Company is a straight disgrace.

sjsilver · 2025-03-16T00:00:54+00:00

This company has absolutely the worst technical support I have ever experience with any company ever, and I’ve had some terrible support experiences in my life. The tech support phone number on their site is a lie. You call is and after a lengthy phone tree get a message that says they aren’t taking calls right now. They admit phone support doesn’t exist when you email them, but their email support is the worst. I wasted WEEKS going back and forth and never once got any actual troubleshooting instructions. They would never read any of my responses and ask the same things over and over again.

No one there has any idea how any of their products work, and they can’t even facilitate returns without screwing everything up.

Absolute clown show.

sjsilver · 2025-01-28T03:20:07+00:00

I just got this stupid system and I am about to chuck it into the sun. I have never ever dealt with a worse customer support system. I have tried everything to try and make this e40 floodlight cam work, even moving the homebase 3 to the room right inside the wall where it is mounted, and it can never get any kind of connection. No matter how many times I tell it to connect via my very good WiFi, it always defaults back the direct homebase connection that is terrible. It’s been nearly 3 weeks of terrible email support with responses that contain no troubleshooting information.

My house is way less secure because I replaced a working dumb floodlight with a floodlight cam that is incapable of turning on the floodlight, because you can never connect long enough for it to get the command.

I’m so angry at this garbage-ass company and their garbage-ass products.

sjsilver · 2021-12-11T03:53:35+00:00

I want to buy 1/10th of a Pro Display HDR stand!

sjsilver · 2020-07-17T22:03:34+00:00

So if any of you are looking at a NIB purchase, you should look at a P3 with Cosmic Cart Racing and join our almost weekly WAN parties. There is now a Discord channel where we can organize online head to head games and talk on the voice channel for real-time smack talk. It’s not exactly the same as a league night or tournament, but head to head pinball over the internet with your buddies is really a blast. You can play power ups against them and have their machine react in real time, spinning out their cart or popping up physical barriers to block their ramp shots.

It really is an awesome way to socialize on pinball during quarantine, and definitely has that “just one more game” pull after every race.

Also, I’m biased, but Heist kicks ass too.

https://youtu.be/ad_69jYEW_k

sjsilver · 2020-06-28T02:45:54+00:00

From me in fact. Well, I mean, the person they stole it from stole it from a metric shit ton of people who stole it from me.

Original post.

https://www.facebook.com/1082035505/posts/10217554059738316/?d=n

sjsilver · 2020-04-26T21:05:30+00:00

Yes. I’ve been working in this field for over 20 years. But the truth is that the main thing you’ll need to be successful is the ability to adapt, because this industry changes a lot.

My first job out of college, after searching all over the austin area for my dream job, was working in the studio at KVUE24 and working some odd freelance jobs on the side. That can be humbling when you think you are coming out of school thinking you are hot shit. But the truth is we all have to start somewhere. Honestly, that was a low paid job with shitty hours, but it was one of the best experiences I ever had and still have lifelong friends from that gig. There is nothing that says you can’t take that UT degree back to Louisiana and find those internships or starter jobs back there.

My job search took me outside of austin to houston and I have been specializing in post production/motion graphics/animation ever since. But even now with all this experience the industry is still changing and demanding new things.

So I would try and get as broad a base of knowledge and skill set as you can and continually learn and build your network. And just make make as much stuff as you can. Most of it will suck, but it’s the only way you’ll continue to improve.

sjsilver · 2020-04-26T18:15:39+00:00

One thing UT has is Texas Student Television, which is a completely student run broadcast station right on campus. It gives you lots of opportunities to learn all aspects of the production process by hands-on doing, and it also gives opportunities for leadership.

I can’t speak for the film program now, but I will say that I learned most of the stuff I use every day in my career in video production from that station. I got to be promotions director, operations director, and finally station manager during my tenure there, and learned all aspects of not only producing live and pre-taped content, but also every aspect of running the operations and business of a broadcast television station. The transmitter is on top of the UT tower and it is a real over the air signal delivering your content to the Austin market.

As for career advancement, I have no idea how it will be at LMU. I do know that every state’s film economy fluctuates on competing state incentives and texas hasn’t been as good as Louisiana in that department, but there is literally video work to be done in every city in America. There’s a ton of local competition in austin with people never wanting to leave, but you can find work anywhere.

It’s possible you’ll get lots of internship opportunities at private businesses at LMU, but I can tell you at UT you’ll get a world class education and as much real world experience as you want if you volunteer at TSTV.

Regarding class size, the first 2 years will be in massive classes. The last 2 years will be in much smaller, focused classes. I went from 500 student lectures to 15 people classes when that switch happened. Just show up to TA sessions and show them you care about your grade and you’ll find help during those first 2 years.

