Dan Fixes Coin-Ops

Hello! I fix #pinball machines and #arcade games, and tell you all about it! I fix lots of other things too, and occasionally tell you about that. I also run one of the web's longest-surviving #textAdventure games, called Improbable Island, and I often write here on Fedi about decade-scale online community management stuff. Husband, dad, professional Thing Fixer and amateur woodworker in my early 40's, an #immigrant from the UK to the USA. Gun enthusiasts pls do not follow/interact.

Public Key

npub1vq6d8tnf4c3m43geutu7ckf46g4mhqd0rpjeh3x3tcznms3t89lq9kqa2t

NIP-05 Address

ifixcoinops_at_retro.social@mostr.pub

Profile Code

nprofile1qqsxqdxn4e56uga6c5v7970vty6ay2amsxh3sevmcng4upfacg4njlspz4mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujumt0wd68ytnsw43qzxrhwden5te0wfjkccte9ehx7umhdpjhyefwvdhk6yuz0e5

Publishing to

relay.mostr.pub

relay.noswhere.com

Author Public Key

npub1vq6d8tnf4c3m43geutu7ckf46g4mhqd0rpjeh3x3tcznms3t89lq9kqa2t

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Last Notes

2024-08-31 02:29:09

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@npub1465…gmc9 and 3D!

2024-08-31 02:26:26

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@npub1465…gmc9 haha oh shit there's a native Linux version now
Anyway yes this is the tool you need for rearranging furniture in your sweet home in 3D

2024-08-31 02:25:06

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@npub1465…gmc9 yes, Sweet Home 3D, it's exactly for this and it worked fine through wine or a VM last I checked
It's not a 3d modelling program, it's just for rearranging furniture

2024-08-24 18:52:21

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@npub188z…ue2h I have a very hard-won recommendation for an ebook reader Android app if you want it

2024-07-25 14:54:33

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🐇 Great Dan, yet another tech thing exclusively aimed at people with dicks, excellent job,
🦝 oh with today's technology we can fit a clit in a mousetrap NO PROBLEM
🐴 and what about inter-
🦝 *stands up, palms on table* ALL IN THE MOUSETRAP

2024-07-25 14:49:38

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On the one hand, it would be unnecessarily vulgar and sexist to make "Sticking your dick in the mousetrap" a shorthand for throwing a lot of money at whatever the Better Mousetrap is this year, be it bitcoin or blockchain or NFT or AI or whatever
But on the other hand it's just SO EVOCATIVE

2024-07-25 14:37:44

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🦝 No though, it's fine, it's alright, see, I was CLEVER. For the past few years I've been slowly changing my accounts so I don't have everything tied to one ridiculous company that keeps doing daft stuff.
🦝 I'm moving to ProtonMail!
Protonmail CEO: 🦆 *sucks the end of his bleeding finger, giving a dirty look to a mousetrap labelled "A.I."* Yup, we're always innovating
🦝 what'd you do to that mousetrap
🦆 nothing

2024-07-25 14:21:53

"You could lose access to your 20 years of Gmail history" I'm sure that was intended as a nudge to get me to give my phone number but it came across more like "You've had the same email address for two decades, cool cool cool, except it's on SOMEONE ELSE'S DOMAIN NAME! WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING! And you've let them read and control your email for TWENTY YEARS?! How did you let this happen! No, don't look away, you have to fix this or it'll stagnate for another decade, this is an EMERGENCY you absolute MUPPET,"

2024-07-24 15:13:47

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@npub1x09…jlxu yeah that's exactly the problem I'm having, although it doesn't seem quite as bad on yours

2024-07-10 16:29:30

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The angel on my left shoulder: 👼 If we put electronics in a fan then that means a power supply, and capacitors fail
The trash-fingered raccoon technician on my right shoulder: 🦝 There are fans that run off a drill battery

2024-07-10 16:23:19

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🦝 obviously a smart fan would need a big SPDT switch so it could be toggled back to hardwired Just A Fan mode
🐷 obviously a smart fan could have no buttons or switches and just a bunch of shitty capacitive sensors because they're so much cheaper

2024-07-10 14:48:08

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The water heater and the AC being divorced from each other is some heckin nonsense tho
My furnace fan only turns one way. The system can't flip flaps by itself. It doesn't have any way to hear if the water heater ask for some of the heat elsewhere in the house. My basement is SO CHILLY and my attic is SO HOT

2024-07-03 05:02:15

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I wrote a bad text adventure and lots of people love it
It's okay to like bad things as long as you're not hurting anyone
But some things, if you buy one, you're gonna need to know a guy, right? Buy one of these and you're gonna need to BE the guy. Because the Guys will go "Oh hell no"
Most of them anyway, except muggins here
I only fix these ones 'cause I've known the bloke a while
I won't fix yours

2024-07-03 04:59:10

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They're just bad cabs
Some people like them and that's okay
I bought a goddamn Baby Pacman

2024-07-03 04:52:56

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Been a while since I've worked on one of these monitors, but last time I did, there weren't good schematics. There were very blurry scans in Japanese with a big section missing from the middle. In place of the missing information was a limerick about a tech who shocked his penis on the flyback. It didn't even have the right number of syllables. The best monitor repair guys I know don't want to touch these things and neither do I

2024-07-03 04:49:39

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I think that's it.
Oh, the monitor.

