Spirited News, Observations & Thoughts Tres

[Calvin Coolidge]

This reminds me of the Russian Cosmonaut and the US Astronaut who were comparing equipment on the ISS.

The US Astronaut showed off the amazing pen that NASA had spent nearly a million developing and purchasing. It could write upside down, the ink didn't smudge, and it could even be used underwater.

The Russian looked at it, impressed, and said "Da, ve have this too. Ve call it pencil."

This is apocryphal. You can't use pencils in zero gravity.
http://www.snopes.com/business/genius/spacepen.asp

 

[Computer Magic]

4.5 million was the final price tag for the house (much of that was land, it's inside the perimeter in Atlanta near the governors mansion...not the cheapest area). I'd suggested to him, since he was doing ground up construction for it, that he should run copper throughout the house (what I told him was, as a general rule, wherever you have a power outlet, go ahead and put a network outlet...though I worked with the vendor who did the wiring for him and it wasn't that much). He got into a spat with them over ~5k, and the vendor walked out with the job half done.

Of course, he didn't tell me this, and they finished construction. Then he calls me out and I'm trying to pull cable AFTER walls are up. In a house that has 16 - 20 foot ceilings. <sigh>

I could see a billion on Wifi (though it could be done cheaper, I suspect), when you consider the size of the property and the resorts, etc. But, at least in my experience, the Wifi there is terrible. They turned it on at the parks while I was in my trip last August. I do recall it being better on the parks than at my resort (Pop).

So, I'm left scratching my head wondering what exactly a billion bought?

Yeah much cheaper running cable before the dry wall. Similar situation recently.

All I can say for a Billion dollars, there better not be one ounce of dead zone, seamless transfer from one AP to another, no drop connection, no speed issues or downtime. Which I saw plenty of at a Deluxe resort and the parks in Feb.

I go back to was most of that money spent on the application ie wristband, FP system, etc. However customer satisfaction will be based on connection. If I can't get my FP+ because WiFi was down in my room, isn't going to sit well, no matter how cool that colorful armband looks

It becomes arm candy.

 

[englanddg]

This is apocryphal. You can't use pencils in zero gravity.
http://www.snopes.com/business/genius/spacepen.asp

Your snopes link specifically says that you can, but NASA didn't find it ideal due to various reasons (breaking, fire hazard, etc).

But, that aside, it was just a joke.

 

[englanddg]

Yeah much cheaper running cable before the dry wall. Similar situation recently.

All I can say for a Billion dollars, there better not be one ounce of dead zone, seamless transfer from one AP to another, no drop connection, no speed issues or downtime. Which I saw plenty of at a Deluxe resort and the parks in Feb.

I go back to was most of that money spent on the application ie wristband, FP system, etc. However customer satisfaction will be based on connection. If I can't get my FP+ because WiFi was down in my room, isn't going to sit well.

Yeah, agreed.

 

[RSoxNo1]

Speaking of spending.
http://micechat.com/30626-disneyland-resort-6/

This is the most telling part of this that many on here argued for years:

People are going to point to Cars Land and say “See what happens when you give WDI an unlimited budget?!?!?” Agreed! I LOVE Cars Land! BUT, anyone notice the dearth of new attractions at WDW the last few years? The lack of a true E-Ticket in the New Fantasyland? As much as people like to pit the TDO (Team Disney Orlando) versus TDA (Team Disney Anaheim), the reality is that it all comes out of the same budget…Parks & Resorts. Now think about if WDI had some competition in bidding for those projects. I’m not standing too far out on a limb to argue that an open bid process for Cars Land and New Fantasyland could result in enough funding being freed up to finally give Disneyland or Epcot that new E-Ticket (or a bunch of smaller attractions) they have been waiting for…all within the same budget.

The fact is that while DCA's makeover was going on it was the only time in Disney World's History where they went more than 3 years without building an E-ticket.

