this. And I've never been more nervous about what a group of eight-year-olds thinks of me than I am right now. Because I know too much about Minecraft.

Like I can go way too deep in it. But I also feel very clearly I don't know enough to not get hate mail for misspeaking. Yeah, I would maybe not dig too deep on this one, because the deeper you go, the more you risk your old's being mad. For sure, but one of the key things about Minecraft is like, it's nothing but rabbit holes.

You look up one thing, and all of a sudden that leads to 10 other things, and those 10 other things lead to 20 other things each. And it's so fascinating how complex and complicated this whole thing is, especially when you understand the actual mechanics of how these worlds are built, how they originate, how simple it is.

It's just, I love it. I love Minecraft a lot. If I didn't get addicted to things that I like, I would probably start playing Minecraft, but I know that that would ruin my life. Well, I'm glad you're addicted to podcasting with me. I totally am, man. I can't get enough of it.

Yeah, I mean, if that wasn't clear, all that that we just said, like this is officially a COA, like, this will be a broad overview of a very, very, very dense game that neither one of us play. So, we're gonna get stuff wrong. We're not gonna dive into things you want us to dive into. So, the email is like... Just appear to be disappointed.

Yeah, like, I can't believe you didn't mention blank. Like, just save it. Yeah. And and thanks to Ruby we got a little help yeah I sent some some questions last night mm-hmm that I guess you know we'll pepper in it if they apply for sure yeah there was a few things that I just couldn't nail down and I was like oh that Ruby knows this and sure enough she did yeah well maybe I mean she doesn't really play anymore she played I'm kind of glad about this couldn't nail down and I was like, oh, that Ruby knows this and sure enough she did. Yeah, well, maybe. I mean, she doesn't really play anymore. She played, I'm kind of glad about this.

Like Minecraft is a wonderful game and we'll go over the benefits of it because there are many compared to most video games. But it's also a game, and we'll go over the pitfalls, it's also a game that can really get under your skin as a kid and as an adult, I guess But what it's not great if you're a kid and you have other things like schooling to do If you have a kid that's super super super super into it and she never got that into it

She really enjoyed it, but she's the kind of kid if like you take it away or if it goes away for a minute She says like what? All right. I'll just do something else. Which is good. She's not gonna give you the satisfaction of punishing her. Maybe, I don't know. Honestly, I think she just forgets. Oh, cool. Because she was all into the Roblox game, which is a whole other kind of game,

and like really into it, and as a punishment for something, we wiped it off her iPad along with everything else except for music. Like were you yelling when you did it? No, but we just cleaned the iPad free of everything except for podcast and music and it's like the next day she was like oh all right whatever. That reminds me do you remember Dr. Cat's the 90s cartoon with the squiggly lines? Of course I loved cats.

And Dom Herrera was a regular on that. Oh man. He was, he was a bit. He was great. Yeah, he is great. He was talking about how cats just never give you the satisfaction. Yeah. Of like, no matter what you do to them, they're not going to let on that you've bothered them.

So like he, he gave the example of throwing a cat through the air and the cat would be like, thanks, my man. I wanted to go this way anyway. Well, Ruby's so into cats too, so maybe that's it. Yeah, for sure. Like she says she's part cat. There you go. I think that's what it is.

Maybe so. That's fine. Yeah, for sure. So I think we should give a little bit of background on Minecraft for people who don't know what Minecraft is. Surely, I mean, at the very least, most people walking around know that it's a very, very, very popular video game, right? Yeah, I mean, I think so, and we'll get into the history, but at its base, it is a, you know, if you look at it, it goes counter to a lot of, like, the way it got popular is just almost astounding in some ways, because it goes counter to most video games these days, which try to make things very, very real looking.

And Minecraft is very blocky and pixelated and old school, and it's sort of like an interactive Lego game, it's called the sandbox game, where you can just go around and build things. You mine things to craft with. Yeah, I mean, that's the point. And there's plenty of things to do. It's not like nothing happens.

Yeah, sure. Like you can, because there are so few rules, because there's no real point to it, there's not like a game that you wanna win or conquer or anything like that. Like it's essentially up to the limits of your imagination what you do in this amazing blocky world. Yeah. And despite those blocks, despite the fact that there is no real plot, it is the best-selling PC game of all time. Second to Tetris is the biggest video game.

Tetris, by the way, that's coming, we need to do. That's got a great story to it. Okay. So we need to do one of those. But yeah, it's one of the all time giants and it was created by a not very good dude named Marcus with a K, person of Sweden, AKA Notch. Yeah, and he was a coder from way back.

Like he taught himself on a Commodore 128, which came out in 1985. Not quite sure how old he was when he was working on it, but just suffice to say, like that's, like you really had to understand code to code with one of those things, right? So he was like a game developer, a coder from the outset, essentially. And he got a couple jobs at some of the big game companies in Sweden. And he was working at one of them. I think it was king.com when he was inspired to kind of create his own game. And he was playing a game called Infiniminer, right?

Am I saying that right? Like infinity minor, but without the T part? Yeah. Okay. And essentially you mine resources and you build stuff with these blocks that you mine. It's a mining game, essentially. Sounds very familiar.

And he's not like shy about saying like, this was a copy, a spoof basically of Infiniminer, but it was also inspired by some other games, one called dwarf fortress, which is really simple, but The all of the characters involved in all the non-player characters kind of have their own Drive and decisions so a lot of random stuff can happen in there And then also roller coaster tycoon where you could just build your own can happen in there. And then also roller coaster tycoon, where you could just build your own roller coasters.

