Sorry

This feed does not validate.

In addition, interoperability with the widest range of feed readers could be improved by implementing the following recommendations.

Source: http://blog.pinballmap.com/feed.xml

  1. <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
  2. <rss version="2.0" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom">
  3.  <channel>
  4.    <title>Pinball Map Blog</title>
  5.    <description>Come bust a move where the games are played. Check here DAILY for Pinball Map news.</description>
  6.    <link>/</link>
  7.    <atom:link href="/feed.xml" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"/>
  8.    <pubDate>Mon, 01 Apr 2024 20:25:31 -0700</pubDate>
  9.    <lastBuildDate>Mon, 01 Apr 2024 20:25:31 -0700</lastBuildDate>
  10.    <generator>Jekyll v4.3.3</generator>
  11.    
  12.      <item>
  13.        <title>Individual Machine RSS</title>
  14.        <description>&lt;p&gt;It’s always risky to publish a blog post on April 1. Especially a serious one. And I can assure you, with the utmost sincerity, that this is a serious post. You can’t joke about RSS.&lt;/p&gt;
  15.  
  16. &lt;p&gt;People like you could always subscribe to “machines added to locations” RSS feeds for either the entire site or for a specific region. For examples:&lt;/p&gt;
  17.  
  18. &lt;ul&gt;
  19.  &lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://pinballmap.com/location_machine_xrefs.rss&quot;&gt;https://pinballmap.com/location_machine_xrefs.rss&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
  20.  &lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://pinballmap.com/portland/location_machine_xrefs.rss&quot;&gt;https://pinballmap.com/portland/location_machine_xrefs.rss&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
  21. &lt;/ul&gt;
  22.  
  23. &lt;p&gt;But starting now, you can include a machine ID and have an RSS feed that shows only when that particular machine is added to locations!&lt;/p&gt;
  24.  
  25. &lt;p&gt;For this, use this path, and include a machine ID, like these examples for Rollergames:&lt;/p&gt;
  26.  
  27. &lt;ul&gt;
  28.  &lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://pinballmap.com/location_machine_xrefs/machine_id/746.rss&quot;&gt;https://pinballmap.com/location_machine_xrefs/machine_id/746.rss&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
  29.  &lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://pinballmap.com/portland/location_machine_xrefs/machine_id/746.rss&quot;&gt;https://pinballmap.com/portland/location_machine_xrefs/machine_id/746.rss&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
  30. &lt;/ul&gt;
  31.  
  32. &lt;p&gt;But, you ask, how do I find the machine ID? There are a couple ways.&lt;/p&gt;
  33.  
  34. &lt;p&gt;You can pull up this &lt;a href=&quot;https://pinballmap.com/api/v1/machines.json&quot;&gt;machines endpoint&lt;/a&gt; which lists over 1,480 machines in our database, including an “id” field for each one. That ID is the ID!&lt;/p&gt;
  35.  
  36. &lt;p&gt;You can also do a machine search on the website and then look at the URL that shows up. For example, if you search for Rollergames, after the results load you’ll see that the URL has become &lt;a href=&quot;https://pinballmap.com/map?by_machine_id=746&amp;amp;by_machine_name=Rollergames+(Williams%2C+1990)&quot;&gt;https://pinballmap.com/map?by_machine_id=746&amp;amp;by_machine_name=Rollergames+(Williams%2C+1990)&lt;/a&gt;. Examine that URL and you’ll see &lt;code class=&quot;language-plaintext highlighter-rouge&quot;&gt;by_machine_id=746&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
  37.  
  38. &lt;p&gt;From there, you can subscribe to the feed using your favorite RSS reader client. Perhaps a limitation is that these feeds are only for &lt;em&gt;one&lt;/em&gt; of the 12 versions that each manufacturer produces these days. But that’s ok.&lt;/p&gt;
  39.  
  40. &lt;p&gt;Anyway, this is a cool feature, isn’t it.&lt;/p&gt;
  41.  
  42. &lt;p&gt;This feature originated as an idea from Jakelshark on the Rollergames-themed Discord, &lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://discord.gg/XffPx6VKTv&quot;&gt;The Pinball People&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;, for a map alert whenever Rollergames is added to a location. You laugh, but then &lt;strong&gt;Wywin&lt;/strong&gt; doubled down on this idea by offering up a $40 bounty to see it done. Pinball Map contributor, &lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/fiveNinePlusR&quot;&gt;fiveNinePlusR&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;, then put together the initial functionality, which included the ability to create the feed for &lt;em&gt;any&lt;/em&gt; machine, and then Ryan finalized it.&lt;/p&gt;
  43.  
  44. &lt;p&gt;Wywin was true to his word, and with the bounty donated $40 to the Oregon Humane Society on Pinball Map’s behalf! Thank you!&lt;/p&gt;
  45. </description>
  46.        <pubDate>Mon, 01 Apr 2024 07:20:20 -0700</pubDate>
  47.        <link>/2024/04/01/individual-machine-rss/</link>
  48.        <guid isPermaLink="true">/2024/04/01/individual-machine-rss/</guid>
  49.        
  50.        
  51.        <category>news</category>
  52.        
  53.      </item>
  54.    
  55.      <item>
  56.        <title>The Podcast is Back</title>
  57.        <description>&lt;p&gt;After four years of silence, we have something to say. The mics have been feather dusted. Audacity has been updated. Episode 8 of our podcast, &lt;a href=&quot;https://pod.pinballmap.com/&quot;&gt;Mappin’ Around w/ Scott &amp;amp; Ryan&lt;/a&gt;, is in the bank. Additional episodes are in the planning stages.&lt;/p&gt;
  58.  
  59. &lt;p&gt;It can be listened to on a variety of platforms, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Android, etc. (any we are missing?)&lt;/p&gt;
  60.  
  61. &lt;p&gt;If you have anything you’d like us to discuss, please let us know!&lt;/p&gt;
  62.  
