The Tim, Author at Ellis.FYI

PuffTris: Most Insane Tetris Clone Ever

Behold the most insane Tetris clone you will ever play: PuffTris

The more lines you match the more wildly the game board swings around in all three dimensions. It gets even more insane than you can see above, I just didn’t have that good of a game when I was capturing the video.

Another random cool bit about the game: The soundtrack is contained in a file called “pufftris.mod,” which when opened in a music player like Winamp displays the title of the piece as “zaggazogga,” and includes the comment (apparently in Swedish) “NU E DET BROTTOM! Ursäkta för att jag gör detta!” This appears to translate roughly as “NOW, IT’S A CRIME! Excuse me for doing this!” In my book, any game with a soundtrack called “zaggazogga” would be awesome for that reason alone.

I don’t remember where I originally got this game. According to the game’s closing screen it was released in May 1996, and I have had it floating around on various hard drives since high school. When I thought I had lost it in transition between computers, I tried numerous times to locate it on the internet with zero luck, and other than the reference on the game’s closing screen to an entity called “PuffSoft” and the game designer “Jesse,” there aren’t any clues as to who exactly created this game.

[2018 Update]
Some time after I published this post and video, PuffTris appeared online on the website collectingsmiles.com. Here’s the site description:

Collecting Smiles is an independent developer based in Stockholm, Sweden. Collecting Smiles was founded by Jens Andersson in 2007, while on sabbatical from his dual role as Creative and Engineering Lead at Starbreeze Studios in Sweden. He used Collecting Smiles to experiment with new gameplay types and share his findings with the gaming community.

I reached out to Jens on Twitter and confirmed… he is the original creator of PuffTris!

PuffTris was made during the demopoarty Hackerence in 1995. They held a game-jam that weekend with the theme Tetris-clone. I didn't win. :)

— Jens Andersson (@Llerd) April 26, 2018

So finally after all these years, I can give credit where it is due to Jens for creating what is still my favorite version of Tetris. Be sure to check out his current game Yoku’s Island Express, coming to PC and consoles later this year.

[End of Update]

Therefore, I present to you here today the apparently world-exclusive, unauthorized re-release of the world’s most brutal Tetris clone:

PuffTris

1 file(s) 148.46 KB

Download

Be sure to read the README.txt file. Since this game was released sixteen years ago for MS-DOS, the only way I’ve been able to get it to run correctly on a modern PC operating system is by installing DOSBox and running PuffTris through that. The README.txt file has step-by-step instructions on how to get the game running with DOSBox.

PuffTris has always been my favorite Tetris clone. It’s not overtly evil like HATETRIS, just plain insane. Plus the soundtrack isn’t half bad, especially by mid-90s standards.

Anyway, I hope that some of you out there can enjoy PuffTris as much as I have.

Can Seattle Support Six Major Pro Sports Teams?

I was reading an article in today’s Seattle Times about a Metropolitan King County Council hearing on the Seattle arena proposal to build yet another sports arena in SoDo, when this bit stuck out to me:

[Councilmember Jane] Hague then wanted to know if the region could support so many teams. Counting the NBA and NHL, as well as the University of Washington football team playing in a new stadium, Councilmember Larry Phillips said the area could have seven major teams. He wondered if any other “midsized major market” supported that many.

“I think this area can support it,” [former Sonics coach Lenny] Wilkens said.

Phillips said he’d want to see a market analysis.

Traditionally the only kind of market analysis I do is for the Seattle real estate market, but once in a while I like to branch out, so I thought I’d give the Council a head start.

To get an idea of how reasonable it might be to have six professional sports teams here in the Seattle metro area, I took a list of the top 30 largest metro areas in the United States and counted up how many pro sports team each metro area currently has. For this analysis, I decided to exclude college sports and just focus on NFL, MLB, NBA, WNBA, NHL, and MLS. Las Vegas is the 30th-largest metro but has no pro sports teams so we’ll leave it off the chart. LA’s Inland Empire (Riverside & San Bernardino Counties, #12 on its own) doesn’t have any sports teams of its own, so I included its population with LA. I’ve also included the San Jose metro area population (#31) with the San Francisco population to better reflect the whole Bay Area.

Here’s the resulting chart, showing where Seattle sits today with four teams (NFL, MLB, WNBA, and MLS):

As you can see, Seattle’s current collection of professional sports teams puts us slightly above the trendline of these 28 metro areas. If we were to add NBA and NHL teams to our roster, it would put us on par with Washington DC, a metro area with 63% more people than Seattle.

[Update: A friend of mine asked for a weighted version of the above chart, where the major sports (NFL, MLB, and NBA) count double. You can view that version here.]

