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#10: Time to Summer

Mappin' Around with Scott and Ryan·podcast_episode·49m 47s·analyzed·Jun 10, 2024
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.031

TL;DR

Pinball Map founders discuss site updates, venues, and dream pinball themes.

Summary

Scott and Ryan, hosts of Mappin' Around, discuss Pinball Map updates including a new comment edit/delete feature, share personal summer plans, review scene reports from venues like Barcade East Village in NYC and North Coast Pinball in Oregon, and explore hypothetical pinball themes like camping while reflecting on original IP characters in pinball.

Key Claims

  • Pinball Map is a user-powered locator of publicly playable pinball machines founded approximately 18+ years ago

    high confidence · Scott and Ryan discussing the site's origins and longevity during intro segment

  • A new feature was added to Pinball Map allowing users to edit and delete their own comments

    high confidence · Ryan describes implementing the feature to reduce support requests and prevent users from removing/re-adding machines to clear comments

  • Drunk users commonly leave regretful comments on weekend nights and email requesting deletion on Saturday/Sunday mornings

    high confidence · Ryan observes this as a recurring pattern motivating the edit/delete feature

  • The Tidbit app endpoint for showing closest pinball machines is receiving approximately 30,000 hits per day

    high confidence · Scott analyzes traffic data and calculates roughly one hit every 2.8 seconds

  • Colin from Kineticist built the robust pinball machine database by hand while watching TV in evenings and during night shifts with his young son

    high confidence · Follow-up from previous episode; Colin did not specify which TV shows

  • North Coast Pinball Arcade in Nahalem, Oregon has approximately 20+ machines and sells zines

    medium confidence · Scott's scene report voicemail from the venue; visual count approximate

  • Jaws pinball machine features attractive blue theming and VHS-style interstitial videos

    high confidence · Scott and Ryan's gameplay observations; Scott notes the playfield feels open and pushes players right

  • No pinball machine theme exists centered on camping, though Whitewater (rafting) and Frontier (wilderness) are adjacent themes

    medium confidence · Ryan's camping reflection; speculative observation about untapped theme opportunity

  • Kineticist has a feature on their site where ideas can be pooled to pressure Stern into making themes

Notable Quotes

  • “It's a user-powered locator of publicly playable pinball machines... It's not someone's house. It's not a private club.”

    Scott @ Opening segment — Core mission statement of Pinball Map service

  • “Often, they're drunk and they left a comment and then they regret that comment like the next morning. That's actually a pretty common thing. On Saturday and Sunday mornings, people write us emails like pretty regularly and say, can you delete this comment that I left last night?”

    Ryan @ Website update discussion — Reveals primary user behavior motivating the edit/delete feature; humanizes the community

  • “It's not the dollar. That's not what's at stake. It's navigating a social experience with a stranger. I don't want to talk to them... how do I play pinball and everyone's happy about it?”

    Ryan @ Location pinball etiquette discussion — Articulates social anxiety as central to arcade experience, not financial concerns

  • “I never really feel self-conscious about writing code for the pinball map. But this time I was like, oh my God, like people are actually going to see this and have a thought on it.”

    Scott @ Code review discussion — Reflects on evolving development culture and public accountability

  • “The thing that stuck with me is that notion of having your regular bar, like the bar that you go to the most out of any other bar, be touristy, and having that open up little secret vibes. I think that's nice.”

    Scott @ Barcade East Village scene report discussion — Finds meaning in being a local at a tourist destination; nostalgia reflection

  • “I love a licensed property for a game. I have no problem with those at all... but there's no pinball machine about camping. The closest you get is whitewater and that's not really camping, right?”

    Ryan @ Jaws discussion / theme ideation — Identifies perceived gap in pinball themes; motivates subsequent discussion

  • “Just a perfect perfect s'more... you got to keep the marshmallow not too close but not too far from the fire”

Entities

Pinball MapproductScottpersonRyanpersonBethpersonColinpersonKineticistproductNorth Coast Pinball Arcadevenue

Signals

  • ?

    product_launch: Pinball Map launches comment edit/delete feature to reduce user support burden and prevent workaround behaviors (removing/re-adding machines to clear comments)

    high · Scott describes implementing feature; Ryan explains motivation based on observed user behavior patterns

  • ?

    technology_signal: Tidbit app endpoint receiving ~30,000 hits daily (~1 per 2.8 seconds), indicating unknown but potentially significant adoption of location-aware device integration

    high · Scott analyzes traffic logs and calculates hit frequency; device usage otherwise undocumented

  • ?

    venue_signal: North Coast Pinball Arcade in Nahalem, Oregon identified as recently opened, well-curated venue with ~20+ machines, strong community presence, and merchandise sales

    medium · Scott's scene report voicemail; positive impressions of venue vibe and machine selection

  • ?

    venue_signal: Barcade East Village expanded from 3 to 6 pinball machines, indicating growth in NYC location pinball availability

    high · Scene report caller notes '6 tables here, used to be three'

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Jaws playfield criticized as overly open with right-side push bias, limiting mid-range play options and causing player burnout despite thematic appeal

    medium · Ryan describes playfield flow frustrations after repeated plays with multiple players

  • ?