 

[GoofGoof]

This is the most telling part of this that many on here argued for years:

People are going to point to Cars Land and say “See what happens when you give WDI an unlimited budget?!?!?” Agreed! I LOVE Cars Land! BUT, anyone notice the dearth of new attractions at WDW the last few years? The lack of a true E-Ticket in the New Fantasyland? As much as people like to pit the TDO (Team Disney Orlando) versus TDA (Team Disney Anaheim), the reality is that it all comes out of the same budget…Parks & Resorts. Now think about if WDI had some competition in bidding for those projects. I’m not standing too far out on a limb to argue that an open bid process for Cars Land and New Fantasyland could result in enough funding being freed up to finally give Disneyland or Epcot that new E-Ticket (or a bunch of smaller attractions) they have been waiting for…all within the same budget.

The fact is that while DCA's makeover was going on it was the only time in Disney World's History where they went more than 3 years without building an E-ticket.

Our turn, our turn. Show me the money

 

[Computer Magic]

This is the most telling part of this that many on here argued for years:

People are going to point to Cars Land and say “See what happens when you give WDI an unlimited budget?!?!?” Agreed! I LOVE Cars Land! BUT, anyone notice the dearth of new attractions at WDW the last few years? The lack of a true E-Ticket in the New Fantasyland? As much as people like to pit the TDO (Team Disney Orlando) versus TDA (Team Disney Anaheim), the reality is that it all comes out of the same budget…Parks & Resorts. Now think about if WDI had some competition in bidding for those projects. I’m not standing too far out on a limb to argue that an open bid process for Cars Land and New Fantasyland could result in enough funding being freed up to finally give Disneyland or Epcot that new E-Ticket (or a bunch of smaller attractions) they have been waiting for…all within the same budget.

The fact is that while DCA's makeover was going on it was the only time in Disney World's History where they went more than 3 years without building an E-ticket.

Agree, I don't know how many times I got flamed by saying budgets are shared across entities. If money is spent in one place then less is being spent elsewhere.

It's the same budget.

 

[Clever Name]

Your snopes link specifically says that you can, but NASA didn't find it ideal due to various reasons (breaking, fire hazard, etc).

But, that aside, it was just a joke.

Here is a photo of the NASA zero gravity pen:

 

[Computer Magic]

Our turn, our turn. Show me the money

The problem here IMHO Disney feels it spent a lot of money between 1984 -2000 to get WDW up to par (maximize shareholder value).

Now they are trying to recoup their investment.

 

[Computer Magic]

Here is a photo of the NASA zero gravity pen:

Now that is worth a billion dollars

 

[englanddg]

Here is a photo of the NASA zero gravity pen:

Designed by H.G. Wells?

 

[GoofGoof]

The problem here IMHO Disney feels it spent a lot of money between 1984 -2000 to get WDW up to par (maximize shareholder value).

Now they are trying to recoup their investment.

The success of DCL probably doesn't help. The ROI on a new ship is probably a lot easier to quantify than WDW projects.

 

[sshindel]

When I see Disney able to even successfully test MyMAGIC+ with a small group of CMs, maybe I'll view this as only a ginormous boondoggle. IT upgrades don't have to cost billions.

I agree. IT upgrades do not have to cost billions. It would depend on the scope of the changes really. It's why I keep fishing around to find out what all they actually did before I make up my mind on if this was a colossal over-spend, or just a normal business-as-usual over-spend. A massive, company-wide overhaul might, given the size of Disney, end up nearing a number starting with a B. Doing the small stuff we see on the surface, the interactive stuff, the data-mining stuff, only those things, that shouldn't have come close.
I also agree that given what you and others have said about the rollout of this thing, it was a boondoggle. Again though, from my experience, I'm not surprised at that in the least either.

 

[flynnibus]

The challenge is.. these aren't just 'IT Upgrades' - it's like building out a city. wifi over many many square miles both indoors AND outdoors.. for tens of thousands of concurrent users.. oh and getting network to all those thousands of WAPs.. through existing structures. And that's just the physical 'cable plant'. Now do all the network management, bandwidth, etc. Ok, great.. now you just have a network. What about all those applications?

Just touching the hotel systems like they did I'm sure cost then several hundred million dollars. And the sad thing is.. the poor performance we've heard of.

Often in these discussions we forget the true scale of WDW... in both physical and capacity points of view. The numbers are just mind boggling compared to traditional deployments.

 

[Longhairbear]

That is an interesting point. Someone def needs to to find out if it still lives! Calling all California residents...