So if you put all those three things together, you have kind of the rough outlines of Minecraft, which he really started releasing, I think, in 2009. Yeah, and I went down a 22nd rabbit hole of, because once I looked up in Fentiminer, I was like, wait a minute, did he just literally kind of steal that game? And that is a rabbit hole that I was up in Fentiminer, I was like, wait a minute, did he just like literally kind of steal that game? And that is a rabbit hole that I was loathe to go down, because I found myself on Reddit

and it's just like, it's very contentious of people who are like, yeah, he totally stole that game and ripped it off. And people are like, no, he didn't. He was inspired by it. So I'm not wading into that argument. You can make up your own mind about that. Right. But yeah, however, however it came out, he released it in 2009 and people just

dug on it very, very quickly. Um, I think, uh, that was the alpha version. Yeah. The beta version, the main release. No, the, the, and he was like, he just put the word out there and, uh, I think he actually started charging people $13 for just to play the alpha version, but he was also getting lots of feedback and like blogging about it and everything.

The whole thing was this side gig. Um, and, but little by little, it kind of moved his main gig, like off to the side itself. And then until it was like, uh, I can actually support myself with Minecraft, I'm quitting my day job. Yeah, which finally in 2010, he founded the company, Swedish for Gadget, it's Mojang, M-O-J-A-N-G, almost a G, with a couple of coworkers, a name,

and here's where I don't know whether to say Jacob or Jacob. It's not Jacob or Jacob, it's Jacob. It's Papioma? No, it really is Jacob. What was wrong with Papioma? I didn't read that email closely enough. It's Papaloma. Oh.

And I knew that and I heard you saying it, but I was just like, I guess he knows something I don't know because that was such a wild stab. I just figured you were ahead of me. You just found it so enchanting. Anyway, you said it is Jakob? I forgot already. Jakob. Jakob. Jakob Porser and Carl Manna, M-A-N-N-E-H. They hired some people. They had a gaming company all of a sudden and

The beta version came out Not too long after and they went over a six month period at the beginning of 2011 to July of that year They went from a million players to 10 million in that short time officially launching in November 2011 at minecon which was a it's still an ongoing event I think they do it online now but for a while it was a live event in Vegas called Minecraft live. Yeah I think they held they held the 2015 one in London and it set the record for the largest attendance of any

convention in the history of humanity I think. It's big stuff, everybody. It's huge. I mean, it is enormous. I didn't see any statistics on like what percentage of the world plays it, but I did see that at any point in time, there's as many as like 30, 40, 50 million people playing it at the same time. Not necessarily altogether, because as we'll see,

there's different ways to play it by yourself or with other people, but if you just were able to zoom out and look at what everybody in the world's doing, 30 million of them would be playing Minecraft at that moment. Ooh, boy. So starting in 2011, there was a man named, and still is, named Jens Jeb Bergensten as lead designer.

Watched a few interviews with this guy. Is it pronounced Jens? It's definitely Jens, but it's also Jeb and not Yeb. Okay. It's getting very confusing. Notch stayed on, on the Minecraft team, but, you know, was basically sort of letting Jens run the show, it seems like, as far as being in the weeds. He was developing other games, Notch was,

and, you know, kind of living the high life, because he got very wealthy very quick. Yeah, one of the first things he did was buy himself a fedora, which became kind of like a trademark look for him. Sure. Um, and he started just basically joined the international party set and was like, how much, how much money does it cost to get in here?

They're like, you've got, you've got enough. Come on in. So that's how we. So we don't mind it. Exactly. Right. So, um, he kind of got, I got the impression that he was, um, not, not just

distracted by this newfound wealth and all the stuff you could do with it, but that, uh, he was not really interested in, in seeing a game like becoming a massive globally dominating blockbuster and all the work that takes and coordination and all that he was more interested in developing games. So he stepped away, like you said, and handed it over to Jeb. And then when Microsoft came a call in, in 2014, apparently Notch tweeted,

who, does anybody wanna buy my share of Mojang because I'm ready to move on with my life? Apparently like all these companies were like, yeah, we totally will. And that supposedly set up that Microsoft deal for two and a half billion. And at that point he's like, I'm completely gone now. Yeah, Forbes had him as of like last week

at about a $1.2 billion net worth. And that seems pretty reliable, not like the stupid celebrity net worth that he hates. Not too shabby for somebody who wears a fedora in public. Yeah. stupid celebrity net worth. Not too shabby for somebody who wears a fedora in public. Yeah. Yeah, and he stayed sort of associated with the game and the company for a long time,

even after the Microsoft purchase. Well, not that long, about five years-ish. When they basically stopped referencing him on the loading page in 2019, stopped inviting him to their Minecraft parties like their 10th anniversary celebration. Yeah, he turned into Hooper Humpernink. Yeah, basically he started letting everyone know his thoughts about

