Almost Banned Jurassic Park Blooper Video

A number of years ago I put up this video of a blooper in Jurassic Park on YouTube and it's become very popular. I think people love to find Easter eggs and bloopers in their favorite movies. It makes watching them over again fun.

Universal

This video almost didn't make it. Early in 2012 I got a DMCA take down notice from Universal regarding this clip. If you do watch the video you'll notice that the amount of footage I use is less than 3 seconds and there is no audio from the movie. Also the fact that it's of lower resolution, doesn't give away a key plot point and I'm providing commentary over the video is a clear indicator of Fair Use.

Fortunately I was able to argue against the take down notice from Universal and get the video reinstated. I have to give Universal kudos for agreeing with the fact that the clip I use is Fair Use.

Amazing Results Or How I Dropped 12 Pounds In A Week

You Better Believe It

Usually I write about nerdy stuff on here like retro computers or low-budget films I like. This time I've decided to share a positive life changing event. Don't worry, I'll get back to my nerdy goodness by next post.

Hah! The title of this post sounds like one of those silly infomercials that promise "amazing results" using their product. However, I would like to forgo the normal nerd related stuff I usually write about and actually talk about some amazing results.  Of course, this story starts with a hint of sadness.

I posted  before about my grandfather passing away back in June 26th. It was a very hard thing for me to go through. I sat in the hospice and watched my grandfather, a man whom I both loved and respected very much, go through the painful last few hours of his life. It was heart breaking and surreal. A few days later would be the funeral and my grandmother wanted grandsons to be the pallbearers. Being the oldest grandchild I was on the list.

The funeral was Saturday, June 30th and, as normally happens, there was a lot of family there. Cousins I hadn't seen in a long time. I knew I was overweight but when it was pointed out to me it really hit home. Of course, it was in a fun and teasing way with no one trying to be mean. Also, one of my cousins who used to be overweight had lost a lot of weight and was hovering around the 186lb mark. He'd lost almost 50lbs in about four months or so. The friendly teasing about my weight and seeing how much weight he'd lost in such a short time made an impression on me. I asked my cousin about the weight loss and he told me about some expensive diet he and his girlfriend were on that really restricted the amount of carbohydrates you can eat and really emphasized the proteins.

Writing A Commodore 64 BASIC Program On A C64 Emulator: A Christmas Candle [UPDATED]

Going back to a retro computer system is interesting. Especially when you go back to develop software for it. That's exactly what I did. Using WinVice, a Commodore 64 Emulator that most people probably use to play those old C64 games that you can find on the Internet, and using BASIC, that old, somewhat easy to get into, interpreted and insanely slow programming language that was usually bundled with most 8-bit computers, I set about recreating a classic family Christmastime memory.

In the Beginning

Back in the early 1980s I created a flickering candle as a sort of demo/entertainment program to run during the Christmas Holiday. I wrote it in BASIC and I wrote it on my TRS-80 Color Computer. It took a couple days to figure out and write and I had to use a tape player as a storage device. Anybody who remembers those days remembers how time consuming and error prone that tended to be.  I was pretty proud of myself for accomplishing this and rightly so.

Now, I've decided to redo that program on the C64 emulator WinVice. Since I don't have that tape with the program on it anymore nor any sort of printout of the source code I'm having to reconstruct the program from memory and whatever skills I have as a retro computer programmer.

We'll see if I have the programming chops to pull this off.

UPDATE:
Okay, so I finally finished this project and it feels good to do so. It didn't take me as long as I thought it would and I ran into fewer problems than I thought I would. I attribute that to having a plan (somewhat) and structuring my code (as much as possible in BASIC.

Quick Update

Due to the death of my grandfather last week (June 26th) and the subsequent funeral I've not really posted much. I am sorry for that.

I have a few topics I'd like to start posting about in the near future. One is programming. I was going to do a small series on 8-bit, game related, BASIC programming, specifically for the Commodore 64, but I ran into some problems with the emulator (WinVice) and the fact that it messed up my line numbers when I tried to do a very basic program. I guess my current paradigm of programming is a little different than the spaghetti method I used to use in the 80s. I may still do that once I get my real C64 out of storage and setup somewhere.

Another project I am looking at is learning Python. I've dabbled with it a little bit so I was thinking of developing a series of easy to implement games starting with a simple text adventure. This was how I used to learn new flavors of BASIC back in the 1980s. I figured with a few text base games under my belt I could move onto PyGames and then, eventually, Panda3D.

Ten Year Civ II Game? Incredible!

So. Hard. To. WIN!

A member of Reddit called Lycerius has been playing the same Civilization II game for the last ten years. What makes it more interesting is the fact that he is a stalemate with two other A.I. players and it's been total war for the last 1700 years in game time. There is starvation, pollution and war. Lots of nuclear war.

I've been playing the same game of Civ II for 10 years. Though long outdated, I grew fascinated with this particular game because by the time Civ III was released, I was already well into the distant future. I then thought that it might be interesting to see just how far into the future I could get and see what the ramifications would be. Naturally I play other games and have a life, but I often return to this game when I'm not doing anything and carry on. The results are as follows. [via Reddit]

The this is an interesting concept and the comment sections to read are interesting too. Especially the parallels this game to George Orwell's 1984.

If you are a Civ 2 player, have a copy of the game and have some free time you might want to download a copy of the game save file and give it a run.

I'll be watching this thread pretty closely. I love when people do stuff like this.

That's Not How You Do It or Data Driven BASIC Adventure Games!

I'm way better than Windows!

I was reading an online book that was originally published in the early 80s on writing DnD style text adventure games in BASIC.  As a matter of fact it's a book I used to own but somehow and somewhere between the 80s and now it disappeared.

I have several things that have done that and I often wonder where they've gone. Probably that sacred place where all my socks go during the dry cycle when doing laundry.

As I was reading I came across this page where the author shows how to implement room descriptions for your nasty little dungeon.  Go ahead and take a look. I'll stick around until you get back.

Back? Good! Did you notice what was "wrong"? Not really? Okay, let me point something out.

1020 RETURN
1030 REM ************
1040 REM ROOM 1
1050 PRINT "YOU ARE IN THE HALLWAY"
1060 PRINT "THERE IS A DOOR TO THE
SOUTH"
1070 PRINT "THROUGH WINDOWS TO THE NORTH YOU
CAN SEE A SECRET HERB GARDEN"
1080 RETURN

Here's the problem. He should have used data statements and an array to store the data. Instead he hard coded everything into the program.

New Dark Star Wars Game...Wow, this Might be...Interesting!

"Who ate beans?"

So I saw on Gamasutra that LucasArts is looking to release a dark game in the Star Wars.  This looks interesting and I hope they are able to pull this off.  From the article:

Players will take control of a bounty hunter exploring the Coruscant underworld, as he attempts to uncover a criminal conspiracy. The game promises third-person gritty combat, as opposed to supernatural Force powers. [via Gamasutra]

 This bodes good things to me as I am getting sick of robed Jedies or Sith wandering around with their laser swords deflecting blaster bolts and levitating stuff.  What is also nice is the fact that the game is going to take place on Coruscant which is one of three favorite locations of mine in the Star Wars universe.  The other two being Tatoonie and Naboo.