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.149

0:00
maps pinball and maps mapping around with scott and ryan you mentioned you wanted to do a description on what this even is what this podcast is yeah or should or do you not care well i think we should just say real quickly like you know it's called mapping around with scott and ryan but this is why we're doing a podcast, I guess. And why are we doing a podcast? Because we work on a site called Pinball Map. And what is Pinball Map? It is a user-powered locator of publicly playable pinball machines. What constitutes a publicly playable pinball machine? It's at a venue that is public. Anyone can go there. Sometimes you have to pay a fee. Sometimes you can walk right in. Sometimes it's closed, but overall you can go there and play pinball. It's not someone's house. It's not a private club. Play to your heart's content. What's your favorite thing about location pinball, Ryan? Playing games that I don't own because I only own two games and they're at my parents house what two games do you own paragon and flight 2000 flight 2000 when did you get that um i don't know like 2014 or something like that i got it off uh keith elwyn oh wow that's cool uh what's your least favorite thing about location pinball um maybe when it feels like someone's hovering over my shoulder and they want to play because sometimes I like to just camp out and play a machine for an hour plus. Does it bother you when you get free games or whatever and somebody takes them from you when you were just taking a break? No, not at all. I give away free games all the time. I kind of just get my fill. Usually the games where I win free games, like if I get a score and a replay in one game or something and you get two free credits, by then I'm usually kind of over it. And so I am ready to move on. I walk away. Someone takes it. So I don't care. Doesn't bother me either. But here's a weird situation I never know how to navigate. What if you walk up to a machine and it kind of seems like the person's done? You don't want to take their credits, but also, you know, maybe you don't want to put a dollar in if there's credits. Do you talk to this person? Or do you just wait, wait, or what? Like it's clear you already know whose credits they are and they're kind of nearby. Yeah, like there's a guy with a black T-shirt on with like an inscrutable band logo and he just got done talking to his friend and working through whatever he's going through on a pinball machine. Gets a free game, kind of sits around and talks about the game for a while and then walks away. but like maybe to a chair, not to another pinball machine. What do you do there? Usually I would just kind of walk up and play and assume he's, he's done with it. I don't think I've ever been in too many situations where I need to like make eye contact with that person and say, are you done over here? Is it okay if I play this? I would definitely not put in quarters and then leave that credit for that person after I leave, like I would just play their credit. And if there's none left, that's okay.

medium confidence · Scott and Ryan discussing idea submission process; Scott acknowledges uncertainty about mechanics

  • Ryan owns two pinball machines: Paragon and Flight 2000 (acquired ~2014 from Keith Elwyn)

    high confidence · Direct statement from Ryan early in episode

    • Scott @ Camping theme video mode speculation — Imaginative pinball mode design concept based on real-world camping mechanics

  • “I kind of surprised myself with how quickly I burned out on Jaws... the play field just feels so open, I always feel like I'm getting pushed to the right and then just kind of hitting three drop targets”

    Ryan @ Jaws gameplay discussion — Critical gameplay observation; raises design feedback about playfield flow

  • “He's good. Mountain Surf Report!”

    Scott @ Scene report intro/outro parody — Humorous reference to recurring mailbag segment format

  • “Seems like there's a lot of devices that are using this... potentially hundreds of people, potentially thousands, potentially three. You never know.”

    Ryan @ Tidbit app usage discussion — Reflects uncertainty about product adoption; humor in unknowability of service impact

    • Barcade East Village
    venue
    Jawsgame
    Paragongame
    Flight 2000game
    Tidbitproduct
    Keith Elwynperson
    Wheel of Fortunegame
    Whitewatergame
    Frontiergame
    Red and Tedgame_characters
    Dr. Dudegame_character
    Rudygame_character
    Attack from Marsgame
    World Cupgame
    Mamadaharigame
    Brighton Bushvenue
    Brianperson

    rumor_hype: Camping/outdoor theme identified as gap in pinball game catalog; community interest potentially growing given Kineticist voting feature

    low · Ryan speculates about camping theme opportunity; Scott imagines s'more-themed video modes; both reference Kineticist's idea submission system

  • ?

    content_signal: Podcast establishing scene report format with voicemail submissions; creates geographic diversity in venue coverage (NYC, Oregon)

    high · Two detailed scene reports in this episode; hosts emphasize value of different regional voices

  • ?

    community_signal: Kineticist database maintainer's behind-the-scenes work story (TV watching, night shifts with infant) humanizes and connects community to knowledge infrastructure

    medium · Colin's follow-up about TV-watching work habits; Scott notes connection value

  • ?

    supply_chain_signal: Pinball Map team expects summer slowdown in website/app development work, suggesting seasonal demand or capacity patterns

    medium · Scott predicts reduced work-wise activity in summer; both express plans to 'have fun this summer'

  • ?