QAnon and far right wing politics and homophobic things and transphobic things and sexist and misogynist things. It was sort of a greatest hits of that kind of guy. And he went public with all of it and issued some pretty lame apologies for some of it. But yeah, so that's what happened and that's who he is. Yeah, so Minecraft just kept going on without him. And from what I can tell, like when Jeb took over, is he still the lead game designer,

like essentially the show runner for Minecraft? I think so, but I'm not positive, but I'm pretty sure he is. Even if he stopped a couple years ago, that game really flourished under his oversight. He's really creative, also really, and I think Notch was willing to do this too, but Jeb was, or is really willing to be like,

hey, some player, some random person somewhere came up with this amazing invention. We're gonna actually release it as a update or add on or something to the game. Like, and it's just, it's a really creative flourishing game still because of that guy, from what I can tell. Yeah, totally. So there are three modes,

and this is the regular unmodded version, because as you'll learn, you can modify it in all kinds of creative kind of crazy ways, or vanilla mode, but if you're playing just that regular version that my daughter plays on the PlayStation, you can play in survival mode, hardcore mode, or creative mode. Right. So survival mode is kind of like where the game part comes in, like you can actually die. So you're doing all of the interesting stuff that you do in Minecraft that we'll talk

about more extensively. But there's zombies attacking you, or there's creepers coming up and blowing themselves up and hurting you, or you can drown underwater, fall off a cliff. And when that happens, all of the stuff that you've gathered that make up what's called your inventory, all the things you can use to make other stuff, all the stuff you've made out of other things already that you want to use to like extend your life or jump higher or whatever, you lose all that. It actually stays in the location that you died at in Minecraft world. And, but you are teleported back to either where you started the game or your bed,

if you've made yourself a bed. And I saw that if you can get there within five, like, our reality minutes, five minutes in our reality, you can go pick up your stuff again. But it can be very hard to do if you're really far away from your bed. That's right. And what happens is you start basically with nothing. If you're a parent and you've wandered through and it looks like, what is that blocky pixelated thing like punching everything for?

That's the gameplay. You start with nothing and you basically go at the very beginning and you punch a tree to get some wood. And what you're doing is, you know know you're getting resources to build stuff so you just keep punching and digging things and finding new things and then and transforming them into I mean all kinds of things from you know farms to animals to buildings and oceans and rivers and you know you're building you're literally building your world as you go in all the modes from what I can tell.

You got hardcore mode is next, but if you die, the game is over. Which is kind of a bummer, I guess. Yeah, because you can get really far and develop a lot of stuff. So when you're walking around punching stuff, like punching a tree, you're punching a tree to get wood,

and when you collect some wood, you can actually turn it into, say, lumber. And if you combine that lumber with something else you've gotten, I don't remember why, I think wool from a sheep. Sure. You put it together, you build yourself a bed. It's one of the first things you're supposed to do. You're supposed to build a shelter and make a bed in your shelter. And the reason why you want to make a bed is because if you die in survival mode,

you basically, it's called respawning. You wake up, you're teleported back in your bed to start over. The problem is all that stuff that you've accumulated, all the lumber and all the wool and all the things that you can make by combining those things, they make up what's called your inventory. And your inventory can get pretty extensive the longer you stay alive and play and do stuff in the in the Minecraft world and you lose all that stuff. It's gone. It's actually physically in the Minecraft world where you died. And if you could make it over there in time after you respawn, you could pick

that stuff up. But it can be really hard if you're really far away. And then with hardcore mode, like all that's just gone forever. You have to start the game over completely. And the reason that I know that that's true is because Ruby answered that question. That was actually the funniest answer. Cause you said, Hey, if you die in hardcore mode is like, is that it? It's everything gone that you've ever built. And she said, yeah, it's hardcore, Josh. She doesn't play that mode though.

She plays the third mode, almost exclusively, I think, when she plays, which is creative mode. And this is the super cute, fun one that when you see your seven and eight year old daughter playing, you're like, this is the greatest game ever. Because I sat down with her one day and watched and she's just like you're like, this is the greatest game ever. Because I sat down with her one day and watched and she's just like, oh look, this is my farm and this is my garden and these are my sheep

and this is my animal pen and this is my house and look, I've got a pool on the top floor and I've got a deck and it's just really creative and super sweet and fun. You can fly in creative mode, like if you wanna get up to the top of your thing. You can fly up there. And the best thing is you can't be harmed. There's no zombie coming to kill you.

No. Yeah, you just do fun stuff. Like you said, farm. And it's not like, oh, I built a farm and now this farm's running. Like, you build the farm and then you have to operate the farm to keep it going. Heck yeah. It's just amazing and neat. All the stuff that you can do in this game.

It's just crazy. And we'll, we'll talk about some of the, just the mind boggling stuff that people make. But one of the cool things about it is you can build this world by yourself, or you can work with others, play with others, people in your house using a local area network, or there's Minecraft servers to where you're building a world together and like other people can come in and walk around your world and hang out with you. And sometimes mess with you in your world too. Um, because it's a giant shared world.

Whereas there's also another version, which I take it Ruby was playing where that is like, that's your world, nobody else can come in, uh I take it Ruby was playing, where that is like, that's your world. Nobody else can come in because it's just on that one computer, it's not being shared with the rest of the world. Yeah, and we just didn't know enough about it and said that's the only version you can play. Cause the last thing I wanted was some, you know.

You know. I know. I don't want her meeting those people. So I'm sure there's a lot of fun that can be had on those multiplayer private server games. I'm sure it's great in most ways. Yeah. There are some very cool versions of that.

There's one called Pixelmoncraft, where they have recreated the gameplay of Pokemon within the Minecraft world, which is super cool. Yeah. And some of these are like full on companies. recreated the gameplay of Pokemon within the Minecraft world, which is super cool. And some of these are like full on companies. Livia found this, boy, God bless Livia for the breadth of things that she helps us with. Yeah, for sure.

It's like, how about philosophy and then Minecraft? Right. But there's one called Hypixel, which has like 40 developers on staff and got bought themselves by Riot Games, one of the big companies in 2020. And these are all just modifying this game that was so popular already. It's really, really kind of nuts.