  63. </description>
  64.        <pubDate>Tue, 26 Mar 2024 07:20:20 -0700</pubDate>
  65.        <link>/2024/03/26/podcast-is-back/</link>
  66.        <guid isPermaLink="true">/2024/03/26/podcast-is-back/</guid>
  67.        
  68.        
  69.        <category>news</category>
  70.        
  71.      </item>
  72.    
  73.      <item>
  74.        <title>Reflecting on 2023</title>
  75.        <description>&lt;p&gt;In order to reflect back on 2023, we must gaze upon it in a mirror. What is reflected back? Mostly ourselves, since ourselves is what usually shows up in mirrors. Which maybe means that we - and you, too - &lt;em&gt;are&lt;/em&gt; 2023.&lt;/p&gt;
  76.  
  77. &lt;p&gt;But enough about us.&lt;/p&gt;
  78.  
  79. &lt;p&gt;Pinball Map has been around for something like 15 years now. It began humbly, and then grew, and somehow never stopped. But how is it doing? Since our establishment, surprisingly only one other pinball locator has shown up (the Pinside one about four years after we sprouted). Plenty of space here for two maps - and to each their own! So we continue to thrive. To prove it, here is some information:&lt;/p&gt;
  80.  
  81. &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;App releases&lt;/strong&gt;: We released 25 app updates this year. Checkout the &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/pinballmap/pbm-react&quot;&gt;readme on the repo&lt;/a&gt; to see what those contained.&lt;/p&gt;
  82.  
  83. &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Website&lt;/strong&gt;: We committed a little over 280 commits to the &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/pinballmap/pbm&quot;&gt;website repository&lt;/a&gt; this year. These include things like routine maintenance (e.g., gem upgrades), small tweaks, and new features. And we had contributions from a few folks, including &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/fiveNinePlusR&quot;&gt;fiveNinePlusR&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
  84.  
  85. &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Expo seminar&lt;/strong&gt;: Beth, Ryan, and Scott were invited to Pinball Expo in Schaumburg, Illinois, to present a seminar about Pinball Map. We were very honored to be invited, and we had a lot of fun! See our &lt;a href=&quot;https://blog.pinballmap.com/2023/10/22/pinball-map-seminar-at-pinball-expo/&quot;&gt;post about it here&lt;/a&gt;, which includes the seminar stream.&lt;/p&gt;
  86.  
  87. &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Users&lt;/strong&gt;: Over 22k total signed up users (and more not signed up).&lt;/p&gt;
  88.  
  89. &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Machines added this year&lt;/strong&gt;: 23,104&lt;/p&gt;
  90.  
  91. &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Machines removed this year&lt;/strong&gt;: 16,938&lt;/p&gt;
  92.  
  93. &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Locations submitted this year&lt;/strong&gt;: 3,344 (some were dupes)&lt;/p&gt;
  94.  
  95. &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Locations removed this year&lt;/strong&gt;: 1,561 (some may have been deleted in a way that isn’t captured here)&lt;/p&gt;
  96.  
  97. &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Machine comments this year&lt;/strong&gt;: 19,691&lt;/p&gt;
  98.  
  99. &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Scores added this year&lt;/strong&gt; 2,627&lt;/p&gt;
  100.  
  101. &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Stern Insider Connected toggles&lt;/strong&gt;: 6,681 (this is something we added midway through the year. It’s a weird metric because you sometimes have to click twice to get the result you want - since it’s just a true/false toggle button)&lt;/p&gt;
  102.  
  103. &lt;p&gt;Currently listing &lt;strong&gt;9,752 locations and 39,622 machines&lt;/strong&gt; (this changes every couple of minutes)&lt;/p&gt;
  104.  
  105. &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Locations in 59 countries&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  106.  
  107. &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;98 regions&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  108.  
  109. &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;96 administrators&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  110.  
  111. &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;301 operators&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  112.  
  113. &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;79 Patreon supporters&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  114.  
  115. &lt;p&gt;Pretty cool!&lt;/p&gt;
  116.  
  117. &lt;h2 id=&quot;challenges&quot;&gt;Challenges&lt;/h2&gt;
  118.  
  119. &lt;p&gt;We don’t like to gripe. We strive to be responsive and helpful and for the map to be a chill thing to use. This is just a side hobby project for us. It’s not a business, and everything we do for it is just volunteer work that we do to be helpful. For the most part it’s nice and not stressful.&lt;/p&gt;
  120.  
  121. &lt;p&gt;By far (by very far) the biggest source of stress are operators.&lt;/p&gt;
  122.  
  123. &lt;p&gt;The map is a tool for two different types of users: operators and non-operators (e.g., regular users). For operators, the map is a business tool, because people use it to learn about their place and then go there and spend money. It’s free advertising! This radically alters their relationship with the map.&lt;/p&gt;
  124.  
  125. &lt;p&gt;From this, some operators develop what we would describe as an unhealthy relationship with the map. In short, they consider comments on their machines to be directly and immediately impactful on their business. They monitor which users are leaving comments and then start formulating hypotheses that some particular people are actively attempting to hurt their business. They scrutinize the types of comments to see which ones are “not helpful” (either to the general public or to their daily operations in managing machine issues). And then they unload all this, and more, on us. They demand that we investigate users, and then also demand that those users are banned from the map (and at the least, banned from commenting on their machines). They usually request that we disable all comments on their machines, or at the least give them the ability to moderate, rate, and/or delete comments at their places. Or make it so only they can see comments. They want &lt;em&gt;user&lt;/em&gt; ratings so we can demote people. They want the real name and contact information for people who leave comments on their machines. They also remove machines and re-add the same machine in order to get rid of comments (this is bad - and in fact, this is by and large the primary unsavory behavior that occurs on the map).&lt;/p&gt;
  126.  
  127. &lt;p&gt;Needless to say (or probably not needless to say?), all of these requests are in opposition to what the tens of thousands of regular users want from the map. Regular users like leaving comments! They like seeing comments. They are smart enough to understand when some comments are ridiculous or a little off-topic.&lt;/p&gt;
  128.  
