The wackiest headlines from the week as they would appear in a Classifieds section.

Careers

AI WHISPERER: We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again—if you get really good at asking ChatGPT questions, you can make a lot of money. Companies are paying “prompt engineers” up to $355,000 a year, Bloomberg reports. Plus, you don’t need any coding experience.

LESS GULLIBLE PRINCIPAL: An easy trick to remember the correct spelling of “principal” vs. “principle” is that a “principal” is someone who can be tricked into almost sending $100,000 to an internet “pal” pretending to be Elon Musk. Jan McGee, the Florida principal who got duped, has been forced to resign.

Personal

WARNING—STOP EATING PLASTIC: The official Fruit Roll-Ups TikTok account had to clarify that, yes, you can freeze the treat and eat it, but just make sure to take the plastic lining off first.

BOOMERS ISO OF NEW GRIPE: It might seem like Americans are always on their phones, but South Africans actually hold the title for the most online people, spending an average of at least 9.5 hours per day on the web last year. To be fair, a lot of that time was spent watching videos of Americans trying to identify African countries.

GET PAID TO HAVE CHILDREN: South Korea said it will pay parents $770 per month for a year if they have a baby in order to combat the country’s alarming decline in birth rates.

For sale

VR HEADSET, NEW IN BOX: Both Disney and Microsoft have shuttered their metaverse projects as the hot tech thing to pour money into shifts from a poorly animated virtual world to AI. Popular virtual worlds have seen steep drops in interest, with the median sale price of real estate in Decentraland plummeting 90% YoY.

SICKO BREAKFAST: Cup Noodles wants you to eat a balanced breakfast, but in the worst way. The brand released a new ramen product that tastes like eggs, sausage, and pancakes all covered in maple syrup.—MM

Here are some illuminating scientific discoveries from the week to help you live better and maybe even change your perception of a carnivorous dinosaur.

Look, they made a hat. Mathematicians recently found a new 13-sided shape they’re calling “the hat.” The hat (a polykite shape that looks vaguely like a fedora) is the first example ever discovered of an “einstein tile,” a shape that can cover a space with no gaps or overlaps in a pattern that never repeats—something researchers have been trying to uncover for decades. Fun fact: The name einstein refers to the German phrase “ein Stein,” meaning one stone, not everyone’s favorite physicist.

Fido and Mr. Whiskers may be good for more than just snuggles. Children that live with cats and dogs are less likely to develop food allergies, according to a Japanese study of more than 66,000 preschoolers. Kids that grew up around indoor dogs (even before birth) reported fewer egg, milk, and nut allergies, while indoor cats were linked to fewer egg, wheat, and soybean allergies. These benefits don’t extend to all furry friends: Children exposed to hamsters actually had a greater incidence of nut allergies.

Spielberg lied: T. Rexes had lips. Despite the iconic scene in Jurassic Park of Tyrannosaurus rexes approaching the Jeep with their giant fangs bared, an international group of scientists now believes the creatures weren’t a jaws-out bunch. Instead, the dinos likely sported thin, scaly lips covering up their teeth, the researchers say. They determined that the wear patterns on the apex predator’s chompers and the structures of the creature’s teeth and jaws are more similar to lip-having lizards than non-lipped crocodiles. It’s probably still best to run if one’s coming at you.—AR

If an intellectual property dispute over geometric figures moving across a screen sounds like a straight-up sleeping pill, think again.

The madcap journey to obtain international licensing rights to the iconic video game Tetris is the plot of a Cold War-era thriller that was released on Apple TV+ this week. The film chronicles gaming dealmaker Henk Rogers’s trip to late-1980s Moscow to bring the game, created by Soviet programmer Alexey Pajitnov, to Nintendo Game Boy players worldwide.

While the movie does add some embellishments, the true story is pretty wild.

How it started

Pajitnov created Tetris as a side project in 1984 while working at the Soviet Academy of Sciences. Floppy disks with the addicting game were passed around the country, and it quickly became a major hit—and a serious threat to Soviet workers’ productivity.

The British entrepreneur Robert Stein discussed licensing Tetris for distribution on the other side of the Iron Curtain with Pajitnov and walked away convinced he had the rights.

Stein then shook on a deal with British media tycoon Robert Maxwell (the villain in the Tetris movie and Ghislaine Maxwell’s father in real life) to sell the game for PCs. Maxwell’s company, Mirrorsoft, prepared to distribute Tetris worldwide using exoticized Soviet-themed branding. Mirrorsoft also sold the rights to develop the game for home gaming devices and coin-operated machines to Atari before officially securing them.

But there were L-shaped roadblocks

When the USSR’s technology export authority, known as Elorg, got wind that the Soviet game would be sold internationally, they notified Stein that he never actually got the distribution rights because the Soviet government technically owned the intellectual property— not the game’s creator. They also warned that any dealmaking would have to go through them. Eventually, Stein signed a contract with Elorg allowing his company to distribute the PC version of Tetris.