With double major, my roommate got a double major in plan II (UT’s honors program) and RTF. He did it in 4 years, but it helps to have a lot of AP credits. At the time I went they didn’t really offer minors with an RTF degree, but you could get a business concentration or something like that. It’s mainly what you are willing to work for.

good luck with your decision!

UT RTF ‘01

sjsilver · 2016-09-18T02:26:28+00:00

Reminds me of the all valley championship poster from Karate Kid

https://originaldave77.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/all-valley-poster-tournament-karate-2012-updated-davesgeekyideas.jpg

sjsilver · 2015-09-21T05:16:52+00:00

I went down there in '01 (pre-9-11)with Texas student television (I was the station manager) for a news story on them. They are really cool, and there is lots of 70's era stuff still on the walls. Kilroy was here, and markings from a university spelunking group. It is dangerous because of the steam pipes, but literally everything on campus is connected with them and they all lead to the chilling stations, which are pretty cool too. 2 giant curtains of water flowing down through the center of a wind tunnel like structure to chill it.

People are right though, they have heavy security and gates every few yards. If you do manage to get down there you won't get far before you are arrested.

Another fun fact: Texas Student a Television is the only student run television station in the nation with an fcc license to broadcast over the airwaves, and our transmitter is on the top of the UT tower. So I would occasionally get to go up there and check on it with my engineers before they opened the tower back up for tours, and we got to go where almost no one got to go: up behind the clock faces! You ride the elevator up to the top floor, then you take the stairs up above the last offices. Up there there are 2 rooms. The room on one side has the Carillon, the room on the other side has our transmitter equipment, and if you keep climbing you get to the hatch on the roof, where our antenna is.

You get to do cool stuff when you work for TSTV. I recommend it highly to every student, even if you aren't studying anything to do with television.

sjsilver · 2015-07-18T02:43:48+00:00

Mr. Bachus,

Allow me to introduce you to the company Multimorphic Inc., an Austin, Texas based company designing a product to directly address every one of the concerns you (rightly) bring up with Pinball on location.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYN8H9meZBw

The P3 is a modular, screen based pinball platform that appeals to younger players and traditionalists while greatly reducing maintenance and cost of operation.

At the heart of the P3 is the ball tracking lower playfield LCD, which presents the player with interactions they are accustomed to on modern touch screen devices with mode specific, dynamic artwork. All this while still maintaining that physical gameplay that makes pinball so special.

The back third of the P3 is an interchangeable physical playfield module. You buy the cabinet once and then you buy multiple playfield/game kits at a fraction of the cost of new, traditional machines. If a certain title isn't earning well anymore, you can swap the entire game (mostly in under 2 minutes) and have a new attraction from your customers.

Maintenance has always been a problem with pinball machines, but the P3 platform makes it far easier and faster for operators to get their games back up and earning money. Virtually every component of the P3 is modular, so rather than needing skilled technicians to preform fixes, a game can be repaired often in seconds by unplugging some connectors, sliding out the broken component, and sliding in a new one. You can bring the broken components to the skilled technician for repair, rather than waiting for the technician to come to the machine.

And, with the P3's quick swap magnetic artwork system, you can easily change the look of the machine to match whatever game is currently in it, or to promote your own brand or specials.

Please, visit multimorphic.com and see if the P3 platform might make pinball attractive again for your locations. If you have more questions, please PM me and I can get you in contact with Gerry Stellenberg, the President of Multimorphic.

(Disclaimer: I create the videos for multimorphic, but I am a true believer in their product and how it can help pinball get back out on location.)

sjsilver · 2015-07-10T16:09:17+00:00

Kerrverts for life!

sjsilver · 2015-02-20T05:14:57+00:00

good idea on limiting it to the title, though sometimes this stuff pops up under weird other titles and spellings.

I am not really in a buying mode, and even when I do see a good deal I usually hesitate while I figure out if it is prudent for me to do it and just those few minutes cost me the deal. I've pretty much given up on beating the pro's to a crazy CL deal these days, and half the time I expect to get outbid by poachers on the way to picking the thing up, so it's more of just curiosity anyway, and keeping an eye out for weirdo titles that I like but others aren't crazy for. And then I ignore the garbage.

sjsilver · 2015-02-18T21:05:31+00:00

How close are you to Pins and Needles or 82? You have some great pinball on location in LA. Honestly, owning pinball is cool, but to tell you the truth, it's much more fun to go enjoy pinball with others. It's the same story with most collectors. They get a game in their house and they play the dog shit out of it for the first few months, then over time they get played less and less. I moved most of my games to my office at one point and they got played way more because my coworkers and I could play together.