  129. &lt;p&gt;Furthermore, they leave comments because they are trying to be helpful. However, it is the nature of pinball that machine issues can be ephemeral. When a user comments about an issue and later on the operator cannot replicate the issue, there are some conspiratorial-minded operators who assume this is part of some organized campaign to hurt their business. This conclusion is nearly always incorrect (based on all the messages we’ve received to investigate and take action against certain users).&lt;/p&gt;
  130.  
  131. &lt;p&gt;We provide a bunch of tools to help operators. We love operators! They are a critical part of the life blood of pinball. And we totally understand that random internet comments about your machines can be aggravating. Overall, we try to balance things, because it’s impossible for everyone to be 100% satisfied. We gives lots of tips to users on how to leave helpful comments, and also how operators can respond with their own comments: simply note when things have been fixed or they differ from reality. The comment dialog is &lt;em&gt;really&lt;/em&gt; valuable (we hear it all the time)!&lt;/p&gt;
  132.  
  133. &lt;p&gt;By far, most operators have a healthy relationship with the map, and seem to appreciate what it has to offer and do not overly sweat the small stuff. If you find that you are developing an unhealthy relationship with the map, we suggest not using it. Simply remove it from your life. Your business will not be negatively impacted and life will be better.&lt;/p&gt;
  134.  
  135. &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Why are we saying this in a recap post?&lt;/strong&gt; After many years of us spending our time investigating and responding to these requests - always starting by giving them the benefit of the doubt that there is unsavory activity occurring - it has become pretty apparent that 98% of the time it’s a big nothingburger. The comments in question are almost always really benign, super normal machine comments. The amount of time, thought, and effort that we expend responding to these issues (and then going back and forth about them) are not really worth it. They’re exhausting, and being asked to micromanage a fingerful of comments on one location, on top of managing the data for nearly 10,000 locations, is tough.&lt;/p&gt;
  136.  
  137. &lt;p&gt;From now on, we are going to attempt to better manage these requests. If we are presented with &lt;em&gt;evidence&lt;/em&gt; of wrongdoing, we will investigate and take the appropriate action. We will consider, and thank you, for your site suggestions. We will refer you to read the &lt;a href=&quot;https://pinballmap.com/faq&quot;&gt;FAQ&lt;/a&gt; (the last few items in it attempt to address these and related things). We will monitor situations as needed. We will likely limit the amount of time and energy we devote to digging deep into the reported issues and responding to them.&lt;/p&gt;
  138.  
  139. &lt;h2 id=&quot;whats-next&quot;&gt;What’s Next&lt;/h2&gt;
  140.  
  141. &lt;p&gt;Overall, business as usual, to be honest. Moderating location submissions, making sure people aren’t being jerks, doing some app and website updates!&lt;/p&gt;
  142.  
  143. &lt;p&gt;Also, we were carefully watching the total number of locations all year and thought there was a chance we’d get to 10,000 in 2023. Alas! While the map gets lots of location submissions, 20-30 locations are removed each week. We’ll definitely get to 10k next year.&lt;/p&gt;
  144. </description>
  145.        <pubDate>Thu, 28 Dec 2023 06:20:20 -0800</pubDate>
  146.        <link>/2023/12/28/reflecting-on-2023/</link>
  147.        <guid isPermaLink="true">/2023/12/28/reflecting-on-2023/</guid>
  148.        
  149.        
  150.        <category>news</category>
  151.        
  152.      </item>
  153.    
  154.      <item>
  155.        <title>Pinball Map App Now Available On Tidbyt</title>
  156.        <description>&lt;p&gt;I love a gadget. I think I get this from my father, a locally famous gadgetman who filled my K-12 bedroom with his hand-me-down computer equipment and old televisions. I find it very satisfying to take something that is (or looks) slightly away from its time, and shoehorning something new into its vocabulary. A new (but kind of old looking) thing that I have recently been very into is the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.tidbyt.com/&quot;&gt;TidByt&lt;/a&gt;. For those that aren’t familiar with it, the TidByt is a little box that you put on your desk that displays micro-messages and images in a style that my children would describe as “block old timey art like your basement Nintendo”. It looks very cool! And, you can write your own programs for it. I made an app that shows me when the next bus was going to show up in front of my house. Could I just look out the window and see? Maybe! I’m not going to risk eye contact with a passerby though. With my transit problems solved, I decided to make something that would show me the three most recent pinball machines added near by house. How did I do it, you may have wondered? Maybe you didn’t wonder before, but are starting to wonder if maybe you do wonder? I don’t know. And frankly, I don’t have control over that side of the conversation.&lt;/p&gt;
  157.  
  158. &lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;/assets/img/DAY2_SHOT3-3611-R2_720x807-2.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Behold, the TidByt&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  159.  
  160. &lt;p&gt;To make this work, the first thing that I needed to do was actually get the Pinball Map API to tell me what the three most recent machines in the area were. I cracked open the PBM code and was immediately lost. There’s a lot of filters, and I’m guessing that we have all the building blocks in place to pull all the locations near you, and then make additional API calls to figure out the most recently added machines from all those locations. But my brain is addled, and I didn’t want to lose my creative momentum by thinking too hard about difficult problems. So, I decided to write an entirely new API to handle this single use-case. &lt;a href=&quot;https://pinballmap.com/api/v1/docs/1.0/location_machine_xrefs/most_recent_by_lat_lon.html&quot;&gt;Behold,  /api/v1/location_machine_xrefs/most_recent_by_lat_lon.json&lt;/a&gt;. If you pass this thing a latitude and a longitude, it will pass you back the three most recent machines added within 50 miles of your location. It does it with speed, and without complaint. But this is bad code, everyone. This is not something I’m proud of doing. And I’ll briefly tell you why, if that’s OK:&lt;/p&gt;
  161. &lt;ul&gt;
  162.  &lt;li&gt;The naming of this API is not very descriptive. “most recent”. Most recent what? It’s not most recent location_machine_xrefs, as the naming convention may suggest.&lt;/li&gt;
  163.  &lt;li&gt;It defaults to machines within 50 miles of you. That’s kind of a beefy default. It’s overrideable, but it feels like a copy-paste job.&lt;/li&gt;
  164.  &lt;li&gt;It hardcodes a limit of the three most recent machines. Maybe you want the five most recent machines?&lt;/li&gt;
  165.  &lt;li&gt;Maybe the biggest sin of all, it returns string values of “LOCATION @ MACHINE NAME” and nothing else! What if you want to pull location, machine ( and date added?) and then do the formatting on your end? Tough luck.&lt;/li&gt;
  166. &lt;/ul&gt;
  167.  
