Spirited News, Observations & Thoughts IV

[SirLink]

The Tron attraction had always been the e ticket that has been talked about. I can see them getting a Star Wars attraction as well but I do not think they will theme their Tomorrowland as Star Wars.

Oh I do. I see them ditching Tron like a bad habit - splitting the cost 3 ways between the resorts.

 

[WDWDad13]

OK, so I was thinking about what Dave said about this whole NGE multi-billion dollar boondoggle being something for the New York Times. And, lo and behold, I see tonight that the Orlando Sentinel has finally realized that just maybe this HUGE story sitting in their local mouse trap may be worthy of some newsprint and cyberwaves.

They want to know what fans think of NGE/MM+ and why. Well, here's my Spirited summation as the person who brought much of what NGE is and could be to y'all ...

Disney's NGE is the stealth, incessant and unsolicited monitoring, capturing and archiving of all guest activity -- or lack thereof -- for undisclosed purposes as well as trivial or contrived vacation planning. As such, it is incorrect to call it tracking. It is, by every measure, stalking.

And we all know how fair the Orlando Sentinel will be on any story towards Disney with no slant one way or the other. Typical media these days

 

[truecoat]

Love that our country stuffs "college greatness" down our throats when those college graduates can't even get a job they went and spent money for and end up working entry level positions in retail and at Starbucks! It's terrible...

They need an engineering degree, the job will come looking for them.

 

[Darth Sidious]

They need an engineering degree, the job will come looking for them.

Or accounting. I encourage that as well.

 

[Darth Sidious]

Magenta Panther sits at his desk, sweating. This next post will be enough to keep them away from him, right? They'll let him sleep well if he keeps up with this, right?

He closes his eyes and swallows. They started appearing a couple years ago in his dreams. Ever since Disney bought them out. The felt monsters with deadened eyes. It's like waking up to find that it's still late at night. The confusion comes first as he finds he can't move. Then the dread as he realizes what that sleep paralysis means. They're coming. They're here.

The door opens as someone who's far too short to reach the enters the room. Sometimes it's the pig. Sometimes it's the bear. Sometimes the frog. A couple of times, it's twisted felt idols of the people that love him. It doesn't matter who it is. They never show him mercy.

He's turned around, his face pressed into the pillow as they reach into his back towards his spinal column. Flesh parts easily, painlessly. Until daybreak, he's the puppet. He wakes up screaming when the light touches his eyes. It's always still nighttime. He always has to bring himself back down to sleep. It happens every night, unless he pushes them away. Unless he makes another post talking about how the Muppet brand just isn't right for Disney and how their brand of humor is too crude for the parks and how their acquisition was so terrible.

He opens his eyes again, shivering as he double-checks the post and then hits reply. This has to be enough for today. It has to be enough.

Bravo, haha. For anyone questioning The Muppets acquisition... Look at the price tag. They got a good deal and they have likely made that money back already.

 

[Horizons78]

Magenta Panther sits at his desk, sweating. This next post will be enough to keep them away from him, right?.....

"It was...There's no word to describe it. Schmooblydong? That's not it but it's close." - Roger, American Dad

 

[alphac2005]

watched dirty jobs guy Mike talk about this the other night...did you know there are 3 000 000 jobs surplus for skilled labor in america today (mechanics, electricians, plumbers etc) but we cant fill them because its taboo to bring up another option besides college...so we re giving out billions of dollars in loans to kids who cant find jobs to pay them back....jeesh

It's not just high skilled labor, but also high skilled tech. Where I live, many of our friends are in high-tech IT and several continue to job hop because they are in such high demand and one company after another is offering even better wages, bonuses, and incentives. We've become a culture that looks down upon manual labor and it's truly disgusting that people are like this. So for all of the moaning about jobs, there are actually a vast amount available and our people don't have the skills to do them. Instead, we send kids to college to get degrees in communications, arts, and other virtually worthless areas in terms of value in the job market. You have a long-term unemployment problem when the people who suffered the greatest job loss in the economic collapse don't have the skills for today's employment and kids go to college and get worthless degrees and can't even do any of the fundamentals right. Unfortunately, barely any politicians want to have a serious discussion about it and just tell everyone that we're the greatest place on Earth.

