Even if the populations of the US or Russia are annihilated in a nuclear apocalypse, the governments responsible for the devastation plan to fight on from vast, underground bunkers. Now, the public can peer inside the secretive complexes thanks to the efforts of arms control analysts who reconstructed these bunkers inside Minecraft.
The mistaken missile alert that sent people scurrying for cover in Hawaii last week revealed just how poorly prepared the US government is to protect the public during a nuclear attack. The government’s plans for protecting itself from a rain of thermonuclear fire are much more detailed. Using satellite images, declassified information, and a good amount of guesswork, analysts at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies (or MIIS) reconstructed two underground complexes: the Pentagon’s site in Pennsylvania and a bunker built by the Russian government outside Moscow.
The reconstructions are set in the low-resolution world of Minecraft to lighten the very real, and very depressing, topic of nuclear annihilation, says Jeffrey Lewis, who led the effort from the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at MIIS. The aim is to draw attention to the tension between how the government downplays the risk of nuclear war and how it actually prepares for it, Lewis says. “What the bunker model shows you is that the risk of nuclear war is real enough that the United States and Russia spend billions of dollars preparing to stash away their leadership.” (Players can find an article about the bunkers and instructions for virtually accessing them posted on the Nuclear Threat Initiative’s site.)
The 650-acre Raven Rock complex is the alternative Pentagon where top defense officials plan to flee during a nuclear attack. Also known as Site R, it’s located on the Pennsylvania side of the border with Maryland — close to the presidential retreat Camp David. Thanks to the Freedom of Information Act, a diagram of the site has been “floating around online,” Lewis says. The team based their reconstruction on that diagram and details in journalist Garrett Graff’s book Raven Rock: The Story of the US Government’s Secret Plan to Save Itself — While the Rest of Us Die. Using satellite images and topography, the team located the entrances to the site and figured out the size of the mountain above it.
The team also modeled the Kosvinsky underground command facility outside of Moscow, Russia. This, too, was based on satellite images and details gleaned from declassified CIA reports. For both complexes — but especially the Russian one — the team had to use their imaginations to fill in the gaps, Lewis says. “There’s an enormous amount of guesswork. In no way, shape, or form did we make anything that we think is perfect,” he says.
There are also a few Easter eggs, including an interplanetary wormhole from the science-fiction franchise Stargate in one of the bunkers and a pen of especially virulent zombies. “But the important thing is that we wanted people to get a sense for the scale — and we think that’s probably about right,” Lewis says. The point is to remind people that as long as nuclear weapons exist, they pose a threat. “It all goes back to focusing on the changing US and Russian nuclear posture,” Lewis says. “We imagine that things are very different from the Cold War, but the bunkers suggest the opposite — they suggest that they’re exactly the same.”
Microsoft is upping its STEM game by introducing new chemistry and computer science options for Minecraft: Education Edition. Plus, the tech giant is adding more “mixed reality” products and offers for educators, including an academic HoloLens discount, to its edtech mix.
All of this news (and more) is being rolled out by Microsoft in advance of the largest education technology trade show in the world, Bett, which begins Wednesday in London.
Minecraft may be the biggest news for its legions of K-12 teacher and student fans. Starting in early February, a free Chemistry Update will be available to licensed users. The update uses game-based learning to introduce chemistry concepts.
Jay Paulus, senior director of Windows education marketing, said, “The chemistry add-in actually adds some new kinds of components to Minecraft” including a full periodic table and a “compounding table” which is similar to Minecraft’s crafting table. Students can move from building compounds to hands-on understanding of more difficult concepts, like stable isotopes.
Building compounds in Minecraft’s new Chemistry Update. (Image: Microsoft)
Minecraft: Education Edition is also getting new Microsoft MakeCode for Minecraft computer science curricula which, similar to learn-to-code packages ScratchX and Tynker, can be used in Minecraft’s Code Builder.
Paulus said the continued emphasis on Minecraft is a key part Microsoft’s overall education strategy in light of interest in STEM education. “I think it’s super important, especially for those age group of kids for which Minecraft is an excellent hook,” Paulus said. “We’ve got 250 lesson plans online already in Minecraft.”
Another area of edtech emphasis — albeit nascent, more pricey, and skewing toward older students — is virtual reality. Microsoft said starting today, it’s offering academic institutions HoloLens commercial and developer models at a 10 percent discount through the end of May. In addition, Microsoft says curriculum for Windows Mixed Reality and HoloLens headsets will be released by educational publisher Pearson starting in March, and Microsoft has a new mixed reality curriculum partnership with WGBH and NASA’s “Bringing the University of America’s Classrooms” initiative.