Meanwhile, Rogers, who also worked as an agent for Japanese gaming companies, got hooked on Tetris at a Las Vegas trade show. He bought the PC rights for Japan, and gaming behemoth Nintendo became eager to license it for its forthcoming handheld device: Game Boy. So Rogers set out to make it happen, reportedly putting his life savings on the line.

After approaching Stein and getting sus vibes from him, Rogers decided to fly to the Soviet Union and negotiate with Elorg directly. By a twist of fate, Rogers, Stein, and Kevin Maxwell (Robert Maxwell’s son) all ended up in Moscow at the same time.

Handshakes through the Iron Curtain

Rogers quickly bonded with Pajitnov over gaming geekery and won over the government trade rep assigned to the case, despite walking into Elorg without a scheduled meeting. Maxwell and Stein weren’t so lucky: They failed to convince officials they were anything other than crooked businessmen.

The negotiations and their outcome resembled a game of legal Tetris:

• Rogers got the coveted handheld license allowing Nintendo to package Tetris with Game Boy.
• And Stein walked away oblivious that his new contract with Elorg was sneakily amended to exclude console rights.

Nintendo later nabbed those console rights. It sued Atari, which was unaware that Stein’s contract had been changed and was preparing to launch Tetris for its home gaming console. A San Francisco judge sided with Nintendo, and the 500,000 Tetris cartridges Atari produced in anticipation of the big release went straight to the nearest landfill.

You know the rest: The Tetris tune is possibly more recognizable than the Nutcracker Suite, as Nintendo ended up selling 35 million copies of the game.—SK

The Brew’s resident tastemaker, Jamie, compiles her favorite recs to help you live your best life.

Meal prep: Five-ingredient Caesar-ish salad.

Book club: Alison Roman’s winning a lot of praise for her latest dessert cookbook, Sweet Enough.

Streaming binge: Oscar-nominated documentary All That Breathes is about brothers who run a bird hospital in New Delhi, India.

Playlist: Japanese city pop on Spotify. Plus, here’s an article on the genre’s enduring popularity.

Smart purchase: Loving this clamp-on adjustable desk lamp.

Tech tip: Installing a lightbulb using...a drone.

Life hack: How to make your house smell like a Williams Sonoma store.

Start the clock: A zero-day attack could be looming. Now’s the time to ensure your SOC team can defend your org. Learn how to counter zero days in Palo Alto Networks’ latest video.*

^{*This is sponsored advertising content.}

It’s a big world out there. In this section, we’ll teleport you to an interesting location—and hopefully give you travel ideas in the process.

When brainstorming your next vacation spot, one of the easiest ways to reach a decision is to use the process of elimination.

Younger British men—go ahead and cross Amsterdam off your list. It doesn’t want you or your drunken renditions of “You’ll Never Walk Alone.”

This week, the Dutch capital launched an online ad campaign called “Stay Away” that warns British lads against traveling to the city for their sex- and drug-fueled stag parties. When British men 18–35 search for terms like “pub crawl Amsterdam” or “cheap hotel Amsterdam,” they could be shown an ad that highlights the consequences of getting plastered and making a fool out of yourself.

Opponents of the campaign say it unfairly targets a specific demographic and argue that Amsterdam’s overtourism problem extends far beyond rowdy young British guys. There may simply be too many foreigners coming to the city for it to handle: Amsterdam’s population is 883,000, but ~20 million people visit every year.

Big picture: Amsterdam’s “Stay Away” campaign is part of a broader effort to clean up its party-town image and improve livability for residents. City officials have even proposed moving parts of its red-light district from downtown to an “erotic center” in another area.—NF

Last week we asked you: What category has never had a March Madness-style bracket but needs one?

Here are our favorite responses:

• “Region-specific dishes. E.g., Cincinnati Skyline Chili vs. New Jersey Taylor Ham.”—Erik from Cincinnati, OH
• “Excel formulas. Sum, while simple, would be my No. 1 overall seed.”—Adam from NYC
• “FOOD DUOS. Surprised there are none out there, but I have put some thought into this. I think the obvious 1 seeds would be PB&J, chips and salsa, Mac and cheese, and burger and fries.”—Ty from Burlington, VT
• “Airports. Early money may go for the big guys, but my Cinderella site favorite is Mitchell Airport in Milwaukee—home of the Recombobulation Area where you put your belt back on and check for your license three times.”—Mike from Elkton, MD
• “Most embarrassing moments of my life.”—Parker from Durham, NC

This week’s question

A proposed rule from the FTC would make it easier to end hard-to-cancel subscriptions and memberships. What subscription/membership have you had the most difficult time canceling?

Here’s Matty’s answer to get the juices flowing: “To cancel a $30/month gym membership, I had to print out a form, fill it out by hand, sign it, and mail it to the gym’s headquarters.”

Share your response here.

Working on a new healthcare startup? Hear from Sharla Grass, a principal at VC firm Greycroft, to learn about where she directs funding.

If you want to understand how the world’s most innovative companies are leveraging technology, you’ll benefit from Tech Brew.

What could you and marketing moguls have in common? You both could be in attendance at our May 11 Marketing Brew summit.