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Last Week or So of Programming: Python, CircuitPython, Scratch, Arduino, and MakeCode
Tons and tons of programming and electronics projects!
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Today in Programming: Python and Scratch
Scratch Once again I worked on some Scratch projects with the kids. This time it involved a sports theme. I let the kids choose which games they wanted to create and Sam chose to create the game where Scratch the Cat goes Skiing. Having done this for a few weeks now, it wasn’t too much…
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2019 In Programming
This was a VERY busy year for my coding. This year I had over 769 commits to GitHub; my previous best was 58 in 2014. The commits were very unevenly distributed. If you look at the graph of my commits, outside of a busy week in January and another in May, I didn’t really start…
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Unity 2D Game 6: Tilevania
The sixth, and final, game of the Udemy class on Unity 2D was a tileset Metroid-Vania game which the instructors named Tilevania. I never played Metroid and maybe only played Castlevania once, but its legacy does persist in some newer games like Spelunky. This was the closest I’ve come to making a Mario clone. My…
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Review: NBA Jam (Boss Fight Books #21)
NBA Jam by Reyan Ali My rating: 4 of 5 stars I love the various titles in the Boss Fight Books series; all the moreso when they involve games that meant a lot to me. NBA Jam (which I had filed in my head as NBA Jams), is one of those games that my brothers…
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Unity 2D Game 5: Glitch Garden
The fifth video game I made in Unity was another clone of a game I spent a lot of time playing, this time as an adult – Plants vs Zombies. For comparison, here’s Plants vs Zombies: and here’s my finished Glitch Garden: We learned a lot of techniques and reinforced even more, but the biggest…
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Unity 2D Game 4: Laser Defender
The fourth game we worked on was another game that I spent a lot of my childhood playing. We made a Galaxian/Galaga clone: My mom’s youngest brother had a Nintendo and lots of arcade ports. When I was young he lived in the condo above my grandmother’s condo and whenever we’d go visit her, I’d…
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Unity 2D Game 3: Block Destroyer
My journey through 2D game development using the Unity engine continued with our third project: a clone of Brick Breaker or Arkanoid. In case you’ve never seen it before, this is Arkanoid: It’s got a pretty important legacy, Breakout, the version that Atari created, was an important stepping stone for the two Steves of Apple…
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Reviews: Babylon’s Ashes; Katamari Damacy; Milk Street: Tuesday Nights: More than 200 Simple Weeknight Suppers that Deliver Bold Flavor, Fast; Zeroes; Oathbringer; Nightflyers & Other Stories; Legends of Texas Barbecue Cookbook: Recipes and Recollections from the Pit Bosses; The Alloy of Law; Allomancer Jak and the Pits of Eltania; A Planet for Rent ; Adrift on the Sea of Rains; Shadows of Self; The Bands of Mourning; Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell; Cook’s Illustrated Magazine 2018
Babylon’s Ashes by James S.A. Corey My rating: 4 of 5 stars This book is probably the most direct sequel so far in The Expanse. It pretty much picks up right where the last one left off (not counting the interstitial novella). One thing JSAC use for great effect in this book (and I think…
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I Fight Dragons and MC Lars Futourama Tour
I hadn’t seen I Fight Dragons on tour since Warped Tour three or four years ago (I missed an opportunity to see them at MagFest a couple years ago), but I really enjoyed that set and I’ve been enjoying their work on their new album. They’ve been sharing the progress of songs from acoustic roughs…
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Perfect Blue
I used to hate Hunger Games because I considered it to be yet another example of America getting credit, fame, etc from another culture’s work; Battle Royale in this case. Eventually, I got the Hunger Games Trilogy from a Humble Bundle and read it, realizing that while the plots were the same in the abstract…
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Review: The Making of Prince of Persia
The Making of Prince of Persia by Jordan Mechner My rating: 4 of 5 stars I got this as part of a bundle – probably Storybundle as I’ve bought nearly all their video game bundles – and I had put it off in favor of other books because I don’t have a strong connection to…
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Setting up a Team Fortress 2 Server on CentOS 7
I used to have a Team Fortress 2 server on CentOS 6 with Virtual Box. Now that I’m using KVM/QEMU/Libvirt, I wanted to set up a new one. Also, Valve somewhat changed how they worked a few years ago and I wanted a clean slate. I started with a VM with 40GB. It’s not supposed…
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Last.fm Listening Trends 2015 Q3
After getting to MGMT alphabetically, I tired of going through the list alphabetically. While I have rediscovered some music, I wanted to go back to my auto-playlists which would give me my favorites. I could always get back to going through things alphabetically in the future. One way to accomplish what I wanted was to…
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GOG Galaxy: A Good First Start
Yesterday I put in for the GOG Galaxy Beta and today I got my invite. I couldn’t wait to get home to see it in action. I did not bury the lead, it was exactly as I state in the title, A Good First Start. The settings are so minimal at this point that it…