Peak Mino

[myndzi]

Many of you have heard about Peak Oil and the impending crisis expected by the depletion of our planet's oil reserves. That's a pretty important topic, but there's a smaller, lesser-known problem that's sneaking up on us all unknowing: Peak Mino.

The Problem

There is not actually an unlimited supply of minos to build tetriminoes from. In particular, cyan and magenta minos are becoming rarer by the day as a result of hoarding by wealthy players. While we've been able to keep up with the demand by utilizing bots to mine for bits, the largest known caches of minos are fast being exhausted. Japan used to have one of the largest reserves of minos, but no longer! Poland recently found a smaller cache and has been ramping up production to meet demand. Korea has a fairly large cache of its own, but its exports are severely restricted.

That's not even the worst of it, though! The largest reserves of minos on the internet are controlled by corporate interests greedy for money. They gild their minos in gaudy veneers and sell them at a premium. What you may not know is that in these so-called "skinned" tetriminoes, approximately 20% of the pixels are made from a synthetic mino substitute, allowing the corporate interests to stretch out their supply at the cost of quality. These inferior minos have become so popular that even local shops have started offering them, despite the downsides of using less than 100% pure minos: lag is becoming more rampant, and tetriminoes tend to hang up on ledges rather than sliding smoothly into place. Studies show that 14% of players with sprints under 40 seconds are affected by poor-quality minos daily.

You Can Help

Tetriminoes have been in such abundant supply since their discovery that few of us have ever stopped to consider the consequences. Can you imagine a world in which your children's children had to play with tetriminoes with no pixels?! Awful doesn't begin to describe it.

And yet every day, millions of tetriminoes are wasted in restarts, discarded into the null never to be used again, not even given the chance to be part of a complete game of Tetris. Americans in particular restart 40% times as often as the rest of the world, while regulations to improve efficient use of tetriminos consistently get delayed in Congress.

You don't have to wait for someone else to do something, though; you can conserve minos yourself this very moment!

What You Can Do

Here are a few things you can do to help conserve this valuable resource for the future of our children.

• Don't restart - Restarting games is the single most wasteful abuse of minos. Don't be "that guy" - get the most out of your precious minos while you can.
• Don't hold - holding T and I pieces has led directly to the shortage of cyan and magenta minos. Companies like Arika have innovated by sidelining the use of hold and using different colors in their tetriminoes - but their most recent offerings have caved to demand, while the effect of the different-colored pieces is minimal.
• Don't play with SRS - Bag randomizers have become popular due to their friendliness and ease of use. Stacking becomes easier for players, thus extending the length of the game. Longer games is one of the main causes of procrastination in our children these days, and it is estimated that players use between 20 and 80 percent more minos per game with bag randomizers than classical games utilizing memoryless.
• Hand-in-hand with this is the use of Change-on-Attack style garbage. Recyling minos to create garbage is a great way to help the environment, but by lining them up too neatly the duration of competitive matches is extended, making less than optimal use of the garbage minos and increasing the quantity of minos-per-game for each player

Other Things of Note

Over the past decade, there has been a drastic increase in underground Tetris fights. These events have been known to use modified minos deemed illegal by the authorities in charge of tetrimino safety at The Tetris Company. The truth is, these events are the only place that players can get ahold of 100% pure tetriminoes. The pixel quality is generally extremely high, and due to the popularity of "skinned" minos, underground craftsmen have been decorating their minos as well. These craftsmen know the importance of pure minos, however, and so only use 100% pure mino dust in their decorations. These craftsmen ask nothing for their work, incredibly, wanting only to bring the importance of using pure minos in Tetris to the population at large.

The Tetris Company sometimes stages raids on large underground gatherings of players, so use caution if you attend one - use at least seven proxies on your way to the event and have a disconnect plan at the ready. Despite the risk, these events are the truest expression of Tetris in its raw, unadulterated form; you'll encounter players of unheard-of skill whose names ring out only in the underground. What these guys can do with pure minos is, quite frankly, art.

Conclusion

Hopefully this post has intrigued you enough to get educated about the truth of the state of minos in our internet. This is only the tip of the iceberg, but there's lots more to discover.

Please play responsibly.

[StS]

Dear myndzi,

I'm worried now. Will we be seeing a rise in Mino prices? What effect do you think this will have on our economy?

[qwerty098765]

Qwerty now selling T and I minos at 200% mark-up~
The cheapest offer available! Contact me now for your T and I pieces.

[myndzi]

Dear myndzi,

I'm worried now. Will we be seeing a rise in Mino prices? What effect do you think this will have on our economy?

For now, minos are available in a price-controlled format from official sources, but it's uncertain how long they can effectively subsidize the extra costs. It'll still be some years from now, but the mino bubble will eventually burst. You've seen the effect the recent housing bubble had on the global economy, but Tetris is a relatively tiny portion of that, so it shouldn't have a drastic effect on the economy at large. The hardest-hit will probably be Russia, which has had to rely on imported minos for years now.now.

[Panda]

This post seriously deserves more attention...

#MINO2013