?So the official unofficial pizza rules have been around for more than 20 years, created by some other devs and I to help estimate how much pizza should be purchased and in what varieties. The rules are simple:

1. Estimate a minimum of three (3) slices per person
2. Follow the KISS philosophy, and stick to the basics (at least 25% of the pizzas should be plain, the rest can be pepperoni, mushroom, etc.)
3. If anyone wants a specialty order, like a vegetarian supreme with anchovies, that speciality pizza must be exhausted before they can have any other pizza

Rule 1 is a good starting point and you should never go below this value.  Everyone loves pizza day.  But if you only get a slice or two, wanting more ruins the whole pizza experience.
Continue reading Pizza Rules and Calculator →

Anytime remember when memes used to be used strictly as form of entertainment?  Those of us that have been around remember favorites like the Zero Wing “All Your Base Are Belong to Us,” Ermahgerd, Overly Attached Girlfriend, etc.  Sites like 4Chan were never-ending sources of new and old material (usually old).  But everyone was in on the joke – we all knew it was meant to be funny, not facts.

At the time if this writing, we are in the middle of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic where the Delta variant is kicking our collective asses.  Vaccines and measures like masking and distancing are available, but anti-vax and anti-mask mentality is higher than it should be, and much of it can be traced back to some meme as the source. 

One of the signs of reliable information sources is when someone is not afraid to cite them (PubMed, Justia, FindLaw, Google Scholar, CDC, WHO, JISC/CORE, Statista, etc.)  But when someone’s source is/was a meme on a questionable site somewhere, they are often unwilling to cite that source, change the subject, or disparage other sources: “lol you trust the data coming from the cdc?“

Today memes are dangerous weapons of misinformation and/disinformation.  Meaningful discussion about things like SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19, vaccines, variants, your immune system, etc., requires using science-y words that might sound scary and the topics involved may not be well understood by everyone.  (You may find that those that talk about not living in fear, are actually living in fear of science.)

Sometimes the complexity of scientific topics is in itself a problem and can lead to misunderstandings.  That is another reason memes are so dangerous – they are bite-sized pieces of information (often wrong) that are written using simple language and/or use simple pictures, which makes them easier to understand by less educated and/or lesser skilled people, and are surprisingly easy to share on social media.

After all, it is easier to share an image than to compose a post that makes cogent arguments and/or clearly expresses your point of view on something.  Why go through the trouble of writing about your doubts regarding the efficacy of masking when you take into account the different types of masks available and that people do not know how to don/doff them correctly, when instead you can just repost gems like this:

(Oh, and BTW, your “friend” is an idiot – the disease is called “COVID-19,” not “covid.”)

George Carlin famously said:

“Never Underestimate The Power Of Stupid People In Large Groups.” 

We have the dangerous combination of the above mentioned large groups combined with the abundance of simplistic memes out there.

(Also posted to a FB group that I frequent.)

So I dug back into my work pile and pulled out a Konami Kicker board. Was tagged with “graphics issues.” Powered it up to see that it would produce a whole lot of stuck pixels horizontally across the screen. 

Also noticed problems with scrolling – parts of the screen that should not scroll horizontally, like the very top of the screen where player scores, high score and lives are shown, would scroll sometimes while parts that should scroll would not.  Sometimes, this would also cause a complete absence of all sprites, and all you get is background and text.  Pushing on the large custom near the center of the board seem to change the behavior so I replaced the socket.

Continue reading Konami Kicker with Graphics Issues →

So I got into a unnecessary discussion with someone about the correct usage of SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 – they were using them interchangeably (and actually also confused COVID-19 and the earlier virus name of 2019-nCoV) and also using them to refer to things that were prior to when the official names were coined by the WHO.

They went on to explain how they were receiving “daily training” on this topic and implying that I must be mistaken (and also that the CDC is engaging in fear-mongering WRT COVID-19).  Now, I can understand receiving 3-minute daily briefings on the topic, but calling that “training” is stretching things quite a bit.  Anyone can provide a briefing – all you have to do is read from a page.  Training requires a certain depth of knowledge that not everyone has, and is usually an interactive, time-consuming experience.  If this so-called “trainer” is confusing COVID-19 (the disease) with SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes the disease), they need to step down from their position, immediately.

Given the tone of this person’s responses, the hubris demonstrated, how they keep saying that they work for a “government employer,” and touting their so-called “training,” I am guessing some form of town, city, county or state law enforcement.  Which is good – more power to them – we need law enforcement, especially in times like these.

But if this person does indeed work for local law enforcement – that’s cute.

Especially when you consider that some people may work in National Defense (which, BTW, is a Critical Infrastructure Industry as defined by the DHS).  And that they have the responsibility and privilege of helping maintain the safety and security of not just a town, city, county or state, but for the entire country, its war-fighters, and even its foreign allies.

And that some of them might even be cleared employees that, when they receive actual training or briefings, may receive information that is not available to the general non-cleared public (which usually includes town/city/county/state LEAs), and you can be certain this training did not originate from something that someone copied from a group email somewhere.

Always follow the universal assumption – that the other person may known something that you do not (especially when you are ignorant of the other’s position/job).

First off, do not get me wrong…

…not all right-leaning or self-describing republicans are idiots,  But recently there seems to be in influx of them that are making their presence known on Social Media sites, even though I do not recall anyone really asking for them.  Combine that with a MAGA hat, which they often cannot see beyond the sweaty brim of, and you have the perfect storm required for to produce an Idiot Republican.

I am sure you know the type:

• Anyone that believes differently or just is a sheep
• Anyone that cares about something they do not or disagrees is a snowflake
• They freely quote sources like Fox News, NewsMax, Parler (and more recently OANN, Rumble, MeWe, Clapper, etc.)
• Call everyone that disagrees with them sheep
• Treat repeatedly getting into Facebook Jail as a badge of honor instead of really thinking about why it is happening
• Confuse the Virginia Battle Flag with the Confederate Flag and proudly display it without really knowing what it means
• Respond to serious questions or invitations to debate with a laughing emoji

Continue reading Idiot Republican/Rightist BINGO! →

I just sent a message to Stern Pinball asking about the possibility of adding some kind of WiFi support to their pins. Not for player-related things, but for maintenance and servicing.

For example, I think it would be a good idea for a connected pin to be able to asynchronously notify you if something goes wrong. It could emit a SNMP message each time a BIT fails or when it goes into ball-search mode, or even each time a game is started, when a game completes (including duration information). This kind of information could make a location more responsive to issues and help them with their periodic maintenance.

Even if they decided to use a proprietary protocol and their own monitoring app (but why do the extra work?) I think it would be useful.  Slot machines and video poker-type games have had server-based gaming for more than a decade now.  I think it is time the rest of the amusement industry catches up.

This seems like something that should be relatively easy to implement, and WiFI adapters are pretty cheap these days.