2024-07-03 04:49:07

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These cabs are smaller than they look. You can't play them standing up at all, and your knees won't fit under the panel if you sit down. Gotta spread those legs and take a very low stool.
We had a row of these damn things in the front of the arcade, we moved them to the back because the first thing anyone saw when they came in was a row of hairy arsecracks

2024-07-03 04:47:12

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Have I talked about the marquee?
Well you've seen the shape of it, you can't get art to fit it. If you get just a standard size marquee or translight and put it where it says to put it, the text telling you to put the art there shines through the art.
There is one guy in a print shop selling custom Blast City marquee shaped art for various 90's games, so there's that at least, if you're gonna keep the same board in for a while.

2024-06-30 14:39:15

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@npub178m…z657 YOU'RE PLAYING WITH FIRE LILY

2024-06-30 14:11:54

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@npub178m…z657 say it harder in case the imps of the perverse didn't hear it the first time

2024-06-26 20:11:55

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Getting to the Terf Island segment of the debate now I see

2024-06-26 20:02:31

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Biggest round of applause so far is for the bloke who stood up and asked "Are you two REALLY the BEST that we can do?"

2024-06-26 19:57:24

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These two arseholes are showing such utter contempt for the audience
The audience are giving more applause to the questions than the answers

2024-06-26 19:52:24

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Seriously the level of disrespect these men are showing to the people who set up this debate, who organized it, who turned up to watch, who asked the questions, who even bothered to turn on the telly or open their web browser
They're wasting everyone's time

2024-06-26 19:40:03

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🐖 "You're all going to work harder under the Tories!"
🦌 "No, you're going to work harder under Labour!"
PLOT TWIST: 🐖 is the tory

2024-06-26 19:36:19

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I'd be awful at moderating these debates
🦝 Good evening and welcome to the debate, all five million of you tuning in and millions more online, to hear what these two men have to say,
🐇 it's a pleasure to
🦝 SHUT IT I'M TALKING NOW

2024-06-26 19:33:35

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SHUT YER GOB AND OPEN YER EARS YE PAIR OF FANNIES

2024-06-26 19:29:55

Having a wee gander at the debate right now and it is INFURIATING watching these two blokes just shouting over each other and the presenter lady, what the actual hell
It's like she's not even there, they don't even let her lay out the question before they just start shouting over her

2023-06-23 15:15:23

How a Fediverse newbie sees the "Where do I sign up" question:
🤦 Right, so mastodon.art is for posting about art, mastodon.gamedev.place is for posting about the game I'm not making, yiff.life is for posting shirtless Robin Hood pics, christ which facet of my personality do I fragment across which servers
The important thing that isn't written down where the newbie can see it:
the artists on mastodon.art are posting recipes and random showerthoughts, the game devs on mastodon.gamedev.place are posting pictures of their socks, the furries on yiff.life are chatting about lumberjackery and they're all replying and riffing and chatting about everything in a big soup; none but the most terminally optimistic admin is demanding nor expecting or even at this point tbh even *hoping* that any given server stays "on topic"
The newbie:
🤦 I cannae decide, and I don't wanna sign up for different servers for all my different hobbies and identities and general Ingredients Of The Lumpy Stew That Is Me, I'll go for a general-purpose server with a lot of people on it. Oh hey this one's just for being generally social, it even ends with .social, that'll do, job done

