Except, as another poster pointed out, it's against the law to resell multi-day tickets in Florida, plus it's a civil issue as well since the tickets are clearly marked as nontransferable.
Having said that, I seriously doubt any individual would ever be prosecuted or sued for it, so Disney is attempting to recoup the perceived loss in a manner fairly unlikely to get them skinned alive in the court of public opinion. If it helps any, I still think they're greedy bastards that have done a lot more to damage our society than just keep people from selling their unused tickets.
It depends on the park. The last Christmas I worked there, the Magic Kingdom was refusing admission for everyone (resort guests included) when they hit 61K. Average summer evening would be about 25-30K. Epcot can handle significantly more since it's a much larger park, and likewise, MGM can't handle nearly that many.
They previously covered that by requiring a handstamp as you left a park. Any previously used ticket media presented for admission that wasn't tied to you biometrically had to be accompanied by a handstamp, or they wouldn't let you in. They were pretty strict about it.
Even then, you still see some stupidity. I used to work for a large laser marking system manufacturer, and my boss was insistent that we have some kind of copy-protection system to prevent the software from running on unauthorized computers, as if the $150,000 worth of proprietary hardware it wouldn't work without wasn't enough. He then came back with, "well, a competitor might figure out how to run it without the laser". My response was that a serious competitor wouldn't care about the expense, and would just purchase one of our machines through a shell company and go from there. Idiots, especially for the fact that the software was shit that no one would want to use anyway.
But it's much better for them if every family member is forced to buy their own pass, regardless of whether any two people will be attempting to use it simultaneously.
Ok, that is fair, but it would have seemed better to use something like "It was used twice in minutes? That makes no sense!" Or perhaps "They haven't left the building yet, how has it been used elsewhere?"
They've already been doing that for years - if you attempt to use a single pass more than once in an hour, the system flags it and won't let you in without the attendant overriding the system.
Because it DOES cost them money when people aren't tied to a specific ticket, but you have to understand how they sell tickets to see why. Disney sells single-day and multiple-day tickets, as well as seasonal and annual passes. If Disney sells you a five-day ticket and has the technical means to prevent someone else from using it, then that means that you can't use only two days (let's say you got bored and decided to go somewhere else), then sell the remaining three days on the ticket to someone else. It means that if another person wants a three-day ticket, they have to buy it from Disney instead of buying your remaining days. So in this case, even though only five days' admission might actually have been used between you and the other guy, Disney actually sold eight days for practically no extra expense. That's a substantial chunk of cash they're trying to avoid losing.
I didn't say it was right, just that they have an understandable reason for enforcing the non-transferability clause in the ticket agreement.
If you don't research your trip, it's your own damn fault. If I want to go to Disneyworld but I don't bother to look up when it's open, it's my own damn fault if I get there and it's closed.
God damn, I wish every guest had been like you when I worked there. Never mind that park schedules are generally available no less than a month in advance, people will still whine about early park hours or something else that a little research would have told them. My favorites were all of the people that got upset the first weekend of June each year...
What will be really interesting is how they use this to make more money. Undoubtedly, the installation of this system cost money, without any obvious profit as a result. Will they sell this database of prints? Will they track the size-shift in your prints and correlate it to age data? Will they track how often you come to the parks and extrapolate what attractions you're interested in?
No, it's not that complex. They've already been using the system for years to prevent multiple people from using a single seasonal or annual pass. They're now attempting to do the same for multi-day tickets now - there's a booming business in the Kissimmee area for multi-day tickets with unused days on them, and Disney has wanted to shut that down for years as it represents a substantial cost in lost ticket sales. The readers themselves are not that expensive, and you'd gag if you saw the infrastructure that Disney already has in place, so any additional hardware costs would be a drop in the bucket for them.
+5 to the parent poster. Last I heard, they were less than 80% accurate (meaning one out of every five people couldn't get a good scan), and if you can't get your fingers to verify, the front entrance people will generally auto-rotate the turnstile and let you in anyway.
I do think it's pretty cheesy that they require it of tickets other than seasonal/annual passes now, but I expect it's because A.) they're attempting to enforce the official non-transferability policy printed on the ticket to prevent people from selling multi-day tickets with unused days to the shady folks on U.S. 192 who then re-sell them back to the general public, and B.) they get the ability to strong-arm more personal information from people that they otherwise wouldn't during single and multi-day ticket purchases. Disney makes more money if they can prevent the outside sales, and part of the reason I don't work for them anymore is because I've seen just how protective they are of their bottom line - safety and the best interests of the customer be damned.
There are also situations where the lower court dismisses the case and the *prosecution* appeals, and that sometimes results in a conviction that overrides the lower court's dismissal. Google "John Lutters" for an example of this, as well as a textbook example of legislating from the bench.
Tell me about it - it's ridiculous that even though my TV has VGA and DVI inputs, I still have to use the component video input for my Xbox. I've given some serious consideration to buying a standalone DVD player with a DVI output because I'm less than totally impressed with the Xbox's DVD playback.
