Chicago’s Stern Pinball is the last manufacturer of pinball machines in the world.
Hard to believe, isn’t it?
Unfortunately, an ADD age and the move towards electronic entertainment now means that just 10,000 of the machines are produced annually, and most head towards the game rooms and basements of private homes, rather than the arcades and bowling alleys of yore.
Though pinball has roots in the 1800s game of bagatelle, these are by no means simple machines. Each one contains a half-mile of wire and 3,500 tiny components, and takes 32 hours to build — as the company’s president, Gary Stern, likes to say, longer than a Ford Taurus.
Can pinball survive much longer?
For the sake of children and childhoods everywhere, I can only hope that the answer is yes.
[New York Times - For a Pinball Survivor, the Game Isn’t Over]
[Via: Gizmodo]
Sift Heads Sniper Game is a half movie, half sniper shootout game that manages to tell a story along the way.
Each mission revolves around a certain person or persons that you must shoot, and as you progress your way through various levels, the story manages to progresses along with you in a believable way.
Can you survive?
[Sift Heads Sniper Game]
What does a billion-dollar bank look like?
If you said a shack on a small island in the Pacific Ocean, you would unfortunately be correct.
This shack, located on the eight square miles of the island nation of Nauru (a tiny island of 13,500 people located 1,200 miles east of New Guinea) has seen billions of dollars flushed through its system recently, as those that are working with less than legal tender are looking to the island for its money laundering services.
It wasn’t always this way though, as Nauru used to be a prosperous phosphate mine, until the bird dropping based wealth was sucked form the land, leaving little more than a crater and a distant memory of prosperous times.
Recently, Jack Hitt of The New York Times had a chance to tour this highly unlikely bank, and his resulting report is a great read about a country that can’t find its way, and the things that they do to survive.
Care to make a deposit?
[The New York Times - The Billion-Dollar Shack]
[Wikipedia - Nauru]