When the United States can finally come around to the reality that not every person can or should go to a four year college, then we might make some progress. Two year technical degrees that specialize in manufacturing can lead to extremely successful careers. Read all the stories out there about manufacturers that can't even find enough employees because their fundamental math skills are so poor that they can't perform at the even most basic of levels.

 

[Funmeister]

@WDW1974 are you saying Disney tried forcing UNI to give them the theme park rights to the marvel characters? Also let's say that Disney did have the rights for the use of the characters; how much of an effect would that have on the studios makeover?

From what I hear not only is Uni giving Marvel rights back but also adding Jurassic Park AND Universal Classic Monster rights for disney's trouble.

 

[BryceM]

Magenta Panther sits at his desk, sweating. This next post will be enough to keep them away from him, right? They'll let him sleep well if he keeps up with this, right?

He closes his eyes and swallows. They started appearing a couple years ago in his dreams. Ever since Disney bought them out. The felt monsters with deadened eyes. It's like waking up to find that it's still late at night. The confusion comes first as he finds he can't move. Then the dread as he realizes what that sleep paralysis means. They're coming. They're here.

The door opens as someone who's far too short to reach the enters the room. Sometimes it's the pig. Sometimes it's the bear. Sometimes the frog. A couple of times, it's twisted felt idols of the people that love him. It doesn't matter who it is. They never show him mercy.

He's turned around, his face pressed into the pillow as they reach into his back towards his spinal column. Flesh parts easily, painlessly. Until daybreak, he's the puppet. He wakes up screaming when the light touches his eyes. It's always still nighttime. He always has to bring himself back down to sleep. It happens every night, unless he pushes them away. Unless he makes another post talking about how the Muppet brand just isn't right for Disney and how their brand of humor is too crude for the parks and how their acquisition was so terrible.

He opens his eyes again, shivering as he double-checks the post and then hits reply. This has to be enough for today. It has to be enough.

I think I've read this 10 times now. Amazing.

 

[muteki]

They need an engineering degree, the job will come looking for them.

Graduated 6 or so years ago with an engineering degree in the middle of all the mess that went down. It was a good couple years of searching before things stabilized and sorted out. It is still that way, though to a lesser degree, today. If you want a degree where the people come begging for you to work for them, get into medical, specifically nursing. My other half graduated same time I did and had her choice of anywhere she wanted to work. Engineering is a great degree too get don't get me wrong, but it is an extremely competitive field with many recent paradigm shifts that have made it much less of a solid bet. No where near like how it was 15, 20 years ago.

 

[senor_jorge]

Graduated 6 or so years ago with an engineering degree in the middle of all the mess that went down. It was a good couple years of searching before things stabilized and sorted out. It is still that way, though to a lesser degree, today. If you want a degree where the people come begging for you to work for them, get into medical, specifically nursing. My other half graduated same time I did and had her choice of anywhere she wanted to work. Engineering is a great degree too get don't get me wrong, but it is an extremely competitive field with many recent paradigm shifts that have made it much less of a solid bet. No where near like how it was 15, 20 years ago.

I have friends in just about every engineering field and they all say the same thing... It's MUCH more competitive than it used to be. The focus on efficiency has eliminated positions, where a young engineer could learn and contribute to 'over-engineering' to learn the ropes and prepare for their career. Now it's almost solely about get the job done, or the product to market with the lowest develpment/delivery cost possible.

 

[sweetpee_1993]

It's not just high skilled labor, but also high skilled tech. Where I live, many of our friends are in high-tech IT and several continue to job hop because they are in such high demand and one company after another is offering even better wages, bonuses, and incentives. We've become a culture that looks down upon manual labor and it's truly disgusting that people are like this. So for all of the moaning about jobs, there are actually a vast amount available and our people don't have the skills to do them. Instead, we send kids to college to get degrees in communications, arts, and other virtually worthless areas in terms of value in the job market. You have a long-term unemployment problem when the people who suffered the greatest job loss in the economic collapse don't have the skills for today's employment and kids go to college and get worthless degrees and can't even do any of the fundamentals right. Unfortunately, barely any politicians want to have a serious discussion about it and just tell everyone that we're the greatest place on Earth.