It's not that it's optimizing the code for Intel chips, rather it's actively degrading the code for the AMD chips as a previous poster pointed out in a good bit of technical detail.
i still hear the security announcements about bags once a week
Contrast that with hearing "mind the gap" every damn time you get on and off a train at a tube station. Paying attention to where one walks is fairly automatic, but people need to be reminded about unattended bags. I don't think an increase in security will do nearly as much good as people simply being more observant and aware of their surroundings.
Yes you were, and people did it all the time. You generally wouldn't see people with Bowie knives, but pocketknives and straight razors were common. I'm with the grandparent poster - flying is simply too much of a hassle now to be worth it for all except very long distance trips, and I don't believe we've had any measurable increase in real security.
Lotus also provided a complete office suite with Symphony some years after 1-2-3 hit the market. Unfortunately the execution wasn't as good as the idea.
Re:Ballmer means "marketshare" not "innovation"
on
Ballmer on Innovation
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· Score: 1
Steve Ballmer: "Innovation!!"
Inigo Montoya: "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means..."
With Wifi using radio spectrum, it's a necessary part of its operation that requires that it transmit its existance so that authorized nodes can connect to it.
Mine works just fine with SSID broadcast turned off. Authorized nodes should already know of the existence of the AP, and I'd argue that the entire point of SSID broadcast was to make it easy for wireless nodes to find an AP that they didn't already know about. Under the informal rules the Internet operates under, if you jump up and down yelling, "available network node here!!", it's an effective invitation to use said network.
If we're talking about an AP that has SSID turned off, one could make an argument that the owner didn't want the public using their equipment. If SSID is on, then I feel they're advertising their availability to the general public. I'd agree that manufacturers need to educate their customers quite a bit more, but ultimately I think the AP owners have to bear the responsibility for the use of their equipment and put at least basic measures in place if they don't want world+dog using it.
Entering your property, locked or unlocked, without permission is called trespass. That's a crime.
Very correct, but when entering a public place like a shopping mall, one assumes implicit permission to come onto the owners' property and avail themselves of the facilities within. The owners are of course free to ask you to leave and have you prosecuted for trespassing if you don't, but the initial assumption is that you are welcome there. Facilities that are open to the public are generally assumed to be encouraging visitors unless clearly marked otherwise.
Likewise, you're free to prevent public use of your AP by taking very rudimentary steps to indicate that it's for use by authorized parties only. Otherwise, as others have pointed out, one could reasonably assume that access is allowed because of the active participation of the AP (and by extension, the owner) in getting you online. Certainly, if the owner doesn't want you using his bandwidth, he won't help you do it, right? Comparing an unsecured AP to an unlocked door is not a good analogy; rather, it's more like a locked door that you knock on, the owner answers, and lets you into the house.
Slashdot Mirror
Except, as another poster pointed out, it's against the law to resell multi-day tickets in Florida, plus it's a civil issue as well since the tickets are clearly marked as nontransferable.
Having said that, I seriously doubt any individual would ever be prosecuted or sued for it, so Disney is attempting to recoup the perceived loss in a manner fairly unlikely to get them skinned alive in the court of public opinion. If it helps any, I still think they're greedy bastards that have done a lot more to damage our society than just keep people from selling their unused tickets.
It depends on the park. The last Christmas I worked there, the Magic Kingdom was refusing admission for everyone (resort guests included) when they hit 61K. Average summer evening would be about 25-30K. Epcot can handle significantly more since it's a much larger park, and likewise, MGM can't handle nearly that many.
Except we're not talking about fingerprint scanners here.
They previously covered that by requiring a handstamp as you left a park. Any previously used ticket media presented for admission that wasn't tied to you biometrically had to be accompanied by a handstamp, or they wouldn't let you in. They were pretty strict about it.
Even then, you still see some stupidity. I used to work for a large laser marking system manufacturer, and my boss was insistent that we have some kind of copy-protection system to prevent the software from running on unauthorized computers, as if the $150,000 worth of proprietary hardware it wouldn't work without wasn't enough. He then came back with, "well, a competitor might figure out how to run it without the laser". My response was that a serious competitor wouldn't care about the expense, and would just purchase one of our machines through a shell company and go from there. Idiots, especially for the fact that the software was shit that no one would want to use anyway.
But it's much better for them if every family member is forced to buy their own pass, regardless of whether any two people will be attempting to use it simultaneously.
Ok, that is fair, but it would have seemed better to use something like "It was used twice in minutes? That makes no sense!" Or perhaps "They haven't left the building yet, how has it been used elsewhere?"
They've already been doing that for years - if you attempt to use a single pass more than once in an hour, the system flags it and won't let you in without the attendant overriding the system.
Because it DOES cost them money when people aren't tied to a specific ticket, but you have to understand how they sell tickets to see why. Disney sells single-day and multiple-day tickets, as well as seasonal and annual passes. If Disney sells you a five-day ticket and has the technical means to prevent someone else from using it, then that means that you can't use only two days (let's say you got bored and decided to go somewhere else), then sell the remaining three days on the ticket to someone else. It means that if another person wants a three-day ticket, they have to buy it from Disney instead of buying your remaining days. So in this case, even though only five days' admission might actually have been used between you and the other guy, Disney actually sold eight days for practically no extra expense. That's a substantial chunk of cash they're trying to avoid losing.