Another informative way to look at this question is in terms of population per team. Here’s a table of that data, showing Seattle’s location with and without two extra teams:

Click on any column header to sort by that column.

Metro	Teams	Population	Pop. per Team
Denver	5	2,599,504	519,901
Seattle (proposed)	6	3,500,026	583,338
San Francisco Bay Area	7	4,391,037	627,291
Minneapolis	5	3,318,486	663,697
Kansas City	3	2,052,676	684,225
Cleveland	3	2,068,283	689,428
Pittsburgh	3	2,359,746	786,582
Phoenix	5	4,262,236	852,447
Seattle (today)	4	3,500,026	875,007
Boston	5	4,591,112	918,222
St. Louis	3	2,817,355	939,118
Tampa	3	2,824,724	941,575
Washington DC	6	5,703,948	950,658
Cincinnati	2	2,138,038	1,069,019
Detroit	4	4,285,832	1,071,458
San Antonio	2	2,194,927	1,097,464
Portland	2	2,262,605	1,131,303
Philadelphia	5	5,992,414	1,198,483
Dallas / Fort Worth	5	6,526,548	1,305,310
Atlanta	4	5,359,205	1,339,801
Chicago	7	9,504,753	1,357,822
Baltimore	2	2,729,110	1,364,555
Miami	4	5,670,125	1,417,531
Houston	4	6,086,538	1,521,635
San Diego	2	3,140,069	1,570,035
New York	11	19,015,900	1,728,718
Los Angeles + Inland Empire	9	17,249,798	1,916,644
Orlando	1	2,171,360	2,171,360
Sacramento	1	2,176,235	2,176,235

At 875,007 residents per local pro sports team, Seattle is already 25% below the 28-city average of 1,174,483. If we were to bring both NBA and NHL teams to our market we would shoot to a full 50% below the average.

It would appear that the answer to Councilmember Hague’s question of whether Seattle can “support so many teams” would appear to be “probably not.”

As for Councilmember Phillips’s question of whether ‘any other “midsized major market”‘ supports six teams, the answer is no. Only five other markets currently have six or more professional sports teams:

Washington DC – 6 teams, 63% more people than Seattle
San Francisco – 7 teams, 79% more people than Seattle
Chicago – 7 teams, 172% more people than Seattle
Los Angeles – 9 teams, 393% more people than Seattle
New York – 11 teams, 443% more people than Seattle

Not even close.

Obviously a more detailed analysis would take into account incomes, recreational spending patterns, and other factors. That said, we’re obviously not hurting for pro sports teams here in Seattle, relative to the size of our market. So why exactly do we need to spend $200 million in public funds to build a new stadium and bring two new pro sports teams to Seattle?

[Update: Whoa, ~~164~~ 226 comments and counting on the Seattle Times piece linking to this post. People certainly have strong opinions on this subject!]

[Update 2: …and it’s been posted on the Seattle P-I as well.]

[Update 3]
There have been a number of comments on the Seattle Times piece as well as here on this post about the various other factors that need to be considered when attempting to answer the question of whether Seattle can support six pro sports teams.

Although I did plainly call out that this was just a cursory analysis meant to answer the specific “metro size” questions posed by the Councilmembers, I decided to get the latest Personal Income data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis to run a few additional numbers.

Here’s what the first chart looks like if you use Personal Income as the x-axis instead of population:

I made a weighted version of this one, too if you prefer that.

For the non-stats-nerds out there, the R² value on the chart is the coefficient of determination, which is basically a way of measuring how closely correlated two sets of values are. In this case, total Personal Income and number of sports teams are 82% correlated, which is pretty high, and sightly better than the 79% correlation between population and number of sports teams.

And as long as I’m posting an update with incomes, here’s the table version, looking at personal income per local pro sports team instead of population per sports team:

Click on any column header to sort by that column.

Metro	Teams	$M Income	$M per Team
Denver	5	$121,902	$24,380
Cleveland	3	$84,854	$28,285
Kansas City	3	$85,217	$28,406
Seattle (proposed)	6	$176,085	$29,348
Phoenix	5	$152,810	$30,562
Minneapolis	5	$154,479	$30,896
Pittsburgh	3	$103,039	$34,346
Tampa	3	$105,596	$35,199
St. Louis	3	$117,421	$39,140
San Antonio	2	$78,416	$39,208
Cincinnati	2	$84,611	$42,306
Detroit	4	$170,618	$42,655
Seattle (today)	4	$176,085	$44,021
Portland	2	$90,654	$45,327
Boston	5	$253,463	$50,693
Atlanta	4	$208,107	$52,027
San Francisco Bay Area	7	$374,249	$53,464
Washington DC	6	$323,536	$53,923
Dallas / Fort Worth	5	$277,516	$55,503
Philadelphia	5	$281,517	$56,303
Miami	4	$242,278	$60,570
Chicago	7	$435,413	$62,202
Baltimore	2	$133,587	$66,794
Houston	4	$281,842	$70,461
San Diego	2	$143,109	$71,555
Orlando	1	$75,289	$75,289
Los Angeles + Inland Empire	9	$691,121	$76,791
Sacramento	1	$86,943	$86,943
New York	11	$1,028,140	$93,467