When the United States can finally come around to the reality that not every person can or should go to a four year college, then we might make some progress. Two year technical degrees that specialize in manufacturing can lead to extremely successful careers. Read all the stories out there about manufacturers that can't even find enough employees because their fundamental math skills are so poor that they can't perform at the even most basic of levels.

The manufacturers in the town in Alabama where my folks live (Vanity Fair) closed up shop & went to Mexico. Overnight 1/3 of the town was jobless. Thank you, NAFTA!

 

[sweetpee_1993]

Graduated 6 or so years ago with an engineering degree in the middle of all the mess that went down. It was a good couple years of searching before things stabilized and sorted out. It is still that way, though to a lesser degree, today. If you want a degree where the people come begging for you to work for them, get into medical, specifically nursing. My other half graduated same time I did and had her choice of anywhere she wanted to work. Engineering is a great degree too get don't get me wrong, but it is an extremely competitive field with many recent paradigm shifts that have made it much less of a solid bet. No where near like how it was 15, 20 years ago.

My DH won't go back for his Engineering degree because he doesn't want the pay cut. He's a Sr. Piping Designer/Lead and makes considerably more than the Engineers. DS17 is looking to go into the same field. The 2 year degree is just fluff for paper but we're pushing him to get it regardless.

 

[lebeau]

Please consider some of my earlier posts on this thread from this weekend explaining Disney’s possible plans and how it adversely impacts you, the consumer. Effectively, Disney wants to collect and cross-reference a ton of information about you, including financial and behavioral information, to identify your “buyer’s reserve price” and make sure you are charged exactly that.

Unless you are a student of business or deal with auctions on a regular basis, you might be unfamiliar with the concept of a “reserve price”. In essence, a “seller’s reserve price” is the minimum a seller would be willing to sell an item for. If you’ve ever bid on eBay, you might have seen this as a “reserve price”. Less familiar is the idea of a “buyer’s reserve price”; the most a buyer would be willing to pay for something.

Consider the following auction example.

I’m selling an art painting worth millions. I know there are several bidders in the room interested but I don’t know how much they’d be willing to spend. In this case, the painting would go for only one bid above what the second highest bidder (called the underbidder) would be willing to pay. To many, the winning bid could be reasonably considered “fair market value”.

Now let’s say I am the seller and through a common acquaintance, I was able to find out what the high bidder’s reserve price was. I could then plant someone in the auction room and make sure they forced the bid up to that buyer’s reserve price. Great for me, the seller. Very bad for the buyer.

By collecting vast amounts of financial and behavioral data, Disney is trying to determine your buyer’s reserve price. Using a simplistic example, if they determined you were willing to pay $120 for a one-day ticket but everyone else was willing to pay only $100, they could raise ticket prices to $120 and then offer everyone except you a $20 off coupon.

What we’ve seen on these threads is a tendency for Big Business advocates to view this as “good”; the free marketplace in action.

I tend to view this as an unfair business practice, like knowing the buyer’s reserve price in the auction example I described above.

If Disney wants to find out my buyer’s reserve price, then perhaps they should disclose their seller’s reserve price. What’s the minimum they would be willing to sell me a ticket for?

Somehow, I don’t think they would be willing to do that.

Great post.

I wonder if Disney will realize that my buyer's reserve price keeps dropping.

 

[baymenxpac]

And we all know how fair the Orlando Sentinel will be on any story towards Disney with no slant one way or the other. Typical media these days

yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawn.

it's so lazy to just go, "blah blah media is slanted blah." it takes almost no capacity for abstract thought, the absence of which is largely responsible for the erosion of american culture that is being either hinted at or outright trumpeted in this thread. and since i have personally been censored by disney's social media team on this subject (@WDW1974 knows the story), it's much more likely that, if there is any slant, it will marginalize those who don't favor MM+.

but i'm starting to digress. long story short: a piece that asks for fan opinions and then reports fan opinions would be...ya know...a summary of fan opinions.

we get that you have no problem with next gen. good for you. it doesn't make the opinions of those who have concerns (from the nightmare scenarios you mocked earlier to the everyday nuisances -- how many marketing emails or telephone calls do you want?) any less valid.