    operational_signal: Location pinball social dynamics reveal unwritten rules: taking abandoned credits acceptable, but initiating conversation about ambiguous credits preferable for minimizing friction

    medium · Detailed discussion of credit-taking scenarios and discomfort with social navigation

    • 3:42
    Okay. Yeah. Sounds good. Do you disagree with any of that? I don't think so. That all seems pretty reasonable to me. I mean, I think at the end of the day, it's a judgment call based on the situation. It's hard to be prescriptive, right? Right. And, you know, and also, you know, at the end of the day, too, we're talking about like a max of one dollar at play here. So there's there's not a huge amount at stake. And if a mistake has been made and they really want to play that, it seems pretty easy to just be like, oh, my bad. Here's your 50 cents. See, here's where here's where I do disagree. To me, it's not the dollar. That's not what's at stake. it's navigating a social experience with a stranger, I don't want to talk to them. I mean, I'm sure there's nothing wrong. I'm sure they're nice people, but I don't want to have a conversation about it. I just kind of want to maybe play the game and move on. So that's what's at stake for me is navigating. How do I play pinball and everyone's happy about it? Yeah. I mean, I guess in my experience, it just doesn't come up that often that a person would come up to you and then talk about that credit that was on there so it seems like overall in the scheme of things it's safe to step up and play and then walk away and do your own thing and your ship's passing in the night and that's it it's beautiful yeah yeah gracefully gliding through the water silently uh-huh um all right uh what's what's been going on with the pinball map ryan All right. You know what? I'm sorry. I'm sorry. What's been going on with you? Oh, I've been playing, as you know, a little bit more tennis these days. We have this thing down south in Southern California called May Gray and June Gloom. And it's good tennis weather because you don't have the sun in your eyes as you're serving. And it's cool. So I've been just trying to get out to the hit the courts more often. okay yeah tennis i like it you have a tennis outfit that you put on no just regular shorts and uh sometimes a long sleeve shirt just so i don't get less sun on my arms and real tennis shoes because those are the best to play in for stability and stuff okay what's up with you anything uh i oh me um hmm i'm going to brighton bush this weekend you know brighton bush no it's this like a hippie uh hot springs like off-grid resort near detroit michigan wow um yeah i'm I mean, most of my life I've been a don't touch me guy and just, you know, avoiding crowds and all that stuff. But in my old age, I've come to enjoy saunas and cold plunges. Wow. I think that's fun. Yeah.
    6:49
    So I'm just going to go there and read a book. I'm going to read Ulysses, actually. Awesome. Yeah. I mean, there's nothing else to do. So I'm just going to read Ulysses and go in Asana. Are you going to bring a paper version of the book? Oh, yeah, you bought a paper version, so you can read that in Asana probably without it hopefully falling apart. Yeah, I actually have three paper versions of it. I do this thing where I go to the Goodwill book section, and there's a few Goodwills in town that always have really good books.
    7:24
    Most don't, but there's a few that have really good ones. And whenever I see a copy of Ulysses, I always buy it because they're always really old and kind of cool looking.
    7:36
    There's no point to this story. I have a couple copies of Ulysses. Okay. Yeah, bring all three in case like the gum and the spine falls apart in the sauna. Right. Or I could be the guy reading Ulysses who's like, it's such a beautiful book. Here, you should have a copy of it. Yeah. Or you could read every day a different copy and see if anyone notices. Wow.
    8:01
    Yeah, that's what's going on with me. Camper vans in full flight, making good use of that. Got a new shed in my backyard. Loving that.
    8:13
    Cool. I don't know, Ryan. Like a Home Depot shed or something? No, a man is building it on my behalf. Yeah, a guy named Brian. He's great. He's really nice. yeah i'm just running out the clock over here you know are you going to be driving solo out there yeah solo trip um this is my move is going to little places like this but in the van because then you can stay there really really cheap but you get to use the amenities you know and then also you're the guy in the van like at the end of every night you go out to your van and maybe one person for a second's like what's up with the guy in the van um what about the pinball map anything there is that still around still around still still kicking still what happened with it you tell me what happened with the website this this uh month oh geez um i i made an update to the website yeah yeah it was it was fun it was nice um i for those who don't know why this is notable it's ryan and beth do most of the work around here they do most of the programming. I did a lot of the programming a long time ago, but have not been as on the keyboard for quite a while. So when an opportunity arose to do a modest feature, I took that opportunity and it was fun. I used to be a computer programmer by trade and now I'm a manager of computer programmers. So it's kind of fun to get in there every once in a while and remind yourself of how easy this stuff is like what is everyone so upset about um but it was fun i don't know uh the feature itself uh you can now edit and delete your own comments great feature great feature is it tell me why tell me why well i think it's because of observing people's behavior on the map over the years and they will be not satisfied with a comment that they've made for a number of reasons. Could have a typo. Sometimes, often, they're drunk and they left a comment and then they regret that comment like the next morning. And that's actually a pretty common thing. On Saturday and Sunday mornings, people write us emails like pretty regularly and say, can you delete this comment that I left last night and we're like i just you know sure no problem who cares sometimes people don't contact us about things like that sometimes people try to take action into their own hands you know if they say it's the left flipper broken they meant the right flipper they will either leave a new comment which is fine leave a new comment saying i meant the right flipper or i mean it's fine but it's messy or they remove the machine entirely from the location, add it back, and then leave their correct comment in there. And I don't like when that happens. You know, it's just, it shouldn't happen. The machine wasn't actually removed from the site, therefore it shouldn't have been removed from the map even for one second.