  168. &lt;p&gt;So, I’m not super proud of the API piece. It was a rush job to get me moving on the TidByt stuff, and the end result feels a little lazy. If someone sees value in the endpoint and wants additional features/flexiblity, just email Ryan and tell him that and then he’ll tell me that. This is Scott, by the way. I would be happy to update this code on your behalf.&lt;/p&gt;
  169.  
  170. &lt;p&gt;After the plumbing was stuffed under the floorboards, it was time to make a TidByt. They have a pretty decent overview of the whole ecosystem &lt;a href=&quot;http://tidbyt.dev&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;, and I found it pretty easy to get things up and running. I think it’s written in GoLang, but uses some kind of Python-ish DSL or something? I never really dug into that too much. My Python is pretty basic, and I never needed a command that wasn’t available in TidByt. I found that most of my time was spent in formatting the output to fit on a pretty small display. It’s not easy to display a lot of text on this thing, so you have to get creative with what you put where. I don’t know that I landed on the best interface.&lt;/p&gt;
  171.  
  172. &lt;p&gt;The whole thing is open source, so feel free to &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/tidbyt/community/tree/main/apps/pinballmap&quot;&gt;take a look&lt;/a&gt; if that is your deal. We’d love to hear about your experiences using it. Just search for “Pinball Map” on the app library, and it should pop right up.&lt;/p&gt;
  173.  
  174. &lt;p&gt;Thanks for looking – Scott&lt;/p&gt;
  175. </description>
  176.        <pubDate>Sat, 04 Nov 2023 07:20:20 -0700</pubDate>
  177.        <link>/2023/11/04/tidbyt-app/</link>
  178.        <guid isPermaLink="true">/2023/11/04/tidbyt-app/</guid>
  179.        
  180.        
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  184.    
  185.      <item>
  186.        <title>Pinball Map Seminar at Pinball Expo 2023</title>
  187.        <description>&lt;p&gt;This past weekend we were privileged to present a seminar at Pinball Expo 2023. We’d like to thank Rob Berk for inviting us, and all the other organizers and staff for putting it on. We’d also like to thank David Marston for his great introduction to our seminar. It was a very fun event.&lt;/p&gt;
  188.  
  189. &lt;p&gt;This is the first time we’ve done something like this. Since Pinball Map is 15 years old, we thought we’d focus on a brief history of the project, with an emphasis on our motivations and philosophies and goals. We spent time on open source and accessible APIs, and why we chose to create a free and open community-run tool rather than a business.&lt;/p&gt;
  190.  
  191. &lt;p&gt;The 45 minutes flew by. Plenty more to talk about! Thanks to everyone who attended. Watch it below! Thanks to &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.pinballnews.com/site/2023/10/19/pinball-expo-2023/&quot;&gt;Pinball News&lt;/a&gt; for recording and posting the video.
  192. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  193. &lt;iframe width=&quot;560&quot; height=&quot;315&quot; src=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/embed/U3ozGB9E2ZM?si=JvJz8drKjOTGz2DY&quot; title=&quot;YouTube video player&quot; frameborder=&quot;0&quot; allow=&quot;accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share&quot; allowfullscreen=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/iframe&gt;
  194.  
  195. &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3ozGB9E2ZM&quot;&gt;Direct link&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  196.  
  197. &lt;p&gt;The Expo was a great opportunity for us to get together and have fun! It was a blast to wander the floor and play tons of pinball. The whole event was jam packed with new releases, great homebrews, booths that demonstrated the breadth of the pinball market, and giant rows of machines to play. The Stern factory tour was also really great. We couldn’t take pictures, but the memories will live on in our brains (until we forget them). Somehow they managed to give tours to about 800 people. Unreal!&lt;/p&gt;
  198.  
  199. &lt;p&gt;One thing we appreciated was that basically everyone we ran into knew about and used Pinball Map. It’s cool to connect with folks in person, and it helped us appreciate that this is truly a tool that many people use and like.&lt;/p&gt;
  200.  
  201. &lt;p&gt;From Ryan, Beth, and Scott - thank you!&lt;/p&gt;
  202.  
  203. &lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;/assets/img/Expo-2023-2000px.jpg#800&quot; alt=&quot;Pinball Map Crew at Expo 2023&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  204. </description>
  205.        <pubDate>Sun, 22 Oct 2023 07:20:20 -0700</pubDate>
  206.        <link>/2023/10/22/pinball-map-seminar-at-pinball-expo/</link>
  207.        <guid isPermaLink="true">/2023/10/22/pinball-map-seminar-at-pinball-expo/</guid>
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  209.        
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  212.      </item>
  213.    
  214.      <item>
  215.        <title>Pinball Map App 5.3.0</title>
  216.        <description>&lt;p&gt;This app update took an extensive amount of work over the past couple of months. And now, in this post, we will explain why.&lt;/p&gt;
  217.  
  218. &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;don’t want to read this post, and would rather watch it on a vid?&lt;/em&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://youtu.be/UftU6QE2-Ko&quot;&gt;https://youtu.be/UftU6QE2-Ko&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  219.  
  220. &lt;p&gt;Here is the overall changelog. Side note: the Android Play Store has a very small character limit on the “what’s new” section when you submit an app update. You can’t fit all these bulletpoints into it! Why is it so small?&lt;/p&gt;
  221.  