Yeah, I would say a cottage industry has grown up around it. About like 50 different cottage industries have grown up around it with a bunch of different companies in each. That Hypixel, to give you an example, they make like games you can play in the Minecraft world. So like there's one called Skyblock where you start out on just a little patch of ground floating in the sky with a single tree and a couple of resources, and you have to build your way out of that.

You have to expand it with way more limited resources than you would get normally. There's a one called bed wars where your point is to like, um, destroy your friend's bed so that they can't, they can't respawn in their bed again. They have to go back to where they started the game. Yeah. It's fun stuff, but that's on their server and they

might, they modified Minecraft and the makers of Minecraft Mojang don't sue those people because you put it all together and it's almost like the Wikipedia of games where the entire world has collaborated on making this amazing game that is Minecraft. I wonder if because he so heavily borrowed, let's say, from Infinity Miner or Infiniminer, he was like, maybe I'll just sit back and be

super wealthy and not worry about these people that are doing this stuff. Maybe, but also the mind-boggling thing is now Microsoft owns it and they don't sue other people who create mods. It's nuts. There's something weird going on here, man. All right. Well, let's take a break. We'll be right back to talk about who the heck is playing this game and more about the world right after this. The summer of sports is on and I'm feeling the competitive spirit. Luckily, I have Monopoly Go. Over 150 million have downloaded it to play with other tycoons to expand their empire

and their riches. And my favorite part is playing with my friends. It's such a rush to win special rewards with a buddy and a partner event. Or I can go after their fortunes to be a top tycoon. I can smash their landmarks, pull bank heists, or charge them rent like in classic Monopoly. So make your move and download Monopoly Go. Now free on the App Store and Google Play. For so many people living with an autoimmune condition, the emotional toll is as real as the physical symptoms. Starting this May, join host Martin

Hackett for season three of Untold Stories, Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition, a Ruby Studio production, and partnership with Arginics. From myasthenia gravis, or MG, to chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy, also known as CIDP, Untold Stories highlights the realities of navigating life with these conditions from challenges to triumphs. This season, Martine and her guests discuss the range of emotions that accompany each stage of the journey, whether it's the anxiety ofín and her guests discuss the range of emotions that accompany each stage of the journey.

Whether it's the anxiety of misdiagnosis or the relief of finding support and community, nothing is off limits. And while each story is unique, the hope they inspire is shared by all. Listen to Untold Stories, Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Want to know how to leverage culture to build a successful business? Then Butternomics is the podcast for you. I'm your host, Brandon Butler, founder and CEO of Butter ATL.

Over my career, I've built and helped run multiple seven-figure businesses that leverage culture and built successful brands. Now I want to share what I've learned with you. And on Butternomics, we go deep with today's most influential entrepreneurs, innovators and business leaders to peel back the layers on how they use culture as a driving force in their business. On every episode, we get the inside scoop on how these leaders tap into culture to build something amazing. From exclusive interviews to business breakdowns, we get the inside scoop on how these leaders tap into culture to build something amazing. From exclusive interviews to business breakdowns, we'll explore the journey of turning passion

for culture into business. Whether you're just getting started or an established business owner, Butternomics will give you what you need to take your game to the next level. This is Butternomics. Listen to Butternomics on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So there's a lot of video games where you pay monthly subscription fees. Sometimes you'll like buy the game, but then also subscribe monthly to get extra stuff or whatever.

Sure. New additions of the game, things like that. But Minecraft has always been pretty great in that you buy the game and that's it. You own the game, the game is updated for free, the updates just roll out. A lot of games do that as well. It's not the only one. But it was sort of the core business model, which is you buy this game, and whether it's the PC or PlayStation or whatever, and that's your game forever. You've got that Minecraft game and kids can grow into adulthood, like playing the same game that you insert the disc into the player. Right. So there are other, there's like in-game purchases

and add-ons and stuff you can buy. I think the big hubbub that I picked up on is that a SpongeBob Bikini Bottom biome is coming along, I think in August. So you can play as SpongeBob and yeah, it looks like it's gonna be pretty cool. There's other like things called textures, which take this, the very standard, like recognizable Minecraft look and do all sorts of things to it. Some make it way smoother. Some add different

kinds of shading. There's one called pastel that changes the color palette and makes it much pinker and happier There's just a ton of stuff. You can get an add-on that like is a it just you're it's a mansion Like you're you don't have to build it yourself. It's just now you can Buy a mansion rather than build it seems counterintuitive or counter Against the point I guess but I'm sure some kids are like, I just wanna buy the mansion and farm instead. I don't wanna waste my time building my mansion. You're rabbit-holing. Sorry, but yes, my point is, there are stuff you can buy, but a lot of that stuff is free, too.

A lot of the mods are free. Yeah, yeah. It's hard to get great statistics on who's playing it, but Livia did found a survey from, geez, like seven years ago from Australia, where, and you know, I bet it's pretty indicative of who's playing worldwide. 54% of boys ages three to 12 were playing it,

32% of girls. All of them raised on Foster's beer. And early on it started out as more sort of young adult men or older teenagers, but it has since crept down in age and I'm sure people of all ages still play it. It's a game that a four-year-old can kind of start playing if they're good with their fingies. There are two different default players from the early years. Steve, well he was the only default player in the early years and then in 2014 they added Alex. They added a man and a woman and then they rolled out seven more in 2022 with different

outfits and different skin tones but you can skin your character, you can create the stuff yourself, and I believe you can probably buy stuff and get skins that other people have created to make your player look more like you want them to look. Yeah, there's- Or maybe more like you even. Like there's clowns, Japanese demons, scarecrows. There's a lot of cool skins out there, for sure.

