Ah, yes. The drain magnets. The mysterious cheating devices by the game makers that suck the ball from the sides or straight down the middle while the helpless player just gets to watch.

But seriously, the magnets actually used to manipulate ball are huge. The ball weights 80 grams and can move quite fast. To catch it we need quite a lot of stopping power. Plenty of magnets are used to mess with the ball, ranging from magnetic diverters to harassing the player with middle of the playfield magnets in games such as The Addams family or Guardians of the Galaxy. Some do really funny tricks, like Godzilla's gravity defying return from the building shot or Dracula's hovering ball.

Any memories of games with surprising magnet tricks?

#pinball #questionswelcome #arcade #magnet

#QuestionsWelcome

In the spirit of a recent post on making the #Fediverse a more welcoming place, renewing a post I had on my old profile but apparently not here: ask me anything! I can't guarantee I'll have all the answers or be fast to reply but lll try to at least say something. Some things I can talk vaguely usefully about include:

#DNS #Google #InfoSec #SRE #SysAdmin #Internet #Unions #Organizing #Baseball #Web #Tor #Privacy and probably a billion more.

I'm super proud of this #investigation by @latimes journalist Lila Seidman. Lila worked for six months on this first piece about how L.A. County is trying to prop up #988, the national #mentalhealth hotline answered locally, and related crisis services, but facing a lot of challenges.

It's worth your time to give it a read. #QuestionsWelcome.

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-04-13/988-hotline-mental-health-crisis-system-police

#journalism #losangeles