Minecraft-My Latest Addiction (and How to Make Water Elevators!)

I recently got my hands on Minecraft, and it's left me wondering wtf I was waiting for. This deceptively simple block based game has soaked up loads of my free time these last few days. As I'm sure most of you are familiar with the game, I won't bore you with explanations of what it's about, or pictures of my creations. I'll just share a few neat tricks I've stumbled across on the forums, Youtube, and while playing. These will most likely be a sort of "tip a day" thing, but shared sporadically instead of on a day to day basis.

Today, I'll detail how Water Elevators are made.

There are two ways of doing the water elevator. One is inferior, as it requires a boat, more space, and more effort. The other is superior in every way, EXCEPT that it relies on what is certainly a bug to work. So there's that chance that it will be updated out in a future patch. And some people get squeamish about using what they consider a bug exploit.

Here is a video I hunted down which shows how use the legit method:



Like I said, requires a boat, and takes a decent amount of effort, but nothing terrible. Now for the non-legit, but superior method:



At the time of writing, this method works perfectly. Although, as I said earlier, there are no guarantees that will continue. I personally use this method, as to me, how is it any less realistic than going up a waterfall? Both methods don't necessarily seem intended. Anyways, an explanation is needed as to why it works:

What is believed to be happening here, is what was called an "off by one" error. Basically, minecraft blocks are believed to be 1 pixel wider in two directions. That is why the direction is very important.This may be deliberate, to keep things meshing together more nicely, or it may just be a typing error. We have no way of knowing. Because of this size disparity, physics effects actually bleed through the blocks they are contained in. Thus, the current pulls you in, and therefore up. For a better, more visual explanation, see here.

So, I believe that's it for today. If any of you guys have tips or tricks you think are worth sharing, let me know in the comments and I'll try to cover them in future postings. Hope some of you find this useful!

As a disclaimer, I didn't discover any of these, and all credit for finding them goes to the original posters who detailed the methods.