You just stopped yourself a night. Yes I did. On that list. So I guess we should talk about the fact that, and this is another really cool part of it, when you start out, you know, I said you start out like, and you just punch that tree, you start out with one chunk of landscape that is a 16 by 16 block square block. And once you reach those edges, you start creating, like you build as you go and it's procedurally generated as you go.

And eventually, if you're asking like, is there even a limit? Yes, 60 million blocks per side, which is seven times larger than the Earth's surface. Yeah, if you consider a block square kilometer of Earth, it is about half the size of Neptune and twice the size of Earth. Isn't that nuts? Yeah. That's just one world. So I read this amazing post by a guy named Alan Zucconi called The World Generation of Minecraft. I'm going to just dance just along the top of it. But if you're at all interested in how the actual world is generated, and it's quite fascinating, go read that.

But essentially what they start with is what's called a seed. It's 64 bits of information, right, which is nothing. That's so small. But just following a couple of algorithmic rules, the whole world generates from there. And because these 64 bits are, you know, slightly different in each seed, there's something like 18.4 quintillion possible worlds that can develop from a seed. That's that, that's how many seeds are possible out there.

Right. Well, tell them what a seed is. So a seed is that 64 bits that create the world. And when you have a game like Ruby's game, where she, she bought that game, she bought a seed. So I bought it. Okay. Well, sorry.

Her dad bought it for her. Yeah. And so if she started over, uh, when she started the game, every time that same world is going to be built, cause it's the same information following the same rules. So it's going to build the same world. But as she went and bought another one, the seed

that, that it grew from would create a totally different world. And it follows these really simple rules. Like if the temperature is this and the altitude is this, this is the biome it's going to simple rules like if the temperature is this and the altitude is this, this is the biome it's going to create, like a desert or a tundra or a forest or something like that. And so if you've created a forest biome now in this spot, that means it's going to have trees and certain kinds of animals running around. If it's underwater, what's the water temperature?

And depending on the water temperature, there's going to be different animals in that biome too. And it's just following like if-then rules that create a world from 64 bits. It's nuts what they've done. And the other thing about it too is people play this so much that they'll actually go out and buy another copy because they know that world so well.

Can you imagine? Can't you just start over? You can, but it's gonna be the same world. That's what I'm saying. Oh, no, I mean as a different character or something. I mean, yeah, you could start over, but you're gonna be exploring the same world that you did before. You could buy another copy and it're gonna be exploring the same world that you did before.

You could buy another copy, and it's gonna be a totally different world. Oh, I thought if you started over as a new, like if I logged in as me in her game, I could just start as whatever I wanted. No, because it's the same seed. Yeah, you could be a different character, skin it or whatever, but the world could be the same.

I mean, start from scratch. Yeah, the world will still be the same, because it's growing from the same seed. I should probably probably caveat this that this is Alan Zucconi talking. I'm just I'm just amplifying what he's saying Well, let's talk about those biomes. They're 64 biome types 53 in the overworld which is where you know, that's sort of the the main gameplay area And then they have a couple of other areas, the nether, which was added in 2010,

which is pretty scary, like hellish place. And then the end, which is, that was in 2011, that's a very, very dark, very bleak place, a very bleak landscape. It's kind of Metroid-y. Yeah, you can actually win that game if you defeat the Ender Dragon, but I believe there are 53 biomes in the overworld, five in the nether, five in the end, and then one that I didn't completely understand, so I'm not even going to get into it.

But it gets really, really detailed. Like you said, if you go to the ocean and the water temperature to this, like there are nine oceans, you can do like warm water ocean, frozen ocean, cold water ocean. Right. Um, it just, and you know, the different forests, you can drill down very, very specifically within

those 64 biomes, uh, which is like only lends to the creativity, I think. Uh, kids can just, not only are they like being creative, but they're learning something about these biomes. For sure. You know, maybe not the most detailed stuff, but they know that, hey, in this kind of biome, these are the plants and trees that you'll have.

Right, there's kids walking around that are like, yeah, if you go under the ocean, you'll find abandoned cities that the ancient builders created. That's what they're learning, Chuck. Mobile entities is another thing, or mobs. These are like the animals and the monsters and stuff. When they're killed, they can drop things that you can pick up.

Sometimes you can tame them. If you get updates, these mobs expand. I think they're more than 75 now, but the things I've seen walking through the room are like sheep and pigs and things like that. Those were the first animals kind of created that you can use, that you can get wool from them. If you wanna make that bed, you're gonna have to get that wool from that sheep.

Right, and you talked about different biomes having different animals. And one of the reasons to go to the biomes is not just to explore new cool things, but you can get different things out of different mobs. So if you went to a warm water ocean, you would find puffer fish. And if you get a puffer fish and you combine it with something else, I don't remember,

you can create a potion that will let you breathe underwater. So you can walk around and explore underwater. So everything that you encounter that's a mob, which is essentially another term for a non-player character, you can get something from and you can combine it with other stuff that you got from other mobs or from punching a tree or from digging up ore with your pickaxe to create new things to do new stuff with. That's what people are doing when they're playing Minecraft.

One of the other things that you can find are zombies. It's a very big part of the game. They are kind of like most zombies. They're pretty easy to take care of and defeat. They're different variations of zombies. Creepers are kind of a fun mob because creepers were a mistake. I believe that, what's the guy's name again? Marcus Person?

Yeah. He was trying to make a pig, but he coded it wrong and it stretched out tall instead of wide and he thought it looked creepy, he liked it. And so Creepers became a very sort of popular monster in the game because he just said, I love that mistake, let's leave it. And they're considered hostile mops, right?