  222. &lt;ul&gt;
  223.  &lt;li&gt;Switched map library to Mapbox. This results in better map performance; fixes a bug when displaying lots of markers; and allows us to use custom markers in Android (previously not used due to performance issues).&lt;/li&gt;
  224.  &lt;li&gt;Show the map marker callouts in a bottom sheet, rather than floating near the marker. More standardized, and looks nicer.&lt;/li&gt;
  225.  &lt;li&gt;Majorly adjusted how the map display markers. There are no longer results “off the screen” to the left and right. So the “List” more accurately shows what is on the map. This saves resources and allows us to:&lt;/li&gt;
  226.  &lt;li&gt;Tweak the “max zoom” limits. You can zoom further out now. These limits differ depending on if you are filtering results, and what you are filtering.&lt;/li&gt;
  227.  &lt;li&gt;Added ability to select more than one filter item in Recent Activity.&lt;/li&gt;
  228.  &lt;li&gt;Added a Stern Insider Connected flag on eligible machines. If a machine has IC, no need to comment saying so - just tag it!&lt;/li&gt;
  229.  &lt;li&gt;Removed PT Sans font in favor of more Nunito weights. And tweaked some colors.&lt;/li&gt;
  230.  &lt;li&gt;Tablets can change to landscape orientation.&lt;/li&gt;
  231.  &lt;li&gt;Bug fixes!&lt;/li&gt;
  232. &lt;/ul&gt;
  233.  
  234. &lt;h2 id=&quot;the-map&quot;&gt;The Map&lt;/h2&gt;
  235.  
  236. &lt;p&gt;Upon launching the app, the first thing you may notice is that the map looks different. The roads, parks, water, and so - displayed by something called map tiles - are different! That’s because in this update we have changed the source of these map tiles from Google Maps to Mapbox (which uses OpenStreetMap data). With Mapbox, we actually designed the dark mode theme ourselves. Anyway…&lt;/p&gt;
  237.  
  238. &lt;p&gt;This change in libraries was largely made in order to improve performance and to have Android achieve feature parity with iOS. The performance issue was that our previous map package had a bug that resulted in map markers disappearing when you loaded too many at a time. And sometimes the callout that pops up when you click a marker was being rendered incorrectly.&lt;/p&gt;
  239.  
  240. &lt;p&gt;The Android parity issue was that we couldn’t use the custom map markers that we are looking at here, that show the number of pinball machines per location, because it was severely impacting Android performance. The app would essentially grind to a halt.&lt;/p&gt;
  241.  
  242. &lt;p&gt;The solution was to switch from the react-native-maps package to the only alternative, react native mapbox. We were already using mapbox tiles on the website, and in fact have used it off and on over the years. This change in the app was a significant amount of work.&lt;/p&gt;
  243.  
  244. &lt;p&gt;Along with this - actually just prior to it - we also put a lot of effort into optimizing how data is pulled from our database into the app. Previously, when you loaded locations on the map, it would pull in locations that are within a radius of the center of the map (and the radius distance was based on your zoom level). However, since our phones are rectangles, this resulted in many venues being loaded off the screen. You may have noticed this after panning the map around and seeing other markers, or by clicking the List button and seeing venues that aren’t visible on the screen. Not only was it kind of confusing to have the List screen show locations that aren’t on the map, but it was a poor use of resources to pull in these data - which we’ll go into more in a minute. So instead, we created a new API endpoint that uses the bounding box of the screen - the corners - to calculate what should be visible on the screen and only loads those venues when you refresh the map. Additionally, we optimized that endpoint so that it only contains data that is needed with very little if anything extra.&lt;/p&gt;
  245.  
  246. &lt;h1 id=&quot;map-zooms-and-filtering&quot;&gt;Map Zooms and Filtering&lt;/h1&gt;
  247.  
  248. &lt;p&gt;As a result, now you can zoom out the map further! Previously, when using a radius to pull in locations, if you were able to zoom the map out so that you could see Mexico on the bottom edge of the screen and Canada at the top - that is, so the full width of the US was still not visible on the screen even though the full height is, the radius would be so wide that off-screen the map would be loading locations on the west and east coasts of the US. That’s no good.&lt;/p&gt;
  249.  
  250. &lt;p&gt;But now, you can zoom out further. There are levels to how far you can zoom, based on which filter, if any, you have applied. For example, if you filter by an operator, you can zoom out very far. This is because operators likely do not operate at thousands of locations, and so pulling in all their data will never be a burden on the server and thus doesn’t need to be limited.&lt;/p&gt;
  251.  
  252. &lt;p&gt;If you filter by locations that contains 2 or more machines, you can zoom out further than if you were showing all. If you adjust that filter to only show locations with 5 or more, or 10 or more, or 20 or more, then you can increasingly zoom out further. Because each of those filters will return fewer and fewer locations, we balance that out by increasing the allowed zoom.&lt;/p&gt;
  253.  
  254. &lt;p&gt;Combos of filters will allow you to go further, too. Check out locations with 20+ machines that are arcades.&lt;/p&gt;
  255.  
  256. &lt;h1 id=&quot;map-markers&quot;&gt;Map Markers&lt;/h1&gt;
  257.  
  258. &lt;p&gt;We updated the marker designs so that hearted locations are a simple pink icon instead of a heart icon.&lt;/p&gt;
  259.  
  260. &lt;h1 id=&quot;map-callouts&quot;&gt;Map Callouts&lt;/h1&gt;
  261.  
  262. &lt;p&gt;We also changed the callouts. When you click on a marker, instead of the infowindow - or callout - floating above the marker, it is now in a fixed positions at the bottom of the map. It contains basic info, as well as a quick list of five machines, if there are at least five machines.&lt;/p&gt;
  263.  
  264. &lt;h1 id=&quot;recent-activity-filtering&quot;&gt;Recent Activity Filtering&lt;/h1&gt;
  265.  
  266. &lt;p&gt;This one was a user suggestion: if you show nearby map activity, previously you could only filter the items to one activity type, such as machines added. But now you can filter multiple types! Like machines added and removed. Thanks for the suggestion.&lt;/p&gt;
  267.  
  268. &lt;h1 id=&quot;stern-insider-connected-flag&quot;&gt;Stern Insider Connected Flag&lt;/h1&gt;
  269.  
