Notices by Dan Fixes Coin-Ops (ifixcoinops@mastodon.social)

@ajroach42 He'll maul you when you're sleeping
He'll bite when you're awake
He don't care if you're bad or good
He is a tiger

@ajroach42 You'd better not shout
You'd better not cry
You'd better not pout
I'm telling you why
Santa Claus
Is a tiger

Fediverse, what is the sound you make when you want to summon a cat?

If you don't see your option listed, pls reply and boost

Welp, time to fix Derby Day again.

This horsey pinball dates from 1967 and features an elaborate backbox animation of six horses, each of which move individually along a track when the ball hits certain targets. Getting your horse all the way to the finish line enables higher scoring.

As you can see, we had some problems at ReplayFX. I'll transcribe the out-of-order sign in the next post, as it's a long one.

Oh for goodness' sake

I was fixing a Williams Fun Fest in a candy store today. While I was at it, a young lad of about eight, his mum in her late twenties or early thirties and his grandma in her fifties or sixties noted the machine and said they'd love to come back and play when it was finished. I said to the lad, d'you wanna see inside?

WELL DUH OF COURSE HE WANTS TO SEE INSIDE

@jjg It would cost an extra 25c.

Do you feel that the games you play provide you with *the proper amount of amusement?*

Me, watching "Tidying up" on Netflix: Wow, this Konmari thing is pretty awesome, I'm gonna clean up my space and declutter a bit.

Also me: Hmm, now this show's so popular, the thrift stores and flea markets are gonna have some niiiiiice stuff in them pretty soon...

While you were stuffing 20p pieces into the new Mortal Kombat in a generic 3-button JAMMA cab in your local chip shop, babies were being born. Those babies are now 26 years old. Some of them have children of their own. Careers. Mortgages.

Working on one of our two Ringers today. This is our only non-pinball electromechanical game, and although the gameplay is very rudimentary, it's one of our most popular games. It's intended as a pub game, and works well in that context - the drunker you are, the more fun this game is.

I resent that my computer, the most complex and powerful machine I'll likely ever use, is turned on by some pissant little five-cent plastic button like it's a shitty VCR from the 90's. I want a massive ornate copper knife switch, as long as my forearm, with the lower position hand-lettered "HALT" and the engaged position labelled "COMPUTE." When I go to use my computer, I want it to know I MEAN it.

Sitting here in the outdoors makes me want to get some solar panels. I think if we were in the outdoors more, we would want to protect it more.

When social media is working properly, stupid ideas get very small audiences and are almost instantly forgotten, which is what I saw here. Meanwhile on Facebook and Twitter everyone was falling all over themselves to share the article and send it traffic, so that they could talk about how stupid it was. The left is particularly bad at this - we're a scorn-powered free advertising machine for the right's dumber ideas, and we made that article Forbes' most-talked-about story of the year.

While on the subject of fans - fans don't cool down a room, they cool down humans. AC motors are very efficient, but they still generate heat. Heat that you then have to get rid of somehow, which will probably cost you more money. Running a fan in a room you're not in costs you money for uselessly running a fan, and MORE money to get rid of the heat it creates. Treat fans like they're lights, and turn them off when you leave the room.

If you're lucky enough to live in a house with air conditioning, you'll know how much electricity the damn thing uses. Let's talk thermodynamics! Put a big fan in the top floor of your house, facing the window. At night, open the window, turn the fan on full blast facing OUT. Now open a window in the lowest room in your house. All the hot air gets sucked out and replaced with cool night air, and you won't need to run the AC tomorrow unless it's a REAL scorcher. The fan uses WAY less juice.

This is how NASA writes software:
https://www.fastcompany.com/28121/they-write-right-stuff

I want the software driving cars around my family to be held to the a similar standard of quality. In the context of self-driving cars, "Move fast and break things" means "Half-arse it and kill people."

Humans in the USA manage 1.16 fatalities per 100,000,000 miles travelled. Uber's software couldn't even get to 3 million miles before it killed someone.

We do this properly, or not at all.

Another reason to dislike Elon Musk: https://www.revealnews.org/article/tesla-says-its-factory-is-safer-but-it-left-injuries-off-the-books/

I really worry about this "Move fast and break things" approach to business. Using your customers as guinea pigs instead of doing proper testing. Business models that rely on breaking the law until you've got enough money to change the law, with the risks outsourced to workers. Long hours that lead to accidents. I dislike this arrogant culture.

Behold, the brain of a 1960's jukebox!