“Kung Fu Assassin” is a Double Dragon / Kung Fu / River City Ransom-inspired chiptune I wrote on an original gray Nintendo Game Boy (DMG) and a rare Game Boy cart called LSDJ, which stands for Little Sound DJ. Little Sound DJ is a sequencer sporting four channels with 4-bit sound and MIDI support. You compose songs by using square, sawtooth, triangle and sine waves on two pulse channels, one wav channel and one noise channel.

how to get started

To get a copy of LSDJ, you either need to download a ROM file and flash it to a Game Boy cart, or purchase a cart that has already been flashed. A good resource is Nonfinite Electronics. Nonfinite has modified Game Boys, Game Boy Color, Game Boy Pocket, etc. Also, copies of LSDJ, Nanoloop (similar sequencing software, also available on iPhone) and accessories. I have a BleepBloop USB cartridge, which is great for backing up your chiptunes on Mac or PC. Google it to find resellers that have it in stock. It’s worth it.

References

1. http://www.littlesounddj.com/lsd/
2. http://nonelectronics.com/
3. http://8bc.org (a great community for sharing chiptunes)

A helpful little programming trick that I use from time to time is the shorthand if statement in PHP. I hope this tasty tidbit finds a place in your PHP tackle box.

By using a ternary operator in PHP, which is a shorthand comparison operator, you can greatly reduce the amount of code you need to write in your if / else statements.

basic shorthand if / else statement

$var = ($x==0) ? "true" : "false";

Instead of writing out:

if ($x==0) {
$var = "true";
} else {
$var = "false";
}

check for true value only

$var = ($x==0) ? "true" : "";

Which is the equivalent of:

if ($x==0) {
$var = "true";
}

handy usage

// Check a value and alter the string
// Place string in variable $movies to output later

$movies = "I " . ($corey > 0 ? "have" : "have not") . " seen Corey Feldman movies";

echo $movies;

You could also write it like this:

// Removing variable $movies
// Echoing the statement

echo "I " . ($corey > 0 ? "have" : "have not") . " seen Corey Feldman movies";

If the variable $corey is greater than 0, this would output: I have seen Corey Feldman movies. Otherwise it would output, I have not seen Corey Feldman movies.

As you can see, there are times when using the shorthand if statement makes sense. I find it most useful when I need to compare values and writing multiple lines of code will just complicate things.

Making whole wheat dough in our bread machine with a dash of stop motion and kitchen lighting effects.

This video was taken in Jersey City using StopMotion for the iPhone.

1. Whoa or Woah?
2. Theater or Theatre?
3. Hey or Hay?
4. Hair or Hare?
5. Feet or Feat?
6. Aunt or Ant?
7. Gray or Grey?
8. There or Their?
9. Chord or Cord?
10. Who’s or Whose?
11. Fair or Fare?
12. Passed or Past?
13. Overdo or Overdue?
14. Pail or Pale?
15. Steal or Steel?
16. Know or No?
17. Not or Knot?
18. Idle or Idol?
19. In or Inn?
20. Hi or High?
21. Forth or Fourth?

I started pantsing mannequins a while ago as a hobby. One of those hobbies that you think will only amuse you, but I soon found out from friends that they found it amusing as well. So, I created Pantsed Mannequin (http://pantsedmannequin.com) to document the adventure.

Pantsing mannequins is risky business. You don’t realize how many employees work in most clothing stores until you start pantsing things. I try and be stealth about it because that’s part of the fun. For example, I tried to get a prime mannequin pantsing at Club Monaco in Boston, but there must have been 20 employees in this small store and it seemed like they all wanted to help me find some boating clothes. All I really wanted to do was pants the mannequin wearing boat shoes though.

Check out the Pantsed Mannequin project.

I hope my work inspires people in some way.