  270. &lt;p&gt;Lastly, a lot of people leave machine comments that note whether or not a machine is connected to Stern’s Insider Connected. The problem here is that another person will then leave a comment saying the right flipper is moist, and then the Insider Connected comment gets buried. So we added a little toggle button for each machine. It’s a simple button that defaults to question mark, and when you click it, it toggles between yes and no. No need to go nuts clicking this.&lt;/p&gt;
  271.  
  272. &lt;p&gt;That about wraps it up! Though we also added some additional advice to users when they are leaving machine comments - reminding you all that it’s a good idea to tell the business in person about issues. And we made many little design tweaks.&lt;/p&gt;
  273.  
  274. &lt;p&gt;Happy mapping!&lt;/p&gt;
  275. </description>
  276.        <pubDate>Thu, 31 Aug 2023 07:20:20 -0700</pubDate>
  277.        <link>/2023/08/31/pinball-map-app-5-3-0/</link>
  278.        <guid isPermaLink="true">/2023/08/31/pinball-map-app-5-3-0/</guid>
  279.        
  280.        
  281.        <category>news</category>
  282.        
  283.        <category>app</category>
  284.        
  285.      </item>
  286.    
  287.      <item>
  288.        <title>New and Notable Locations - Article Series on Kineticist</title>
  289.        <description>&lt;p&gt;For the past few months we have been posting a monthly blog post on &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.kineticist.co/&quot;&gt;Kineticist&lt;/a&gt; highlighting new and notable locations that have been added to Pinball Map.&lt;/p&gt;
  290.  
  291. &lt;p&gt;For a thousand years now, every day, every week, every month we receive lots of new location submissions. We add a couple hundred each month, all throughout our blue/green Earth. How do people know what’s been added? Well, we used to have a gigantor location update feed on Twitter, but that was recently shut down by the powers that be. Plus, that was like a spigot of info and was likely more than most would like to process. So we thought it would be useful to distill the key points into a distinct post of some sort and share that.&lt;/p&gt;
  292.  
  293. &lt;p&gt;We could have posted a regular digest of new locs to this blog! But who reads this blog? Only you.&lt;/p&gt;
  294.  
  295. &lt;p&gt;So we thought it would be cool to post elsewhere where there opportunities to connect with new eyes and hearts. Kineticist is a fun and fresh site with lots of interesting content related to pinball. Plus they make use of Pinball Map data and they properly source where the data came from. So we know they are good.&lt;/p&gt;
  296.  
  297. &lt;p&gt;The information, of course, is all thanks to you. We sit here and you send us hot tips. We then keep track of the most notable new venues - basically ones with x or greater machines - and then we look deep into our hearts and write about them. Both Scott and Ryan (we) have been authoring these articles.&lt;/p&gt;
  298.  
  299. &lt;p&gt;So check them out! We hope it helps you discover new places to play. Click here to see all the posts:&lt;/p&gt;
  300.  
  301. &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.kineticist.co/blog-category/pinball-map-update&quot;&gt;Pinball Map New Locations Update&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  302. </description>
  303.        <pubDate>Wed, 16 Aug 2023 07:20:20 -0700</pubDate>
  304.        <link>/2023/08/16/kineticist-article-series/</link>
  305.        <guid isPermaLink="true">/2023/08/16/kineticist-article-series/</guid>
  306.        
  307.        
  308.        <category>news</category>
  309.        
  310.      </item>
  311.    
  312.      <item>
  313.        <title>Operators Map</title>
  314.        <description>&lt;p&gt;While the &lt;a href=&quot;https://pinballmap.com/#regions&quot;&gt;regional maps&lt;/a&gt; on this site allow operators to quickly look up all their locations, the &lt;a href=&quot;https://pinballmap.com/map&quot;&gt;global map&lt;/a&gt; does not. Since this type of search is somewhat &lt;em&gt;niche&lt;/em&gt; (only needed by operators) instead of cluttering up the search form on that map, we instead made a separate map that does one thing: allows you to search by operator.&lt;/p&gt;
  315.  
  316. &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://pinballmap.com/operators&quot;&gt;Operator Map&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  317.  
  318. &lt;p&gt;So, if you are an operator, and want to quickly bring up all your locations and update the line-ups at them, we hope this helps!&lt;/p&gt;
  319.  
  320. &lt;p&gt;If you use the app, you can “Filter” map results to only places that have your machines.&lt;/p&gt;
  321.  
  322. &lt;p&gt;If you are an operator and your business is not in our system, please &lt;a href=&quot;https://pinballmap.com/portland/about&quot;&gt;contact us&lt;/a&gt; and we will add you. Make sure to tell us the name of your business.&lt;/p&gt;
  323.  
  324. &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Already an operator in our system?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  325.  
  326. &lt;p&gt;If so, you can “tag” your business at each of your venues. To do so:&lt;/p&gt;
  327.  
  328. &lt;ul&gt;
  329.  &lt;li&gt;
  330.    &lt;p&gt;On the website: login, lookup a location, click the pencil icon (for “edit”) that’s next to the location name, then choose your business in the Operator dropdown list.&lt;/p&gt;
  331.  &lt;/li&gt;
  332.  &lt;li&gt;
  333.    &lt;p&gt;On the app: login, lookup a location, and click the “tools” icon in the lower right, then edit the location.&lt;/p&gt;
  334.  &lt;/li&gt;
  335. &lt;/ul&gt;
  336. </description>
  337.        <pubDate>Sat, 29 Jul 2023 07:20:20 -0700</pubDate>
  338.        <link>/2023/07/29/operators-map/</link>
  339.        <guid isPermaLink="true">/2023/07/29/operators-map/</guid>
  340.        
  341.        
  342.        <category>news</category>
  343.        
  344.      </item>
  345.    
  346.      <item>
  347.        <title>Pinball Map App Update 5.2.18</title>
  348.        <description>&lt;p&gt;We released our most substantial app update of 2023! This one addresses a number of bugs that we discovered after adding Sentry crash reporting. It also includes &lt;em&gt;new features&lt;/em&gt; and some significant design revisions. Let’s get to it!&lt;/p&gt;
  349.  