    11:55
    It shouldn't be done to clear out comments. It's kind of like a big battle that we have. and one person even deleted their entire account to try to clear out a comment that they didn't like for one reason or another. And that didn't work because we just switched the username to say deleted user or something like that. It doesn't actually delete the comment. It's also just more work for us too. Hey, delete this comment. Are I meant to say this? And so one of the goals is to reduce our workload These little things can kind of add up I was just reflecting on how the primary users seem to be drunk people and the remorseful
    12:35
    That's who benefits from this, which is nice. Something that was striking to me, and this is, sorry, this is like a little personal journey here. And we started the map, what, like 18 years ago? Longer. Yeah. And it used to just be like us writing code and putting it out the door with pretty good testing. But it really was just us.
    13:04
    And this time when I pushed the code, there were actual code reviews from people I don't even know. Which was like interesting because I never really feel self-conscious about writing code for the pinball map. But this time I was like, oh, my God, like people are actually going to see this and have a thought on it. Made me it was a good feeling. And the code review itself was was great. Like all the comments were right on. It was all the right thing to do. It made it a better feature. I'm just not used to scrutiny. I think that's what I'm saying. Yeah, definitely. I mean, we're we're we're using a public GitHub account. And overall, definitely seems like we're just talking to ourselves and nobody's reading anything. Uh, yeah, I, if it's embarrassing to look at old issues and see like the comments that I've written in there, if I ever thought about who else has seen those, it becomes even more embarrassing, I guess. But I try not to think about that. Maybe you could go back and edit or delete those GitHub comments. I can. That's a, that's just a normal feature that normal sites have. And, uh, now ours does. We caught up, only took a decade and a half. uh what's the new app update it just adds that feature that's it oh okay that's live yeah it's live oh cool i haven't updated the app uh that was fast do you do that or beth wow hey beth you think beth listens to this podcast i hope so i hope so too but she hasn't mentioned it beth if you're listening let us know on our private slack channel yeah Beth, you've got to get Beth on this podcast. Yeah, how about next episode? Yeah, for sure. I have a feeling the summer will slow down work-wise on the app and the website.
    15:03
    Always happens. I mean, we're going to go have fun this summer, right? Definitely, yeah. I've got a lot of plans. I'm actually really looking forward to this summer. Good, I'm glad to hear that. um hey before we move on uh the only consistent feedback i've gotten about this podcast is that uh people don't seem to be able to tell apart our voices people are like uh yeah you just sound like two middle-aged white guys i don't know who's who um yeah i don't know what to do about that i don't know you're scott and i'm ryan we maybe just like a reminder a couple times an episode we just say that over and over i do tend to say your name a lot maybe that's your maybe that's the listener's cue if they care yeah you do scott do that scott yes thank you ryan i think it's important to have different voices on this podcast um which is why i am excited about scene reports anything in the old uh mailbag there let's check the mailbag check it Mountain Surf Report! Show them! Whoa! Dude, you ain't good faces on short wheels, bro! Mountain Surf Report! Dude! Dude, totally maxed out! Dude, get on your boards! Yeah, yeah, yeah! Mountain Surf Report! Dude! Webby, Webby! Dude, it's your mom! I can't talk now, man! I gotta surf! Sorry, man. He's good.
    16:37
    Mountain Surf Report! Bring, bring, bring, bring. You've reached the voicemail box of Pinball Map. Ring, ring. This is your scene report from Barcade East Village on St. Mark's Place in Manhattan, New York City. I actually live directly across the street from this place. leaving this scene report while my ball is currently stuck and for some reason hasn't yet triggered the table reset on Funhouse.
    17:13
    But yeah, I live across the street, so I'm a super regular here. I found out some juicy gossip last week. One of the bartenders here leaves drunken, mean comments on the tables at a different establishment in Brooklyn, not Barcade, and I won't reveal their name.
    17:33
    But there's six tables here, used to be three. I do a lot of helping first-time pinball players realize that the machine did not hit their quarters when they don't know where the start button is. It's a fun place, I really like it here. I know Barcade is kind of contentious and litigious. But, uh,
    17:57
    this one's a nice place to hang out. It's fun to be a regular at a tourist trap. Feels like it unlocks a special level of something.
    18:05
    I'll call back with more. But, uh, I'm enjoying Funhouse. But yeah, my ball's been stuck in the upper left extra ball chamber for about three minutes now, and the table hasn't started doing anything, so I might have to tilt.
    18:21