Because they'll attack you. Yeah, yeah. But they do that by blowing up, I think we said earlier. Yeah. There's also something called Endermen, which is kind of a play on Slenderman. And there are these creepy entities that may or may not attack you, depending on whether you look at them or not. So there's like a, there's definitely like gameplay to this, right?

Like there's, like you can go off and like defeat these things and fight them and protect villages and stuff like that. But there's also like, you can also just farm and once in a while you have to defend your farm against some zombies or something. Yeah, you'll also come upon villagers and villages where they live and these, you know, look like, they don't look like, they look like humans, I guess,

or their version of humans. And you can get things from them, you know, look like, they don't look like, they look like humans, I guess, or their version of humans. And you can get things from them, you can trade with them, they have different jobs, you can change their job if you want to, if you need like food or something. You can make them unemployed by destroying their job and then giving them a new job, then all of a sudden you got somebody giving you food. Right, exactly. And you, like, it's just crazy's just crazy that people have village farms, essentially, where they're breeding villagers

to make them stuff that they want. It can get really, really complicated really fast, but in the most basic version, you're just trading with the villagers. You go get emeralds and you come bring them to the villagers and they give you food or wool or something like that. Yeah, and you learn where them to the villagers and they give you food or wool or something like that. Yeah, and you learn where to look for different things that you need.

Like if you want coal, you can dig down not too deep, I believe, for coal. If you want this thing called red, or if you want like diamonds, you gotta dig really, really deep to find the diamonds, just like the real world. And then Livia pointed out this thing called redstone, which was, I believe it was an update to the alpha.

So it's been around basically from the beginning, but it has a lot of different kinds of functions, but it mainly functions like electrical wires so you can build and automate things. Yeah, it makes things go, empowers them, right? Like everything from pistons to doors opening to whatever. People make crazy machines using redstone. There's a kid who made a functioning calculator by arranging redstone and other items in a certain way. He made a calculator in Minecraft and it's kind of one of those things you have to see to really understand how crazy that is. But that's really, it's

neat. I think it'd be, I don't know how well the game would work at all if there wasn't such a thing as Redstone, or if you could just make things work just by pressing them, rather than having to go mine Redstone and using it to make the specific thing work the specific way. That's how detailed and involved it is, because of choices like that in the development. Totally. Should we take our second break?

Sure. All right. We'll take that break and we'll talk about how this is sort of taking over YouTube as well. Right for this. For so many people living with an autoimmune condition, the emotional toll is as real as the physical symptoms. Starting this May, join host, Martín Hackett for Season 3 of Untold Stories, Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition, a Ruby Studio production, and partnership with Argenics.

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Listen to Butternomics on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, Chuck, so you mentioned YouTube and that is basically the official outlet for Minecraft. That's where Minecraft pours out into the rest of the world. Yeah, you know, we'll go over some of the ways YouTube is utilized. Um, it's very, very, um, I mean, YouTube is full, full, full of Minecraft stuff. But one of the things that sort of alarmed me and kind of disappointed me with this and Roblox is that kids will just sit around watching people play this game on

YouTube. Yeah. that kids will just sit around watching people play this game on YouTube. Yeah. Um, sometime it's like to learn how to do things, but with Ruby and her friends, I will see them just sitting around and watching it instead of playing it. And I'm always like, as a parent, I'm like, Oh God, can you, you know, can you play the game and like get involved and, you know, but try to pick my battles and, uh, just limit it, you know?

Well, they've really turned things around on their head if you're like, man, can you please play the video game? Seriously. It used to be, can you go outside? Now it's like, can you play the video game rather than watch other people play? Yeah, that's a good point. That's how far we've slipped. I get it though. It's like, essentially, she's watching

an unscripted TV show or movie or something like that. And there are people that do that. There's something called Survival Multiplayer Channels. There's one called Dream SMP. I think they disbanded. But essentially they had loosely scripted story arcs that they acted out in Minecraft World as like kind of fictionalized versions of themselves, like our Subfusion No. TV show. And there were just plots that took place, and people would watch YouTube videos of these, essentially, shows created in Minecraft.

Yeah, there's a one guy named PewDiePie, P-E-W-D-I-E, P-I-E. He's got 111 million subs and is a very, very, very wealthy man. Yeah, he was one of the first genuine YouTube stars. I think he was as big as it got for a while. And then- Good for him. I'm not knocking it, by the way. He was toppled by, I think, a Bollywood record label.

There was a competition. Like a four-year-old from Taiwan. Right, exactly. Who opened Minecraft Lego gift sets. Yeah. But yeah, so PewDiePie got very, very wealthy just essentially from starting out from playing Minecraft videos.

And you said people watch people playing Minecraft. They'll watch speed runs, see how fast they can go. There's parody music videos set in the Minecraft world. Like, I think it's one of those things where like you can't get enough Minecraft once it gets under your skin, to where if you're like, I don't feel like playing today, I'm going to watch somebody else play and that will satisfy that itch. Yeah, and you know what? Now that I've said that, save your emails, everyone, because yes, at home, I used to sit around and watch my friends play Adventure when they played

and it was their turn, and I would hover over the shoulders of my friends at arcades and watch them play the games. So we did the exact same thing, and I take it all back. Yeah, but that's a little different because you're sitting there like willing your friend to hurry up and die so it can be your turn. Yeah, it's a little different, sure. Yeah, you're up next. That's the reason.

And what else are you gonna do? You're on your eighth Orange Julius. You're not gonna go get another one of those, so you might as well stand around and watch. Yeah, and your quarter's sitting there, flat on the screen of the arcade game. Mm-hmm, so you're definitely next next. Oh man, those were the days. What else you want to talk about the lore at all or move on?

