Waiting in Line for Star Wars

@john2001plus
0 minutes ago
That wasn't my grandparents waiting in line to watch Star Wars. That was me.

You Should Code in Game Boy Assembly

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SHaveLOt0M&lc=UgxyCe6jOiZMGWIiOrt4AaABAg.APw4PbvXIM9APw5MaHKUZr

Highlighted reply

@systemoflevers
2 minutes ago
I have been wondering if all the game boy programming then was in assembly or if anyone was using something like C




@john2001plus
0 seconds ago
 @systemoflevers  There were no C compilers.   I'm not sure how optimal C code would be.   It is a slow processor that mostly does 8-bit math.  There is some limited 16-bit math, but you don't want to use 16-bits if you only need 8.  To have optimal code you need to be aware of your register usage and plan things out.  For most things it might not matter, but you also don't want to waste limited cartridge space with unnecessary code.

My first week I didn't have the development system until Friday.  I spent my first four days reading manuals.  On Friday I wrote code to calculate a car skidding around a curve.  It might have been 1 or 2 lines of C code, but it took 90 lines of assembly and most of the day to write.

Fwd: The most beautiful idea in physics

FYI.

---------- Forwarded message ---------

On Sun, Nov 23, 2025 at 8:17 PM Grant wrote:

Incredible nature is one reason I believe in God.  As stated in the interview, "ït all comes together"  Physics is beautiful. 

---------- Forwarded message ---------

From: John Coffey

To: Grant

Grant,

I have a similar viewpoint.  I am not an atheist.  I like pantheism, but I am more of an agnostic.

I tend to believe in a generic concept of God, but this presents philosophical questions that I am not comfortable with.  Those would be, "Who made God?" and "Why is there something instead of nothing?"   My point is that we believe that all events have a cause, so every event must have had another event that preceded it.  Does this go back in time forever?   Every possible answer I can come up with makes no sense.  Either there was a first event or there wasn't.  If there was a first event, what caused it?

If we believe that God is eternal going in both time directions, then we might as well believe in a universe that is eternal in both time directions.  Believing in God might be wishful thinking.

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Best wishes,

John Coffey

http://www.entertainmentjourney.com

In loving memory

Seven years ago I wrote this on Facebook...

"I should have smiled, but I was fiddling with the camera to take a selfie.
We had a nice meal at the Sirloin Stockade. I ate too much turkey. 🙂"

Infected

Although my forehead scanner never showed a fever, my temperature at the Doctor's office was 100.  My normal is 97 and change.

I still feel sick.   For now I don't feel as bad as the last two days.  Two days ago I had intense shivering.

My doctor thinks that I am fighting a viral infection.  Everybody tells me, "there is stuff going around."   People have told me that either they or a family member have been sick.

I didn't trust the expired COVID tests that I used two days ago.  One of the tests initially showed a solid color on the line that shows that you are infected, but then the line became clear.  This is odd, and in my mind made the test invalid.  This created some confusion on my part as to whether or not I have COVID.

Yesterday I bought a new COVID test that also tests for two kinds of flu.  The results were negative for COVID and the flu.

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Best wishes,

John Coffey

http://www.entertainmentjourney.com

Chess for Babies?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWqKWyiCmyg&t=77s

I doubt that babies are capable of abstract thinking.  (BTW, the games on this video are really interesting.)

I remember that at a young age, maybe 9 or 10, I was fascinated with any kind of grid, like a tiled surface.  I would imagine a ball traveling along a diagonal and bouncing off an edge at a right angle and continuing on bouncing off other edges.  This was long before ball and paddle video games were invented that did essentially the same thing.  

My point is that humans have a natural fascination with geometric patterns and chess is a geometric game.

Free Brown County vacation?

I received a card in the mail offering a free hotel stay in Brown County along with $150 in cash. The fine print said it was a promotional offer, but I wasn't sure what the scam was.  Offers like this are sometimes tied to timeshare pitches, or they might require you to sign up for a service that charges you every month.

In any case, nobody is going to give you $150 in cash without a major catch.  I threw the card away.

Lately, I've been thinking, "There's always a catch."  I don't just mean promotional offers — it seems to me that most things in life come with hidden downsides. Maybe I'm being pessimistic, but it feels like that's true more often than not.  (For example, several things I've bought have broken within a year or two.)

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Best wishes,

John Coffey

http://www.entertainmentjourney.com