2023-06-20 02:08:25

Alright, so how come I'm ifixcoinops@retro.social now when I was ifixcoinops@mstdn.social yesterday, what's the story, what's everyone banging on about with the dot art and Welsh pixies and Meta meta and stuxes, alright here's the Short Version
Stux = guy who runs mstdn.social and a bunch of other general-purpose fedi sites
Welshpixie = lady who runs mastodon.art, an art focused mastodon website
AJ = guy who runs retro.social, this website
Meta = Facebook, hereafter referred to as Facebook because they don't get to change their name and wash away their past sins any more than my Lucky Goldstar dishwasher does
Facebook: Mmmmmmay we pleasssse have a little CHAT with the big adminsssssss, we promissssse we'll be good this time <3
Fediverse in general: Haha get bent facebook, we weren't born yesterday
Facebook: That wassss Facebook, we've reconssssidered, let'ssss be friendssss
Me: Happily dunking on people who spell accessibility as a11y and completely oblivious to this whole conversation
Welshpixie: Ey up, facebook are up to their old tricks again, remember not to fall for it guys
Stux: Nasty Welsh Pixie, let's give them a chance, I will block your Whole Entire Domain
mstdn.social website: A block you say, a defederation, now that's quite serious, that's for when you don't want anyone on your website to follow anyone on this other website, are you quite -
Stux: yes I'm sure lol
mstdn.social website: Very well, *chop*
Everyone on mstdn.social who was following anyone on mastodon.art: suddenly, silently not following those people any more
Everyone on mastodon.art who was following anyone on mstdn.social: also suddenly silently not following those people any more
Everyone on both websites who was following anyone on the other website: WTF STUX
Stux: oh uh yeah hm. Ahem. That may have been hasty. I wonder if I can undo some of the -
mstdn.social website: nope
Stux: I think I'll take a break from the computer for a bit
Me: Drinking beer and playing Beat Saber with a couple of out-of-town mates and completely oblivious to this whole thing happening
Me: goes to bed
Fediverse: meta meta meta
Me: good morning fediverse, what are the haps my frieWHAT THE HELL
Me: WHERE'S MY GOOD MORNING ART
Fediverse: meta meta meta
Me: FACEBOOK? WHAT?
Several People: Dan my server's gonna defed from yours in a week, can you move?
Me: what no what's going on that's not enough time I've got things to do, tell you what though I'll have some time in the autumn and I like you too, can we catch back up then?
Several People: we are chill and lovely and we understand
Me: slowly pieces together what's going on while drinking a Winsford Mocha
---intermission because I have a fifty thousand character post limit now---
A Winsford Mocha is an analogue of this fancy "mocha" coffee stuff you tasted once in the far-off land of Chester, where they have coffee shops; you live in Winsford, which is a town best known for having Europe's last remaining salt mine, a literal man-made hole in the world, where there are no such frivolities, so you attempt your own. It's two spoons of instant coffee, two spoons of Cadbury's drinking chocolate, microwaved for a minute, stirred and microwaved for another minute, and drunk with thumb resting on the spoon because the contents tend to settle.
---intermission over---
Me: WTF STUX I HAVE NO IDEA WHO I WAS FOLLOWING FROM .ART APART FROM WELSHPIXIE, HOW AM I GOING TO RE-FOLLOW ALL MY ART PEOPLE
Everyone on both affected sides of this whole shambles: YEAH SAME DAN I SEE YOU'RE LATE TO THE PARTY HERE
Me: Sigh. I guess I'll move servers, AGAIN, and probably spend a month or two having random people look at my join date and tell me I'm using mastadon wrong, AGAIN, but this'll have to wait, I have Things To Do
Mastodon: it's Mast-OH-don actually
Me: I know
The Fediverse: actually it's the F... ah, you know
The Things I must Do: oh my god where do I even start, they are a nice even spread between equally important physical things and computer things and family things and some of them have Rather Tight Deadlines, I will spare you the details but this is why I said to several people lol see you in October
Me: I am mad about this situation and I want to talk to someone IRL about it but how the hell do I even start to explain why this is even possible without that person resolving to never ever ever even glance at this whole fediverse thing
Stux: *notices me, noticing him and his horrible mistakes*
Stux: Say, that post of yours... not the one where you call me a wanker, it'd be a bit heavy-handed to delete that one, if I were to delete that one then you'd be able to say "Lol look at this fragile guy everyone" and you'd be right, but this one from yesterday:
Me, from yesterday: "Extremely popular take that some here won't like but seriously need to sit with: spelling words like a11y or l10n or i18n or m17n is bloody incomprehensible and makes you look like an absolute w4r"
Stux: yeah, that content violates the following community guidelines: "No harassment, dogpiling or doxxing of other users." I am going to remove it.
Me: oh no, not only is he not taking a break from the computer, he's back to pressing buttons and he's gone into petty "LOOK AT THE POWER I HAVE TO REMOVE YOUR VERY WORDS" mode, I have to move TODAY while I can still get an archive of my shite
AJ: Hey you can put your shite here
Me: Thank you AJ, I will put my shite right there. I will fill your website with my shite.
Several long threads of mine which started on mastodon.social which is the website I was on before I was on mstdn.social which is the website I was on before I moved to retro.social today: lol what are you gonna do, make a blog?
---the story is done but so is the damage---
Everybody I was following on mastodon.art: I'm still not following them; there's no way to get that data back, shy of just kinda stumbling across folk and going "Oh I recognise them, *follow*"
Everybody from mastodon.art who was following me, probably months from now: Hmm haven't seen that joystick pop up in my feed for a while, wonder if he died, *shrug*
The Fediverse In General: LACKING in having tools to recover from the social damage that can be wrought with one reckless button press
Facebook: hrmmmm yesssssssss, yum yum yum, *licks eyeballs*
Me: sure hope next time this daft shite happens there's some kind of backup
AJ: My server can do 50,000 characters
Me: *makes USE of this, haha you all get TURBO DAN NOW*