Yeah well I mean I think it's kind of cool in that if you have a world like this you're gonna you're gonna get some stuff like fan fiction even though technically Alex and Steve are sort of until they release the other ones were the only two kind of characters. So it's, you know, it's a little weird to have fan fiction about these two blocky people that really have, that you know nothing about personality-wise. Sure.

I guess that's the point of fan fiction. They've also come up with this stuff, this sort of like fan fiction, you know, where you talked about the ancient builders, like they created this backstory sort of, of the ancient ones, like they created this backstory sort of, of the ancient ones who created the original structures in the game and like where did they come from. So like the creativity is really off the charts, you know?

Yeah, it's yeah. Yeah, that's the thing about it is we'll see like one of the big benefits of it for kids, but also for anybody is it. It really gets your imagination and creativity going, along with some other stuff, too. What about Hero Brian? Hero Brian is a legendary character. From what I saw, Notch said unequivocally that Hero Brian doesn't exist in Minecraft world.

There was a 4chan post from years back where somebody claimed to have encountered Steve, but it was Steve with all white eyes, and he was a weirdo doing weird stuff following him around the Minecraft world, and that became the legend of Herobrine, this character that supposedly is the ghost of Notch's dead brother.

But Notch is like, I don't even have a brother. I have a half brother I've never met. So no, there's no Herobrine. Sorry to bust that bubble Yeah, and I believe like in mods and things people have created that kind of stuff But in the official Minecraft game there there never has been one even though right will swear that they've come across hero exactly. Yeah So there's a lot of ways that you can modify Minecraft yourself again. One of the cottage industries is that you can modify Minecraft yourself. Again, one of the cottage industries is creating editors

to let Minecraft players modify the game to their own specifications, to let them do things like, you know, jump really high in survival mode, or fly, or whatever you wanna do. But one of the things that people have done is build stuff, with or without modifications. And the more, the less you modify, the more impressive your build is, is what they're called, their builds.

For example, one kid named Atmospheric Beats. This is incredible. Who may or may not be Travis Hicks. I found a YouTube video and a Reddit post. Who's that? I can't imagine there's too many people running around making one-to-one scale models of Kansas City in Minecraft. Either way, there is a one-to-one scale model

of Kansas City, every building, every tree, every street, and you can go inside every building. It's just completely true to life. In Minecraft, somebody built that. I want that for Atlanta, because I would have fun running around there. Well, there's a whole group called Build the Earth, where people around the world are creating

like faithful to life recreations of buildings. The point is to recreate every building on Earth. So you can do that. Okay, maybe I will one day. It gets even cooler if you're like, all right, Kansas City, one-to-one scale model, not bad. Scale model of the entire Earth, pretty impressive. There's an 18-year-old, this is a couple years ago,

so I guess he's 20-ish now, a YouTuber named Christopher Slayton. I think his real name is Chris Dekal. Or is it the other way? It's probably the other way. I thought Slayton was the made up thing, not Dekal. Slayton. If it was like Slaytor maybe. Yeah, I had that reversed.

But he made a model of the observable universe. Did you see the video of this? I did. Of his explanation? Yeah. It wasn't like he was like, oh, I'm going to draw this in Minecraft. The kid did the physics required to create

the models of the universe. I mean, like, everything from, like, nebula to galaxies to the sun. Like, you can zoom into pixels on the sun. It's just one of the most impressive things I've ever seen in my entire life. Would that be a photon? Like you can zoom in to pixels on the sun. It's just one of the most impressive things I've ever seen in my entire life. Would that be a photon?

I guess so. It'd be a one kilometer square photon. If all that wasn't cool enough, in 2020, the group Reporters Without Borders started a project called Uncensored Library. And this is amazing. In places like Saudi Arabia and Russia, where the real news is like censored

or you don't have access to these news sites, they are burying news inside the Minecraft world because you can play Minecraft there. Yeah, they write books or they create books that have these articles in them. Isn't that cool? Unbelievably cool. There's another thing too, I mentioned the kid who made a calculator, you can arrange these redstone

like ore basically, and make things into logic gates on off, if then that kind of stuff. And if you make, if you arrange different logic gates together, you can create computers. And there was somebody who created a computer that plays Minecraft in Minecraft. Like you can go onto Minecraft, go over to that computer and play Minecraft on that computer that exists only in Minecraft. I just want to make sure it's totally clear what I'm saying here. And it actually works. It's not some, it's not a drawing. It's like, it's operating on logic gates that they created with arrangements of redstone ore.

Incredible. So let's talk about this because I think it's pretty clear, Chuck, that there are a lot of benefits to playing this. Like, yes, it would be really easy for a kid to become addicted, and that really can happen. And I I've seen that actually is an actual thing and you have to look out for it. But there's also some real benefits to playing this, especially as a kid. Yeah, I mean, you know, if you're a parent, keep an eye on your kid. Monitor how long they're playing this game because it is great and we're going to talk

about the benefits for sure, but like if they don't want to do anything but Minecraft and if it seems like they're never satisfied with the amount that they're playing and they're lying about their playing and if they don't have it they're you know experiencing you know the withdrawal symptoms of anything else and they're grumpy and irritated or depressed like seriously get involved because it's a real danger. The benefits, you know, we've been talking about how creative it is. It's not only is it going to encourage you to just use your creative brain, but you're problem solving, you're using math, you're working with other people like teamwork, potentially learning to code.

