Tumblr Blog Explains the Ridiculous and Awesome Coding That Shows Up in TV and Film

Ralphie Aversa

Naturally the guy who wrote a book titled "The Geek Atlas" has created a Tumblr that attempts to decipher the various instances of computer code seen in TV and movies.

John Graham-Cumming is a computer programmer by trade. His aforementioned book highlights "128 places where science and technology come alive." But his Tumblr page called "Source Code in TV and Films" shines a light on science and entertainment.

Using screen grabs from various scenes, Graham-Cumming displays the code and then attempts to decipher it. He also accepts user submissions and links to other sites that break down source code displayed on camera. Some of the code is authentic, while others translate to gibberish.

Almost any instance of code appearing onscreen qualifies for the blog. Among some of the more recent posts: "plant code" from the TV series "Dilbert,"  source code from the movie "Superman II," and the obscure Malbolge code on the TV series "Elementary" that, when translated, says "Hello World!"

The blogger told us on Twitter that a movie starring Matt Damon and Jodie Foster sparked his curiosity and led to the Tumblr page.

"Watching 'Elysium' I saw some code which I thought I was familiar with," he said. "I took it from there."

Graham-Cumming, who has a Ph.D. from the University of Oxford, also created the open-source POPFile program and led a successful campaign in petitioning the British government to apologize for the persecution of Alan Turing.