People commonly believe that pinball has a random element (which it de facto does), and I assumed TFA was going be a dive into the precise (and technically dete

People commonly believe that pinball has a random element (which it de facto does), and I assumed TFA was going be a dive into the precise (and technically deterministic) Newtonian physics underlying things like bumpers. But this seems to be attacking a dubious-bordering-on-straw-man position claiming that it's purely random. Even the people shown calling it random sound less like they're calling it inherently random, and more like when I talk about something that I'm sufficiently bad at that any success is more a matter of luck than skill. (Of course, as hakfoo points out, early 'pinball' was basically roulette in cartesian coordinates with more complications, but I don't know of anyone who non-trick-questionishly means that rather than actual pinball when they say "pinball" without disambiguation, so that's if anything a even-more-straw-stuffed position to be trying to correct.)