Like there, this is the one game, I believe I asked Hodgman, because I knew his son played, and I was like, hey, is this Minecraft thing? And he was like, that's kind of the one game that it's okay for kids to start playing, because it's got, like, plenty of good benefits. Yeah, and even more esoteric stuff, like managing resources.

Like, it's not like the kid's like, oh, I'm learning to manage resources. This is great. Just by virtue of playing Minecraft, you have to learn to manage resources. You have to keep up with your sheep and make sure that they're breeding so that you can get enough wool. Um, like, like you have to know what to use, where, where to go get it.

And then how to use it, um, smartly so that you can get the most out of it. Like that's a huge part of playing Minecraft and that's a great thing to learn. Um, it also teaches kids to like focus on a goal, you know, well, you want to raise some sheep, I know I keep going to that well, but it's a good one. You have to go, you have to farm the food to feed the sheep and then you have to shear the sheep to get the wool and then you use the wool that do God knows what with and you have a goal and it's not just that one goal, that goal is made up of a series of sub goals too,

and that's a great thing to learn early on. Yeah, and your kids aren't coming to you and asking you how to do it, unless you happen to be a parent that really knew Minecraft, because I'm sure that exists now, it's been around long enough. But generally, your kid's probably in the other room figuring this stuff out.

Maybe they're asking friends for help, maybe they're not. They're learning as they go and making what they think are smart decisions to do better in the game in real time. My advice to a parent is it's really easy just to sort of walk by anytime your kid is doing this with zero interest, but just maybe once or twice,

sit down and ask them to tell you about their world for 15 minutes. Just like sit there with them while they play for like 15 minutes and say, show me your world. I did that a couple of times. And it's incredible to see, I mean, she was like five or six at the time. Oh wow.

To see a kid really, like I was like, oh my god, and you figured out that, and you figured out you needed to do that to get that, and to them they're just like, yeah, dad, that's, duh, that's the game, but I'm over here going like, this is incredible, like you're learning, like keep at it. That is cool. And I'm glad she stopped playing it at the same time.

There you go. I feel like we would be grossly remiss if we didn't give a shout out to our little friend from the Medford show. Yeah, that's right. Who requested this. I don't remember his name and I'm very sorry for that, but there was a kid, a guy, a young dude at the Medford show recently, I think in May, who during QA asked us to do an episode on Minecraft. And I think the whole thing started with him asking us about mobs and we're like, what is a mob?

And that kind of kicked the whole thing off. So that's why we're where we are right now. That's right. And if you hear this kid and parent and you want us to set the record straight and get that name on the air, like email us and we'll include that in a future correction. For sure.

And speaking of email, I think Chuck, it's time for listener mail. Uh, yeah. This is about salsa. We got a lot of good salsa emails. People love salsa. Because people like to say salsa. Saying and eating. Boy, did you see the one woman who sent in the black salsa

from that restaurant in Chicago? No, I didn't see that. It looked good. I think it was the last couple of days. She posted a picture and it's like charred peppers, basically. Nice. Boy, did it look good.

Hey guys, great job on the recent episode on salsa. I was born and raised in Northwestern Mexico. Being Mexican, I was very interested on how you guys would tackle this. Josh got it right about the fact that salsa is a condiment, mostly. But he did get it wrong that it is in fact served at most restaurants in Mexico, along with tortilla chips called to topos, or like the tostadas like Chuck mentioned being broken apart.

It is not an appetizer, nor do you need to order it. It's's just served and you can also use the salsa as a condiment with your food. And I saw someone else wrote in a Mexican woman that said a lot of times that's a good way to to test the salsa to test taste test sort of the salsa or the different salsas you get to see which one you do want to use as a condiment. Oh, I see. I gotcha. Which makes sense. Sorry, but the only thing that was innovated in the US was to charge for something that comes free with your meal with Mexico. Boo! Boo, indeed. Also guys, tortilla chips go back to the pre-Hispanic era with the Mexican word for tortilla chip. Again, to topo coming from a Nahuatl word

meaning to toast or brown. And finally for Chuck, Pico de Gallo, Mexico's any sort of mixed or chopped fruits and vegetables. Pico de Gallo that he referenced in the US is usually called salsa fresca. I knew that. That makes sense. I don't know why I didn't say it. Or salsa bandanderro.

Banderra meaning flag. And the chilies, onion and tomato are green, white and red like the Mexican flag. Very nice. Great email. That's from Ricardo Llamas Vidalas. Thanks a lot Ricardo. We appreciate that. It's nice to hear from a local expert. And if you want to be like Ricardo and set us straight on some stuff, we would love to hear that. You can send it off to stuffpodcast at iHeartRadio.com. Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeart Radio. For more podcasts, my heart radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. For so many people living with an autoimmune condition like myasthenia gravis or chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy, the emotional toll can be as real as the physical

symptoms. That's why in an all-new season of Untold Stories, Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition from Ruby Studio and Argenics, host Martin Hackett gets to the heart of the emotional journey for individuals living with these conditions. To find community and inspiration on your journey, listen now on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Want to know how to leverage culture to build a successful business? Then Butternomics is the podcast for you. wherever you get your podcasts. There's something different about the conversations we have late at night.

They often spin off in strange and wonderful directions. So what if those laid back conversations were with some of the biggest musicians in the world? Midnight Chance has already welcomed Tame Impala, Charlie XCX, Mark Ronson, Vince Staples and many more. Join me, Stuart Stubbs, and me, Greg Cochrane, as we talk to our favourite musicians about the things they don't normally talk about. Listen to the new series of Midnight Chats

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your favourite shows.