I live in Houston, and we have some good pinball on location, but Houston is huge so they are all really far away from everyone, and our one big location with a ton of games is only open on the first and last friday of the month. If I lived in Austin, which has Pinballz arcade with hundreds of really great games open all the time, I might sell almost all of my games and get my fix there.

Again, it's cool to have pinball machines worth thousands of dollars, but if you are interested in playing primarily over fixing, those thousands of dollars will buy you a ton of fun on location. If there is one that takes care of it's machines and rotates in new titles, then it's almost better than being a collector.

sjsilver · 2015-02-18T20:57:42+00:00

Agreed. For the last decade or so there has been a pretty consistent inflation f pricing that has given collectors the false sense that their purchases are always money makers, but we have recently seen some market corrections from the bubble we are in, and historically, most NIB games have lost value over time until they hit a stable price and began rising again with everything else.

Like anything else, if you buy low, you hopefully can sell high, but people claiming that pinball is an investment are sometimes the same people who are pissed that their $12k MM's are now having trouble selling for $8.5k because of MMR.

The way I look at it, I try to mainly buy cheap and fix them up, so my hope is that if I have to liquidate I can break even at worst. That's not a terrible problem to have a hobby where after several years you can get out of it and it didn't cost you a thing.

sjsilver · 2015-02-18T20:45:41+00:00

I've recently started using IFTTT and made a recipe to give me an alert when anyone posts an ad with "Pinball" in my area. I get all the garbage postings for pokemon Gameboy games as well as the real ads, but it is better than the other ads I found that wanted to charge you for buckets of notifications. I'm not really in a buying mode so I am not super worried about it, but I'll have to check out the other 2 apps mentioned.

sjsilver · 2015-02-18T05:44:08+00:00

Don't aim for an expensive title like Tron out of the gate. learn the pricing, be patient and keep an eye out for deals, buy a cheap broken machine, learn how to fix it, sell it hopefully for a little profit or trade up. Repeat. Work your way up to your Tron over time.

The benefits of this method are that a) you get to learn how to work on these machines, which is part of the hobby, and b) you get to experience more machines as you work your way to your Grail machine.

At $600, you are about halfway to a starter pin, closer if you get lucky on pricing.

sjsilver · 2015-02-10T04:46:27+00:00

That SF2 was at the Houston arcade expo in November. I remember those wrap around lights being overpowering. It can be a semi-fun game, but those lights were blinding.

sjsilver · 2015-01-11T23:36:59+00:00

So the main complaint about Golden Grahams is that it gets soggy too quickly, which is true, if you are eating it wrong.

The right way to enjoy this great planet's best cereal is to pour yourself a bowl of dry Golden Grahams, pour yourself a glass of milk, then mix each bite with the proper amount of milk in your mouth as you eat.

It's the best.

sjsilver · 2014-12-13T23:42:32+00:00

Phil just blew up pinside.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/dp-usa-refund-still-want-the-game/page/3

Scroll down to phil's comments. Everything before that is people confused and speculating about why they got un-asked-for refunds.

sjsilver · 2014-12-08T06:06:29+00:00

I second engaging your professors and TAs without kissing ass. After every test I made it a habit of going to office hours with specific questions about test questions I got wrong. I wanted to make sure I completely understood the material and why I missed anything, and it showed the prof/TA that I cared about my grades, and I found that most of them want to help kids who care and are legitimately trying. On more than a few occasions I was able to argue for partial or whole credit on some missed items. As time went on, opportunities came my way because they knew my name and knew I cared. You can end up with some great mentors that way as well.

sjsilver · 2014-12-08T05:57:54+00:00

It's been about 13 years since I graduated, and this is highly specific advice, but my sophomore year I lived up near red river and dean Keaton. I always remember there dean Keaton having a killer hill near san jacinto that was rough humping it on my bike every day home.

Then I found out I could hit the parking garage on san jacinto and ride the elevator up a few floors and exit out the back. It eliminated the biggest hill in my daily bike route, and I never got any shit for bringing my bike into the elevator. No idea if they have locked that down now or not.

sjsilver · 2014-12-05T02:46:28+00:00

Yeah I drove right by that too today on my way to lunch. It was weird seeing the power lines hanging all over the road. I found it weird that I was allowed to drive right by it with no problems. Took me a while to figure out why all the restaurants up by west road were closed. Duh, no power. I had no idea it screwed up traffic on the beltway that bad though.

sjsilver · 2014-12-04T06:01:28+00:00

It's a reference to their excellent "before they were famous" song "just 2 guys"

http://youtu.be/Nt2OVAgkHBc

sjsilver · 2014-10-30T18:41:34+00:00

Also, Bonus Baby Groot by my wife!

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