At $44,021M in Personal Income per local pro sports team, Seattle is currently 15% below the 28-city average of $51,811M. If we were to bring both NBA and NHL teams to our market we would be at 43% below the average.

Here’s how the five markets with six or more professional sports teams stack up against Seattle in terms of total Personal Income:

Washington DC – 6 teams, 84% more income than Seattle
San Francisco – 7 teams, 113% more income than Seattle
Chicago – 7 teams, 147% more income than Seattle
Los Angeles – 9 teams, 292% more income than Seattle
New York – 11 teams, 484% more income than Seattle

It would appear that the answer comes out roughly the same when you factor incomes into the equation. Seattle still just doesn’t stack up with the metro areas that have six or more teams.

Lastly, it’s worth noting that I personally don’t really care whether Seattle gets a new stadium and two new teams. I’m neither a sports fan nor a sports hater. I’ve got no horse in this race, and nobody’s paying me to do this basic analysis. I just saw the Councilmembers quotes in the Seattle Times and thought it was an interesting question worth exploring.

Mint.com staff have a reading comprehension problem.

I’ve been a Mint.com user since early 2009. Unfortunately, almost a year ago Mint.com inexplicably stopped supporting Prevail Credit Union, where I keep my main checking and savings accounts, basically making Mint absolutely worthless to me.

Earlier this month, when Prevail announced that they were switching to a new online banking experience, I decided to ask them if this change meant that they would resume support for Mint.

Here’s what I asked Prevail:

I am curious whether this new online banking system that is rolling out tonight will also come with renewed support for Mint.com. If not, are there plans to provide compatibility with Mint.com in the near future?

And here’s the response I got the next day from a Prevail “Member Service Consultant” Crystal B. (emphasis mine):

We would love to offer that service to our members, but unfortunately Mint.com is not compatible with our website because transferring online account information to Mint.com violates our privacy agreement that we have with our web service provider.

Our new online banking system will also not be compatible with Mint.com because Mint.com will not sign a security agreement with our web service provider. Until Mint.com will sign a security agreement or until we move to another platform, Mint.com will not be compatible with our website.

Although I was of course disappointed that Mint would not be supported, I appreciated the prompt and succinct answer from Prevail. Armed with this information, I sent the following message to Mint:

I contacted my Credit Union to ask why Mint was not supported, and they gave me the following response:

“Mint.com will not sign a security agreement with our web service provider. Until Mint.com will sign a security agreement or until we move to another platform, Mint.com will not be compatible with our website.”

If you could please work with my Credit Union to sign the security agreement with their provider, I would really appreciate it. I used to be able to use Mint with these accounts but it stopped working a year or two ago.

Here’s the response I got the next business day from Jeffrey M.:

Thank you for contacting Mint.com.

We’ve been informed by our data provider that Prevail Credit Union is currently blocking our data aggregation efforts. Until the block is lifted, the issue you are experiencing with this account cannot be resolved. We are in the process of working to address this issue.

We apologize for this inconvenience and hope to resolve this issue as quickly as possible.

Have a good day!

Did Jeffrey even read my message? I know that Prevail is blocking Mint. I told him exactly why it is happening, and what the solution is. Totally unsatisfied, I sent the following response:

Hi, did you actually read my message in its entirety? Your efforts are being blocked because “Mint.com will not sign a security agreement with our web service provider.”

You didn’t really answer my question at all, which was “could [you] please work with my Credit Union to sign the security agreement with their provider.”

If you guys sign the agreement, my credit union will stop blocking you, and everyone can be happy.

Here’s what Jeffrey responded with about an hour ago:

Our apologies for the inconvenience.

Our Engineering team are still working on this issue. Please be advised that it may take time to fix the issue. We will keep you posted on any updates. Sorry for the frustration this has caused.

Have a good day!

*bang*
*head*
*on*
*desk*

EARTH TO JEFFREY. Hello? Is anyone at Mint actually reading these emails?

This is not an engineering problem. All that needs to happen is for Mint’s lawyers to call up Prevail’s lawyers, and sign a security agreement. How hard is it to read the words I am writing to you and give me a straight answer to my question?

Too hard, apparently.