Among the many other Microsoft education announcements tied to the Bett event:
Office 365. Microsoft says dictation is coming to Office in February so students can write with their voice, and OneNote Class Notebook pages can be locked by teachers after they provide students with feedback (which Microsoft said is the top teacher request).
Teacher training. Free teacher training, in-person or virtual, will be available on how to use Microsoft tech in the classroom after schools purchase certain Microsoft 365 Education software licenses, not including the still-free version of Office 365 Education.
Classroom devices. Four new sub-$300 Windows 10 devices from Lenovo and JP (the latter better known in international markets), two of them under $200, are being announced at Bett to add to more than 40 different school-friendly devices available for Windows that start at $189.
Paulus said this last is important as Microsoft works to counter Google’s influence in K-12 classrooms. Recent market research has shown that while Windows is relatively strong in other countries, inexpensive Chromebooks with Google’s free G Suite for Education are dominant in the U.S., accounting for more than half of new computing device shipments into schools.
With the latest hardware announcements, Paulus said, “I would say we’re at critical mass now” in countering Google.
And what of Apple, one-time edtech darling? “We’ve added the ability to use some of the tools from mobile in Apple” iOS devices, Paulus said. But despite that nod to Apple, Paulus asserted that, “Schools more and more are choosing the Microsoft platform.”
Minecraft developer Mojang will join us on-stage at the PC Gamer Weekender to discuss future updates for the game, as well as offering insight into how features for the game are conceived and developed. The studio's lead creative designer Jens Bergensten will present at 16.00 on Sunday, 18 February at the Olympia in London. Come along, and learn more about what they've got in store for 2018.
Minecraft, of course, just had its biggest active month ever with 74 million users. Hell, you know what it is. This is a great opportunity to go behind-the-scenes with the developer, and while you're at the Weekender, you can check out many more speakers, games and booths. Tickets are available now from £12.99, and you can save an extra 20% with the voucher code PC-GAMER20.
“Minecraft” continues to be one of the most popular games ever made.
The creation/survival indie game that Microsoft purchased back in 2014 for $2.5 billion has now sold 144 million copies, and enjoys a monthly userbase of 74 million players. The latest numbers were revealed in an interview with Helen Chiang, the new head of Microsoft's “Minecraft” group, at PopSugar.
Those numbers are exceptional, even by “Minecraft” standards.
The game has been a notoriously explosive phenomenon since early in its life; “Minecraft” started as a work-in-progress game, made by a single man (Markus “Notch” Persson). It had rudimentary graphics and controls. It was only available on PC. It was prone to breaking, because it was an unfinished game being made by a single person.
And yet, millions of people bought and played that early version of “Minecraft.” When Microsoft bought the game back in 2014, the tech world was surprised and confused by the purchase. Persson did not join Microsoft.
But clearly that early success has persisted under Microsoft's care. Just to compare, more people play Minecraft on a monthly basis than the populations of France, UK, Italy, or South Korea.
But why is it so popular? We're talking about a game that looks like this:
“Minecraft” is available on nearly every game platform available, including the Nintendo Switch.Nintendo
Think of “Minecraft” as virtual LEGO.
It's a system for fitting pieces together to create something — sometimes amazing somethings — from nothing. “Minecraft” provides endless building blocks and a blank canvas. It's up to you to create something incredible, or silly, or referential, or whatever, using the tools it provides. The tools are blessedly user-friendly, as are the systems for employing those tools.
With that in mind, it's not hard to understand why “Minecraft” has been such a hit. That it's graphically rudimentary and simple to play just makes it all the more accessible to a large audience — nearly 75 million people every month, apparently.
Minecraft developer Mojang will join us on-stage at the PC Gamer Weekender to discuss future updates for the game, as well as offering insight into how features for the game are conceived and developed. The studio's lead creative designer Jens Bergensten will present at 16.00 on Sunday, 18 February at the Olympia in London. Come along, and learn more about what they've got in store for 2018.
Minecraft, of course, just had its biggest active month ever with 74 million users. Hell, you know what it is. This is a great opportunity to go behind-the-scenes with the developer, and while you're at the Weekender, you can check out many more speakers, games and booths. Tickets are available now from £12.99, and you can save an extra 20% with the voucher code PC-GAMER20.
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