    Cheers! Wow. A scene report from New York City? I know. That's all the way across the country from both of us. We're on the West Coast. So, yeah, I've never been to that place. Great to hear about it. The thing that stuck with me, I think, is that notion of having your regular bar, like the bar that you go to the most out of any other bar, be touristy, and having that open up little secret vibes. I think that's nice. when I turned 21, the first drink I ever had was at GameWorks. That seems pretty right on for when I was 21. Um, my first beer was a Corona at a burrito place, which seems pretty right on for my whole life. Do you remember what the burrito you had that day was? Yeah. Bean rice and cheese. That's a BRC was my go-to for a lot of the different places I went to. I love that.
    19:22
    Let's discuss about this now. Okay, a couple follow-ups from last episode. I know everyone's waiting to hear these follow-ups. When we get confused or we forget things or we guess about stuff, now we can come in the next episode and provide the answer. So one thing we were talking about last episode, we were admiring the Kineticist game database that they have. They have a big directory of pinball machines with all these links to tutorials and videos. and pictures, rules, etc. And it's robust. There's a lot on there. There's more that seems like it's the most robust directory out there.
    20:22
    And you wondered what Colin at Kineticist is up to when he's doing that and how he does it even. And he told us, so I'll supply that. One, I was right. He does it by hand. and uh then we wondered about what he watches and i guessed that he was listening to pinball podcasts and you were hoping it was not that yeah i was hoping that he put on some sort of repetitive uh put it in the background sitcom or like some show that you could just marathon and pay half attention to and i think it sounds like you were right oh really yeah oh good work colin yeah that's good to hear he says it he says a lot of it was done while watching tv in the evenings and uh and then he has a uh young son and before his son could kind of sleep peacefully overnight he would have the night shift sometimes and he would just stay up sit there and plow through it while watching his kid sleep or struggle to sleep hang on a second though he told you tv but didn't tell you what TV show? No, he didn't say what shows. I'm sure there's a lot of shows. It's maybe too many to listen or to name. Colin, name the shows, Colin. Next episode, can we please follow up on that? Yeah. I feel like that's important. That would be good to know. When you feel like people go to the Kineticist, wouldn't it be fun to know, yeah, a guy listening to Gilmore Girls did this, or like this guy was watching Little House on the Prairie nonstop when he put it together. Makes it more interesting, I think. It connects you to a person that put in that hard work. There's a lot of work there.
    22:12
    He did comment on the podcast idea, though. He said pinball podcasts were in general hard to listen to because his job is listening to podcasts and paying attention to them. All right, Colin. Thanks for all you do. Yeah. What about your shoes, Ryan? We talked running shoes. You said you'd get back to me. Yeah. Remember when I couldn't remember the name of a shoe brand? The brand is Saucony. Oh, I thought those were pronounced Saucony. Oh. Is it Saucony? No. Sounds like a character from, what is that show? There's a pinball machine, James Gandolfini. The Sopranos? The Sopranos. Saucony. Yeah. Well, I don't know. The model is Kinvara 13. So I just, like, to me it looks like Saucony Kinvara 13. Huh. Interesting. I don't know. I don't know how to pronounce it. Doesn't matter. Are they good shoes? Yeah, they seem good. I mean, I would say I don't, I can't really review running shoes. I haven't had enough pairs in my life. Cool. That's great. Thanks for following up on that. MapTek. I don't know. What else have you been tracking? I saw you had a few scares a couple weeks ago with traffic to the website spiking suddenly. I think you even had to ban some IP addresses. Any interesting traffic anomalies or discoveries?
    23:51
    Yeah, yeah. During that, I saw that there was one API endpoint. Oh, and I want to say one little aside, like a meta aside right here, is that I notice when I edit these podcast episodes that I have a tendency to always define what I'm talking about. And I think it's like some desire to make sure that everyone always knows the context of everything. And I'm like, you know, I mentioned RSS and I spent two minutes just defining what RSS is and describing. What's wrong with that? That seems good. I don't know. It's a nice thing. It seems like it kind of bogs down the flow a little bit. We just start talking, and then it stands for real simple syndication. I mentioned the API, and then I'm like, we have an API, and it does this and that. And sometimes I just cut that out. What API stand for Ryan I don know I saw that the other day i forgot already yeah i don know either yeah awesome protocol of i think it an application i think it application program interface i think that's it but i could be wrong anyway i don't think it's bad to you know um show your work bring people with you yeah i just you know i worry about boring people i guess and And so I was looking at these endpoints being hit, and there was one that stood out to me, and I was like, what is this? I don't even remember what endpoint this is. And it was your Tidbit app that you made last year, and that was getting just like wailed on. And I was like, man, it's – and the Tidbit app is a little device that's just showing the closest machines to this Tidbit. And we weren't sure – we don't know how many people are using that. Tidbits tend to cycle through different things, right? People put the weather on it. People put when the next bus is coming. I haven't had one. You tell me. Every few seconds or something, it switches between the next one or something like that. You can configure a lot of that stuff. But it's kind of a weird ecosystem on the back end. I get the sense that they hammer connections over and over and over and over again.
    26:13
    But I'm not entirely sure. But yeah, anyway, I think the default, it'll stay on for like five seconds and then cycle to your next thing. Okay, well, I think the overall stats, this endpoint was being hit. And, you know, it included a latitude, longitude.
    26:32