  350. &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;New Features&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  351.  
  352. &lt;p&gt;Added a button on Location Details for viewing all the updates/activity at that location. Shows machines added, removed, machines comments, high scores, and line-up confirmations.&lt;/p&gt;
  353.  
  354. &lt;p&gt;The button looks like this:&lt;/p&gt;
  355.  
  356. &lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;/assets/img/location-activity.png#500&quot; alt=&quot;Pinball Map App 5.2.18 Screenshot&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  357.  
  358. &lt;p&gt;Added radius options to the Recent Activity screen, so you can see recent updates that are further away (helpful for rural or more sparse areas). Rather than the default 30 miles, you can toggle to 75 or 150 miles.&lt;/p&gt;
  359.  
  360. &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Bug Fixes&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  361.  
  362. &lt;p&gt;Android: Couldn’t add phone numbers to the Location Submission form. Some weird bug where the numbers would reset when you started typing them in. Oops!&lt;/p&gt;
  363.  
  364. &lt;p&gt;Issue when backspacing in the “Country” search field in the Location Submission form. Probably not encountered that often, but now it’s fixed!&lt;/p&gt;
  365.  
  366. &lt;p&gt;After submitting a location, the app wasn’t properly navigating you out of that screen, so users sometimes thought the submission didn’t go through. This was resulting in confusion about whether the submission was truly submitted, and then people submitting multiple times.&lt;/p&gt;
  367.  
  368. &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Design Updates&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  369.  
  370. &lt;p&gt;Replaced Lato font with PT Sans. This is basically because we like lowercase “l” letters that don’t look like capital “I”.&lt;/p&gt;
  371.  
  372. &lt;p&gt;Redesigned Location Details, Location List, and Machine Details screens.&lt;/p&gt;
  373.  
  374. &lt;p&gt;Tweaked colors (higher contrasts to be more accessible, added purple, etc.) and other things.&lt;/p&gt;
  375.  
  376. &lt;p&gt;Do not display most recent machine comment under each machine on the Location Details screen (instead, all comments can be viewed by clicking the machine). This change might be unwelcome to some people. But aside from now having a cleaner design, we are trying to address the issue of users battling each other to have the most recent comment. We want to de=emphasize the importance of the most recent comment.&lt;/p&gt;
  377.  
  378. &lt;p&gt;Cool animation when you click the “heart” icon to favorite a location (and un-favorite)&lt;/p&gt;
  379.  
  380. &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Misc&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  381.  
  382. &lt;p&gt;Added little notes in some places to help guide users (on Machine Comment form and Edit Location Details screen). Trying to address things like: people leaving comments saying “machine is done” rather than just removing the machine. And people leaving location notes saying “moved to a new address”&lt;/p&gt;
  383.  
  384. &lt;p&gt;Many other tweaks and bug fixes and performance improvements&lt;/p&gt;
  385.  
  386. &lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;/assets/img/PBM-5.2.18-Screenshot-1.png#500&quot; alt=&quot;Pinball Map App 5.2.18 Screenshot&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  387.  
  388. &lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;/assets/img/PBM-5.2.18-Screenshot-2.png#500&quot; alt=&quot;Pinball Map App 5.2.18 Screenshot&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  389.  
  390. &lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;/assets/img/PBM-5.2.18-Screenshot-3.png#500&quot; alt=&quot;Pinball Map App 5.2.18 Screenshot&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  391.  
  392. &lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;/assets/img/PBM-5.2.18-Screenshot-4.png#500&quot; alt=&quot;Pinball Map App 5.2.18 Screenshot&quot; /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  393. </description>
  394.        <pubDate>Sun, 05 Mar 2023 06:20:20 -0800</pubDate>
  395.        <link>/2023/03/05/pinball-map-app-update-5-2-18/</link>
  396.        <guid isPermaLink="true">/2023/03/05/pinball-map-app-update-5-2-18/</guid>
  397.        
  398.        
  399.        <category>tech</category>
  400.        
  401.        <category>app</category>
  402.        
  403.      </item>
  404.    
  405.      <item>
  406.        <title>RSS to Twitter Bot Using Ruby</title>
  407.        <description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;July 2023 Edit:&lt;/strong&gt; The following bot does not currently work due to Twitter’s deprecation of the v1.1 API. The gems used in this script do not support v2, and most developers of tools for interacting with Twitter’s API seemed to have moved on. Pinball Map does not have plans to try and get our Twitter bots working again.&lt;/p&gt;
  408.  
  409. &lt;p&gt;Additionally, due to recent events, in particular the dissolution of the Trust &amp;amp; Safety team, Twitter currently has very sketchy content and Pinball Map is no longer actively using it.&lt;/p&gt;
  410.  
  411. &lt;h3 id=&quot;original-post&quot;&gt;Original Post&lt;/h3&gt;
  412.  
  413. &lt;p&gt;Why, it’s another post about Twitterbots! Here’s our &lt;em&gt;latest&lt;/em&gt; and our &lt;em&gt;final&lt;/em&gt; RSS to Twitter Bot. This is how we tweet “new machine added to…” tweets without having to manually click tweet.&lt;/p&gt;
  414.  
  415. &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Previously on this blog:&lt;/strong&gt;
  416. &lt;a href=&quot;https://blog.pinballmap.com/2019/12/05/iftttwtf/&quot;&gt;New Method to Auto-Tweet Map Updates&lt;/a&gt;
  417. &lt;a href=&quot;https://blog.pinballmap.com/2013/07/17/reviews-of-various-twitter-feed-services/&quot;&gt;Reviews of various Twitter feed services&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  418.  
