because every game is better with a pterodactyl

2004.02.23

So I had a very productive day at Atari 2600 hacking yesterday...I added Joust's "Pterry" into my JoustPong mix. (My graphic shown here.) I was very pleased with how much coding and debugging I got done. If this week goes well I should be able to release at PhillyClassic.


Atari of the Moment
Speaking of all things Atari, yesterday I stumbled onto The Atari 2600 Fun Facts And Information Guide, a 1997 FAQ about what was going on, a peek back into the homebrew scene of the time.


Quote of the Moment
"If there are any gods whose chief concern is man, they can't be very important gods."
Arthur C. Clarke.
That is an interesting matter of perspective!


Exercise of the Moment
The New Yorker had a good piece on the Aryan Brotherhood, a very powerful gang within the prison system. ("Oz" showed them a lot.) The article had a quick side note to a popular prison exercise known as a "Burpee"...I found this page describing the routine. (In case you were wondering, with the descending rep sequence, 20 would be 210 reps in all, 25 would be 325, and 30 would be 465. Though somehow I think me writing a tiny computer program to figure that out is indicitive of how my butt would get so beat down in anything but the most country club of prisons...)


Advice of the Moment
Jazz great Charles Mingus on training a cat to use a toilet. That seems like a very cool thing to do, though I've heard others advice against wanting to cat to learn how flush, since giving a cat a running water toy might not be such a good thing.