    So you kind of get a little bit of information. And it was getting hit around 30,000 times a day. And I did the math. I calculated how many seconds are in a day and that's an average of one hit every 2.8 seconds throughout the day Wow So it seems like there's a lot of devices that are using this I mean if you're cycling through every I don't know if one device is cycling through every like you know hitting it once or twice a minute or something like that I don't know Okay so I'm playing worst case scenario that these things are rogue and they hit once a second. That's still three tidbits out there that are, like, misconfigured. Anyway, that's cool. That's interesting. How about this? Worst case scenario. If you're listening to us and you have a tidbit and you're using it, let us know. Just tell us. Send an email. Just tell us. We're not going to tell anybody else. but it would be nice to know why you're using it. Well, you know, like what you get out of it. Is it working? That'd be fun. All right, cool. Interesting. Someone's using it. That's good. Very interesting. It was fun to make it be fun if someone used it. Yeah. Potentially hundreds of people, potentially thousands, potentially three. You never know.
    28:01
    Hey, do you hear that? Oh yeah. That's just my phone. Ring, ring. Ring, ring. I don't know if I'm going to get this. Will that go to voicemail?
    28:14
    Ring, ring, ring. Is the ringing getting sadder because I'm not answering it? Oh, did it go to voicemail? Yeah. Oh.
    28:25
    I wonder who it was. You want to check that? All right, I'll check it. Tuesday, May 28, 2024 at 3.31 p.m.
    28:36
    Hey, Ryan. It's Scott from the podcast. I'm in Nahalem right now, actually. Nahalem, Oregon. Maybe one of my favorite little beach towns out here. And I am coming to you from the North Coast Pinball Arcade. Do I call it an arcade? Anyway, wonderful, wonderful place. And I just played Jaws for the first time. which is pretty cool and you know on a personal level personal note very excited to play this game right on the the coast here right playing right along the coast seems like a good beach game to play um i didn't do very well but i had fun i see what you're saying about the blue it's very attractive blue um i of course wish they would have done more with the shark itself like what we doing here uh but i really have found myself more than i expected to really love seeing the little videos pop up little interstitial videos are really nice to see even though it's what just a bunch of vhs tape recordings or something um i liked it anyway north coast pinball just wonderful they sell zines here um pretty good vibe in general it just seems like uh somebody just opened this place up and decided to do a nice thing for everybody. That's the feeling I get here. I'm pretty impressed. So if you're ever in Nahalem, come on out to North Coast Pinball.
    30:13
    Let's see, lineup-wise, there's a lot of machines here. I don't know. I'm just looking out. I see there's at least like 20, it seems like. What's the most interesting one? They got the Mamadahari, the let's see not the nazi one so that's good good for them uh what else do i see that i like attack from mars of course i like that one they got some arcade machines here too i like it when we mix it up a little bit that feels good uh they got world cup which as you know will always have a special place in my heart, even though I don't love it all that much. Um, yeah, I don't know. It's kind of loud in here. I'll come outside and say goodbye. Um, I definitely enjoy little trips to the coast. Manzanita is a great place to stay. Um, and the Halem's right next door. So next time you're out here, or maybe you just hop on the one Oh one right now, like sisters of mercy, uh, and just drive on up to Nahalem, give North Coast pinball a shot. Really brightened my day. All right, I'm tired. I'm going to go get some coffee now. Kids kept me up all night. Hope you're doing well. Love you. Talk to you later. Bye.
    31:33
    Oh, it was you, Scott. It was me the whole time. The call was coming from inside the house. Jaws. I got a lot of feelings about Jaws. I'll try to be brief, though. some of them are covered there like the blue the theming of the blue is nice love the blue i like it yeah it's it looks nice since since this call i've played more jaws with elijah and here's the thing jaws is like a top three movie for me i love that movie so the theme kind of works but also i don't know it kind of got old for me kind of like quicker than i wished it would and the play field just feels so open um i always feel like i'm getting pushed to the right and then just kind of hitting three drop targets and then after that it's just shots that are super far away i don't know i kind of surprised myself with how quickly i burned out on jaws but the reason i wanted to say all that uh i love a licensed property for a game um i have no problem with those at all one of my favorites is actually wheel of fortune like i still i really like that wheel of fortune game uh but i was camping the other day and i was thinking there's no pinball machine about camping right like the closest you get is whitewater and that's not really camping right it's just a rafting trip yeah uh yeah the first thing i thought of was some sort of bigfoot theme would be probably the only camping thing we end up seeing yeah like like frontier i guess it's like wilderness it's not camping um so i thought that was weird because that seems like such an obvious thing to do and it's been there forever and so i thought yeah they should do a camping uh original theme and then i thought sorry this is my last point slash question if you ryan were to go camping with one of the original pinball creations uh you know like the properties that that they invent what do you call those like original ip yeah original ip if you were camping with a character from an original ip pinball machine what character would it be such a stupid question but i i lost sleep thinking about this i was like could couldn't fall asleep because i was trying to decide between red and ted and dr dude i was thinking which would be more fun to go on a camping trip with i honestly think i would pick the frontier guy the frontier guy yeah because i'm sure i mean