  419. &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Present day:&lt;/strong&gt; Now that we’re all caught up, here’s a brief explanation of what happened since we used that python RSS to Twitter Bot mentioned in the “New Method” post. Actually, truth be told - what did happen? That very complicated-looking python script would run periodically via a cron and “check for new items” in the RSS feed. But then one time we made a slight update to the formatting of the text in the RSS item (think we removed an unnecessary double space between two words), and the dumb bot thought that “&lt;em&gt;every&lt;/em&gt; item in the feed was &lt;em&gt;new&lt;/em&gt;” and then it tweeted like 100 things at once (from four diff accounts of ours). This resulted, as you might expect, in a loss of followers, and a &lt;em&gt;shadow ban&lt;/em&gt; by Twitter HQ, and a some other dramatic things.&lt;/p&gt;
  420.  
  421. &lt;p&gt;So we decided to not use other people’s complex python madness, and instead write our own elegant ruby script. &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/pinballmap/pbm-twitterbot/&quot;&gt;Here it is&lt;/a&gt; (click the .rb there). And the good thing about this is that it doesn’t attempt to identify “new items” by comparing the exact text within a giant list of old items. No, it just looks at the timestamps of items in the RSS feed, and asks, “Was this RSS item created in the last 10 minutes? If so, tweet!” And then we have it run every 10 minutes. So, it’s nicely contained - it can never freak out and re-tweet 100 things.&lt;/p&gt;
  422.  
  423. &lt;p&gt;Here’s how you can use this yourself (for example, if you’d like to create a pinball map twitterbot that tweets out particular region’s updates):&lt;/p&gt;
  424.  
  425. &lt;h2 id=&quot;how-to&quot;&gt;How to&lt;/h2&gt;
  426.  
  427. &lt;p&gt;We run this on a Raspberry Pi, since it’s good to have an “always on” computer.&lt;/p&gt;
  428.  
  429. &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Install Ruby and more&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  430.  
  431. &lt;p&gt;I always use rvm to install ruby (so, the first link below). But there are other options: rbenv, snap. Whatever suits you.&lt;/p&gt;
  432.  
  433. &lt;ul&gt;
  434.  &lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://rayhightower.com/blog/2012/12/03/ruby-on-raspberry-pi/&quot;&gt;https://rayhightower.com/blog/2012/12/03/ruby-on-raspberry-pi/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
  435.  &lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://dev.to/konyu/installing-the-latest-version-of-ruby-on-raspberry-pi-3ofk&quot;&gt;https://dev.to/konyu/installing-the-latest-version-of-ruby-on-raspberry-pi-3ofk&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
  436.  &lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://snapcraft.io/install/ruby/raspbian&quot;&gt;https://snapcraft.io/install/ruby/raspbian&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
  437. &lt;/ul&gt;
  438.  
  439. &lt;p&gt;This bot uses the chatterbot gem. Install it with &lt;code class=&quot;language-plaintext highlighter-rouge&quot;&gt;gem install chatterbot&lt;/code&gt; (on the pi). &lt;a href=&quot;http://muffinista.github.io/chatterbot/setup.html&quot;&gt;Documentation is here&lt;/a&gt;, but you won’t need much of that.&lt;/p&gt;
  440.  
  441. &lt;p&gt;Grab the .rb and .yml files from the &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/pinballmap/pbm-twitterbot/&quot;&gt;github repo&lt;/a&gt; and put them on the pi. I use scp to do that. Like &lt;code class=&quot;language-plaintext highlighter-rouge&quot;&gt;scp twitterbot.rb pi@192.168.1.102:myBots&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  442.  
  443. &lt;p&gt;Then type &lt;code class=&quot;language-plaintext highlighter-rouge&quot;&gt;crontab -e&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  444.  
  445. &lt;p&gt;cron is basically a scheduler. Example for running it every 10 minutes: &lt;code class=&quot;language-plaintext highlighter-rouge&quot;&gt;*/10 * * * * /bin/bash -l -c &apos;/home/pi/Documents/Bots/pbm-twitterbot/twitterbot.rb&apos;&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  446.  
  447. &lt;p&gt;Make sure that your .rb file has permission to be executed from cron. This works for us: &lt;code class=&quot;language-plaintext highlighter-rouge&quot;&gt;chmod u=rwx,g=r,o=r twitterbot.rb&lt;/code&gt;. And update the .rb script to point to the RSS feed you want to use.&lt;/p&gt;
  448.  
  449. &lt;p&gt;In the folder with the .rb file, type &lt;code class=&quot;language-plaintext highlighter-rouge&quot;&gt;gem install&lt;/code&gt; to install the project’s required gems (actually, this might not be needed in this case…?).&lt;/p&gt;
  450.  
  451. &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;You’ll need a Twitter Developer account&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  452.  
  453. &lt;ul&gt;
  454.  &lt;li&gt;Start a twitter account.&lt;/li&gt;
  455.  &lt;li&gt;Use a gmail/yahoo/hotmail account or they’ll mysteriously insta-ban you because their spam sniffing is a total pile of crap.&lt;/li&gt;
  456.  &lt;li&gt;Go to dev.twitter.com and apply for an account and create an “app” and get your credentials. You may get banned again at this point.&lt;/li&gt;
  457.  &lt;li&gt;Put them in the .yml file like&lt;/li&gt;
  458. &lt;/ul&gt;
  459.  
  460. &lt;div class=&quot;language-plaintext highlighter-rouge&quot;&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;highlight&quot;&gt;&lt;pre class=&quot;highlight&quot;&gt;&lt;code&gt;:consumer_key: blah
  461. :consumer_secret: bleh
  462. :access_token: bloh
  463. :access_token_secret: bleh
  464. &lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
  465.  
  466. &lt;h1 id=&quot;questionsconcerns&quot;&gt;Questions/Concerns?&lt;/h1&gt;
  467.  
  468. &lt;p&gt;Something not clear, or not working? Let us know!&lt;/p&gt;
  469. </description>
  470.        <pubDate>Wed, 30 Nov 2022 06:20:20 -0800</pubDate>
  471.        <link>/2022/11/30/Ruby-Twitterbot/</link>
  472.        <guid isPermaLink="true">/2022/11/30/Ruby-Twitterbot/</guid>
  473.        
  474.        
  475.        <category>tech</category>
  476.        
  477.      </item>
  478.    
  479.  </channel>
  480. </rss>
  481.  

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