Some Kinda Big News Guy or Something

Thanks to my weird real estate fetish, I’ve been in newspapers, magazines, radio, and television more times than I can even remember. Even so, I’ve never had a week quite like this one.

Tuesday: Quoted in a Bloomberg / BusinessWeek story:

Agents encountered multiple bids on about half of offers in Seattle, Boston, Washington, D.C. and Oregon this year through March 15, said Tim Ellis, real estate analyst for online brokerage Redfin. In the San Francisco area, Redfin agents reported that three of four offers involved competition, he said.

Tuesday: Appeared live on Q13 5:00 News:

Wednesday: Appeared on separate Bloomberg radio and separate KOMO radio news briefs (which unfortunately I was unable to record).

Wednesday: Appeared in a KING 5 story.

Thursday: Appeared in a KOMO 4 story.

Friday: Appeared on the nationally-syndicated NPR program Marketplace Money

Throughout the Seattle area, the number of homes for sale is down more than 30 percent from a year ago. In some parts of San Francisco, Denver, Los Angeles, and San Diego, the shortage is even more pronounced.

Tim Ellis: Inventory is just dropping like a rock. I think that’s really the big story.

Tim Ellis is a real estate analyst with the property firm Redfin. He says housing inventory always picks up after the holidays. But in many markets in the U.S., inventory has dropped for the last two months. Why is this happening? Ellis calls it a hangover from the housing bubble.

Ellis: You know, the traditional, kind of, buy a home and then hold it for a while and then sell it, that cycle on average lasts about 7 years. Well, when you think about where were seven years ago, that was kind of right at the peak, is was right at the height of the boom, so the people who bought seven years ago might be today’s sellers in a normal market, they can’t afford to sell.

Seven media appearances in one week, spanning print, radio, and television. Doubt I’ll manage to beat that without committing a major crime or something.

YouTube Doesn’t Care About Original Indie Content

Yesterday I uploaded the video below to YouTube. It’s just a simple amateur recording I shot of the Fountains of Bellagio last week while I was in Las Vegas.

Shortly after it finished uploading to YouTube, I received the following email:

Dear TheTimSeattle,

Your video, Fountains of Bellagio: The Pink Panther Theme, may have content that is owned or licensed by EMI Music Publishing.

No action is required on your part; however, if you are interested in learning how this affects your video, please visit the Content ID Matches section of your account for more information.

Sincerely,
– The YouTube Team

Yup, despite all the booms and ooohs and aaahs distorting the music, YouTube nearly instantly recognized The Pink Panther Theme song playing in my video, and felt the need to send me a nasty-gram warning me about the usage of “third party content” in my video. At least this one didn’t get totally blocked like the one-minute video I uploaded a year or two ago of the contents of a Woot Bag of Crap with massively distorted audio of “The Final Countdown” playing in the background.

Okay, fine. Whatever. I get that the big publishing companies want to “protect” their “intellectual property,” and it’s easy for YouTube to automatically detect things like this and take action.

What I don’t get is why when someone uploads an exact copy one of my videos that’s on YouTube, YouTube does absolutely nothing. I shot the video below of a crazy electrical installation about a year ago.

After I uploaded it to YouTube and posted it to Seattle Bubble, it took off, rapidly racking up hundreds of thousands of views. Shortly after it became popular on YouTube, some user downloaded it and uploaded it to Break.com as their own. Then, other users started uploading copies to YouTube.

Did I learn about this via an automated message from YouTube about my video’s copyright being violated? Nope. I only found out because friends pointed out that my video was embedded on various websites, and when I clicked through to YouTube from those sites I discovered that my video had been uploaded by another user.

To its credit, YouTube does react quickly when you use their Copyright Infringement Notification form to report this sort of abuse, usually taking down the offending video the same day. However, it’s still quite annoying that I’ve had to personally hunt down copies of my video that have been uploaded by other users (seven other users, so far) and manually fill out that form, despite the fact that YouTube obviously has technology capable of automatically detecting things like this.

It’s also worth mentioning that when you fill out YouTube’s Copyright Infringement Notification form, there’s a field where they ask for the address of original YouTube video that the offending video is violating the copyright of. And yet, when they do take down the offending video, they don’t bother providing a link to the original content anywhere on the page. Instead, you just get a generic page that looks like this:

They can put links in the video space. Why wouldn’t they put a link to the original content on the removed video when a user like myself explicitly tells them where the original content is?

If YouTube really wants users to upload original content, why wouldn’t they use their existing tools to provide better copyright protection for independent original content, instead of intentionally turning a blind eye to infringement that they are easily capable of automatically detecting?

I can only conclude that YouTube doesn’t care about original indie content.