not that i want to hunt or anything but uh i bet that guy could teach me a lot about wilderness survival he looks like he stinks he looks like he smells really yeah he does look like he has fleas and he stinks does he have a name no i don't think so frontier bob no frontier bob he's cool he's cool it's not his job to smell good you know but what would you do with uh red and ted i mean they're they manage construction projects right right but that's you know i'm a software development manager i get to go camping too ryan um what would i do what would i do with them uh i just feel like we'd sit around the campfire and they would be kind of like unbelievably annoying uh or like interesting to watch uh i like the dynamic between those two i just for some reason they jumped out at me and then i thought dr dude would be kind of fun too but maybe insufferable yeah i think he'd get annoying but maybe he'd be fun too to you know party and have a good time the only other one that jumped up is like rudy you know um but he's like creepy and firewood in a way yeah you'd wake up in the middle of night and he'd be like hovering over your sleeping bag yeah yeah not even in a violent way just in a like you're a creep like get out of here man way all right well thanks for listening anyway uh camping pinball some sort of camp theme it's it's it writes itself and the video modes you could do with like making s'mores so cool yeah yeah you got to keep the keep the marshmallow not too close but not too far from the from the fire you don't want to burn it but you know before the time runs out you have to have like a you know just a perfect perfect s'more yeah doesn't colin have a thing where i can go see if anyone else wants to do this and if enough people do it then like stern has to make it or something like that yeah it works yeah there's a kineticist has that on their site so you should i don't know if you could just like add your own ideas straight up or if he is kind of pulling the ideas himself from other sites so maybe you'd have to start on you know a reddit or pin side post saying wouldn't it be great if there's a camping theme and then all all reply and be like yeah that would be great and then that would drum up the interest and uh we could kind of like cook the cook the books cook the system or something and colin's watching like uh golden girls and he's like yeah copy paste that over here yeah camping game got it okay what else is out there in the pinball world Ryan This is another like map data quality thing that comes up sometimes that I thought I share ideas about We had somebody that's visiting France in the summer, and they submitted maybe 30 locations or something like that in France, new ones. And I was like, that's crazy. where'd you get all this information from? And I also said, did you get it from the Stern Insider Connected map? And then I told this person why that data might not be good. And now I'm going to tell you that. And we still added these locations because sometimes it's better just to have them on the map and they could get corrected from there, hopefully. But, you know, the Stern Insider Connect has a map, and it shows places with Stern IC machines. And sometimes basically the issue is that operators, only an operator can update that map,
    38:25
    like the person who created the page for it. So it's not a user-updated thing like Pinball Map is. So therefore it suffers from some data quality issues sometimes. and one of those issues is that people operators will you know there's there's no real incentive for taking a machine off of it if that machine is gone from the location and so i was able to cross-check through like over a thousand insider connected map entries i spent a few days doing that you know and i could see that there's you know i'm looking at the pinball map entry for a location and the insider connected map location for the and i could see that the pinball map one was updated by a very trustworthy map updater very recently so i know it's up to date and then the insider connected one was not up to date and i saw a lot of cases of that basically just machines get pulled and they don't get pulled from the insider connected map so if you're pooling your we we basically just don't like to use other sources in general when you're submitting locations to pinball map. Um, we prefer that you have been there in person or have heard from someone who's been there in person, you know, don't go by a photo in Google maps or the pin side map or the insider connected map. Cause, uh, those seem less reliable than going in person. So that's all I had to say about that. I thought insider connected map uses pinball map data no stern has another map on their site um that uses they uses pinball map data but insider connected is just pieced together you know an operator sets i don't know all the details i haven't done this sets up a location on their map um registers it and says this is a public venue because you get different insider connector points depending on whether it's like your home or a public venue that's another thing people put their homes on there and they mark them as public venues that's another thing i saw too another data quality issue so yeah they just have their own yeah i think it's probably pretty easy once you've created the location on insider connected once you just like connect that machine it might just kind of phone home and be added I'm probably saying a lot of wrong stuff No, that makes sense I mean, that's like, in a lot of ways was like the holy grail of pinball tracking right, like that's the thing that makes the map no longer necessary if every device could phone home to something and say, here I am but the data quality that goes along with that seems perilous Yeah, I guess they just, you know I think you have to manually remove the machines and you know maybe there's incentives not to remove the machines because you want to keep like the record of the stats that got applied you know how many plays were on it because there's useful stuff for operators like showing how much money it's made but it ends up yeah I've asked them for the data and they said no we don't have a you can't give it to you Stern said that? Yeah hmm okay yeah they