I've been to the mansion overlay yearly, and can't figure out what sign the article mentions. Perhaps I see it all the time.

 

[articos]

Do you know more specifically? I know they used Maya and MotionBuilder for the film. AutoCAD and maybe are it seem to be a given.


Maybe it was meant to be implied, but I think the author missed taking not of the role of a singular authority on show quality. I'd also like to know how that $1000 sign is doing. Is it still be used and still usable for years to come? Haunted Mansion Holiday is coming up on its tenth year. Just as an example, if the were going through ten signs a year at $10 a piece, they'd be hitting that $1000 mark this year. If that sign still has life in it the park as a whole is nearing the point where they would be saving money, all the while having higher show quality.

Most of what they used has been incorporated into Autodesk Entertainment Creation Suite, which includes Maya, 3ds, SoftImage and MotionBuilder, but they also used Flame and other Autodesk products. Most CG work that's not proprietary nearly always includes Maya and 3ds, and Jim's team saw the potential of MotionBuilder early on and built on that. They had a bunch of proprietary code and 3rd party solutions they picked piecemeal - Adobe's products, Apple products, Digital Domain's in-house software, Foundry's Nuke and Mari, Microsoft's Asset Management, ILM's in-house solution, Weta's in house digital solutions, Pixar's Alfred...you name it, Jim used or invented it. The camera system was built from scratch by Jim and Pace. After filming, Jim's team worked with Autodesk to incorporate a lot of the improvements and built software into what became the Ent. Creation Suite.

That is an interesting point. Someone def needs to to find out if it still lives! Calling all California residents...

I've been thinking about this, and if it's the sign I think it is, yes, it still lives. Whether or not Ops remembers to pull it out and use it is a different question altogether since I don't think I've seen it every year, but I do remember seeing it in the past 2 years. It's a nice sign, if a bit of overkill. A molded version would have done the trick just as well for less than half the cost, if painted properly. But this one fits and looks like it belongs. It's usually up over to the left of Mansion's entry gates. More interestingly, I think I actually remember the printed sign Mr. Accountineer is talking about, too. I remember it because I remember looking at it and specifically noting it looked completely out of place - it was a paper printed sign, tacked up to designate stroller parking, but it looked like a printed piece of paper. I specifically remember mentioning to friends how it looked completely out of place, and was odd, considering how impressive the rest of the overlay was.

 

[Figment1986]

Actually, in thinking about it, I lied ... a little.

There was one weak thing on the cruise and it was something I had been warned about: Toy Story The Musical. Very bad idea (and recall this show was planned to replace Aladdin at DCA) ... now, I can tell they spent money on it. I have no doubt they wanted it to be good. It's just you can't make a musical out of anything ... This baby makes DAK's Nemo show look like a Tony candidate. There is one song in Toy Story (let's all sing together) and trying to create music for this just didn't work.

As a person who saw that "thing" during one of my cruises... I couldn't find ANYTHING good about it. Every other musical and production DCL has done... brilliant, then there's this evil stepchild... All I will say on this forum about it.

 

[Darth Sidious]

Great column and VERY spot on as to how things are done.

The process seems responsible from a business standpoint but it also seems that too many chiefs have their say before a budget is finalized. There should be a better communication between low and high level finance execs so the pressing needs are better addressed. Unfortunately, to me, it seems it is likely something that will never be changed unless a high level exec has a soft spot for one particular part of the company (P&R) or someone sees greater profitability opportunities than they currently feel they can achieve (likely what green lit MM+).

 

[Darth Sidious]

Speaking of spending.
http://micechat.com/30626-disneyland-resort-6/

Very interesting, thank you for sharing that.

 

[DocMcHulk]

As to the not-so-veiled shot, I'll put my track record against anyone in either online media or real media. My UNI info has actually been damn near 100% accurate. Disney not quite as good because they can't make decisions and actually follow through. Doubt my info if you chose, either way, I'll sleep the same tonight.

That's actually a good point. I think too often some peope, including yourself, will say something... it doesnt happen... then people say the insider clearly doesnt know what they are talking about. But when the info is constantly moving around instead of a well directed arrow (Uni), it's hard to be right.