 

[alphac2005]

The manufacturers in the town in Alabama where my folks live (Vanity Fair) closed up shop & went to Mexico. Overnight 1/3 of the town was jobless. Thank you, NAFTA!

NAFTA, where both average American and Mexican citizens lost in many ways. U.S. manufacturing jobs lost around 500k positions before the economic collapse and somewhere near another 180k after directly tied to manufacturing in Mexico. For what wasn't sent to Mexico or elsewhere, not highly skilled wage jobs have had their wages pushed down because the employer can essentially tell the employees or their union, "Then fine, we'll leave and send jobs to Mexico, etc.) On the flip, NAFTA made our food exports dirt cheap by removing tariffs and with our tax code with the agriculture bill, farmers in the States can sell the product below cost to Mexico and then still make a healthy profit with the incentives in the farm bill. Loss of an estimated 1.5 Mexican farm jobs. The big winner: Big business. Hm. Seems like a trend. Everything tilted to big business... shocking.

 

[WDWDad13]

we get that you have no problem with next gen. good for you. it doesn't make the opinions of those who have concerns (from the nightmare scenarios you mocked earlier to the everyday nuisances -- how many marketing emails or telephone calls do you want?) any less valid.

no one said people's concerns aren't valid... I just think they are being stretch and mangled more than Elastigirl when there are the exact same things and in reality far worse things happening to us right now OUTSIDE of Disney

 

[muteki]

My DH won't go back for his Engineering degree because he doesn't want the pay cut. He's a Sr. Piping Designer/Lead and makes considerably more than the Engineers. DS17 is looking to go into the same field. The 2 year degree is just fluff for paper but we're pushing him to get it regardless.

Certainly if you are already in and have the skill and experience you are good to go. Getting your foot in the door right out of college with an undergrad degree is however very difficult. Schools are pumping out talented grads like crazy and employers have over 20 heads to choose from for every position. Most go for contractor work too so they don't have to pay for benefits either.

Best thing to do is intern/co-op a lot, as early and as often as possible. Never would have landed my first position with just classroom experience.

 

[sweetpee_1993]

no one said people's concerns aren't valid... I just think they are being stretch and mangled more than Elastigirl when there are the exact same things and in reality far worse things happening to us right now OUTSIDE of Disney

And people are concerned that the same bad things being done to us right now outside Disney will soon be taking place IN Disney, where people go to escape all that stress. Info is trickling out that points to this.

 

[scout68]

IHeartArt said: ↑
Magenta Panther sits at his desk, sweating. This next post will be enough to keep them away from him, right? They'll let him sleep well if he keeps up with this, right?

He closes his eyes and swallows. They started appearing a couple years ago in his dreams. Ever since Disney bought them out. The felt monsters with deadened eyes. It's like waking up to find that it's still late at night. The confusion comes first as he finds he can't move. Then the dread as he realizes what that sleep paralysis means. They're coming. They're here.

The door opens as someone who's far too short to reach the enters the room. Sometimes it's the pig. Sometimes it's the bear. Sometimes the frog. A couple of times, it's twisted felt idols of the people that love him. It doesn't matter who it is. They never show him mercy.

He's turned around, his face pressed into the pillow as they reach into his back towards his spinal column. Flesh parts easily, painlessly. Until daybreak, he's the puppet. He wakes up screaming when the light touches his eyes. It's always still nighttime. He always has to bring himself back down to sleep. It happens every night, unless he pushes them away. Unless he makes another post talking about how the Muppet brand just isn't right for Disney and how their brand of humor is too crude for the parks and how their acquisition was so terrible.

He opens his eyes again, shivering as he double-checks the post and then hits reply. This has to be enough for today. It has to be enough.


Awesome, simply awesome.




Oh how I wish @IHeartArt were complete shut in with so little to do that they would take on my mostly uncomprehendable posts and (as a ghost writer of course) punch them up and well basically rewrite them.

Then I would be a disney thread god! Yes a thread god.