i mean they don't have an api for it and uh and i think there was others that were trying more forcefully to get it not asking so they have it very encrypted and locked down um all right yeah that's how it is keep your keep your secrets stern yeah we don't want that anyway ours is more up to date do you do you uh do you still log into that thing when you play yeah almost every time i i i didn't for a while and now i do i don't know i just like seeing the scores and uh i enjoy getting the the chivos yeah do can you do they have like uh like trophies you know like overall this guy's got 100 platinums or something like that is it like ps like playstation or what i think it's a little different there there's some um achievements that you can get to if you've done certain things like had like a streak of 300 days or you've played more than 1,000 games, plays or something like that. And it'll show you. So that's like a badge you can earn that not everyone else will have earned. And it shows you in a percentile of how many people have earned it too. So you get an idea of how rare it is.
    43:10
    That's fun. yeah do you use it i used it a little bit for a while there but i just kind of stopped i don't you know there's a lot of things like that i used and stopped like i used to do the fitness tracker stuff and now i just don't do that yeah we all go through our phases we all go through our phases you know and i think it's important to listen to your to yourself listen to your body listen to your mind listen to your heart i agree i could see eating this i really could and i am not kidding i would like to put the request out the call um if you have a scene report please send it in You know, I don't want to listen to Ryan and I talk for an hour. I'd rather hear other people as well. It's not hard to do. Use the old voice recorder on your phone. Quality doesn't even have to be very good. And all you have to do is just say what's on your mind. What do you see? What's around you? Is pinball fun there? What even is pinball?
    44:28
    What does it mean to you? Are you afraid? do you want to go home uh just what did you eat there did you get a drink these are the kind of things i care about please send them in send them to admin at pinball map.com um and you know this it's summertime people are going on vacations you're going to far-flung locales this is your opportunity to give us scene reports uh from places that we haven't heard about and that might be really interesting. Great. Yeah. Okay. Lastly, I want to mention that, you know, I don't know if there's a content warning needed on this, but this is, uh, about the passing of two of our administrators in the last, uh, eight months or so. So, you know, we have over a hundred administrators, people that have helped out in the backend, uh, for many, many years. And, um, And, you know, this is always something I worried about, too. I would never say this out loud, but I was like, this is a lot of people that are like we're communicating with regularly.
    45:35
    What if one of them passes away? And so first I want to say RIP to Daryl Minsky, admin for the Calgary pinball map. His username was Pierogi Boy.
    45:50
    And he helped us out for many, many years. and sad to see, hear of his passing. He sounded like a really fun guy, really into music.
    46:02
    And, you know, very grateful for all his help on the map over the years. He was very, he gave us some app bugs he sent us, even like two months before he passed away. He told us about a problem with the app and we fixed it. He was, one thing that's notable, he was really into making sure that the Calgary region of the map didn't have any locations that were like remotely outside of Calgary. He wanted it to be very tight and, uh, it was just like, get the submission out of there. If one came, that was like 15 miles away. Next is, uh, Stephen Hill, Wisconsin admin since 2013. and Daryl was the was admin since 2016 so Stephen Hill was originally the only administrator for Wisconsin I think actually Wisconsin started out as Milwaukee I think yeah it was just a Milwaukee region but then people kept submitting locations for other areas in wisconsin so it just kind of naturally grew that guy edited his his profile um has over 900 edits on the map but he also did a lot of back-end stuff added hundreds of locations that don't reflect those that edit number um he supported us on patreon really really cool guy that you know it's funny you talk with these people over email for a decade and we actually met him for like five seconds at pinball expo last october he came up and uh said hi and that was it and then he walked off and uh thank you steven thank you daryl it is yeah that's sad yeah you don't think you're gonna have this moment with projects like this but yeah it's uh yeah not something you expect But, yeah, I like to give them props and just remember them so that, you know, they really helped out a lot over the years. And so, you know, we could thank them. When we're seeing locations in Calgary and Wisconsin, they probably had their hand in those, helping populate the site and keep the data nice and clean. Thanks, Stephen. Thanks, Daryl.
    48:23
    So that's a wrap. That's a wrap. I guess we hang it up for a month or so. Yeah, I think so. You could tell us about your journey after you on the next episode. Get another update from Colin in the next episode. Get some new scene reports. I'm going to the UK in late July, so we should get a new episode before then. Oh, cool. You're going to, yeah, I was going to say, are you going to look for pinball machines there? But you're going there with a child, family. You're probably not going to find pinball machines. No, I don't think so. unless like I could slip out one night or something. What do you think they call them over there? Pinball machines? Pinball tables?
    49:10
    Pinball? I would think tables sounds like a British thing to me. Yeah, it does sound British. Pinball platforms? I don't know. Something wrong, something like slightly wrong. Okay, great. It's always nice to talk to you, Ryan. I treasure our time together. you too Scott good to hear your voice again okay I'll see you in our private Slack channel see you there bye