I didn't say it was right, just that they have an understandable reason for enforcing the non-transferability clause in the ticket agreement.
If you don't research your trip, it's your own damn fault. If I want to go to Disneyworld but I don't bother to look up when it's open, it's my own damn fault if I get there and it's closed.
God damn, I wish every guest had been like you when I worked there. Never mind that park schedules are generally available no less than a month in advance, people will still whine about early park hours or something else that a little research would have told them. My favorites were all of the people that got upset the first weekend of June each year...
What will be really interesting is how they use this to make more money. Undoubtedly, the installation of this system cost money, without any obvious profit as a result. Will they sell this database of prints? Will they track the size-shift in your prints and correlate it to age data? Will they track how often you come to the parks and extrapolate what attractions you're interested in?
No, it's not that complex. They've already been using the system for years to prevent multiple people from using a single seasonal or annual pass. They're now attempting to do the same for multi-day tickets now - there's a booming business in the Kissimmee area for multi-day tickets with unused days on them, and Disney has wanted to shut that down for years as it represents a substantial cost in lost ticket sales. The readers themselves are not that expensive, and you'd gag if you saw the infrastructure that Disney already has in place, so any additional hardware costs would be a drop in the bucket for them.
+5 to the parent poster. Last I heard, they were less than 80% accurate (meaning one out of every five people couldn't get a good scan), and if you can't get your fingers to verify, the front entrance people will generally auto-rotate the turnstile and let you in anyway.
I do think it's pretty cheesy that they require it of tickets other than seasonal/annual passes now, but I expect it's because A.) they're attempting to enforce the official non-transferability policy printed on the ticket to prevent people from selling multi-day tickets with unused days to the shady folks on U.S. 192 who then re-sell them back to the general public, and B.) they get the ability to strong-arm more personal information from people that they otherwise wouldn't during single and multi-day ticket purchases. Disney makes more money if they can prevent the outside sales, and part of the reason I don't work for them anymore is because I've seen just how protective they are of their bottom line - safety and the best interests of the customer be damned.
Or Moische, Herschel, and Schlomo...
There are also situations where the lower court dismisses the case and the *prosecution* appeals, and that sometimes results in a conviction that overrides the lower court's dismissal. Google "John Lutters" for an example of this, as well as a textbook example of legislating from the bench.
Starling McNuggets....mmmmm....
Two words for those with such a fear: "Netflix" and "Blockbuster".
Tell me about it - it's ridiculous that even though my TV has VGA and DVI inputs, I still have to use the component video input for my Xbox. I've given some serious consideration to buying a standalone DVD player with a DVI output because I'm less than totally impressed with the Xbox's DVD playback.
:-)
Yeah, I know, it's only $149.
It's not that it's optimizing the code for Intel chips, rather it's actively degrading the code for the AMD chips as a previous poster pointed out in a good bit of technical detail.
It's a very different thing to be afraid of a bomb than it is to be afraid of old age.
Very true - you're much, much more likely to die or be disabled at the hands of old age.
i still hear the security announcements about bags once a week
Contrast that with hearing "mind the gap" every damn time you get on and off a train at a tube station. Paying attention to where one walks is fairly automatic, but people need to be reminded about unattended bags. I don't think an increase in security will do nearly as much good as people simply being more observant and aware of their surroundings.
Yes you were, and people did it all the time. You generally wouldn't see people with Bowie knives, but pocketknives and straight razors were common. I'm with the grandparent poster - flying is simply too much of a hassle now to be worth it for all except very long distance trips, and I don't believe we've had any measurable increase in real security.
Lotus also provided a complete office suite with Symphony some years after 1-2-3 hit the market. Unfortunately the execution wasn't as good as the idea.
Steve Ballmer: "Innovation!!"
Inigo Montoya: "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means..."
isn't it arrogant of him to think himself above any kind of proficiency test?
Not in the least, considering his resume...
With Wifi using radio spectrum, it's a necessary part of its operation that requires that it transmit its existance so that authorized nodes can connect to it.
Mine works just fine with SSID broadcast turned off. Authorized nodes should already know of the existence of the AP, and I'd argue that the entire point of SSID broadcast was to make it easy for wireless nodes to find an AP that they didn't already know about. Under the informal rules the Internet operates under, if you jump up and down yelling, "available network node here!!", it's an effective invitation to use said network.
If we're talking about an AP that has SSID turned off, one could make an argument that the owner didn't want the public using their equipment. If SSID is on, then I feel they're advertising their availability to the general public. I'd agree that manufacturers need to educate their customers quite a bit more, but ultimately I think the AP owners have to bear the responsibility for the use of their equipment and put at least basic measures in place if they don't want world+dog using it.
Entering your property, locked or unlocked, without permission is called trespass. That's a crime.
Very correct, but when entering a public place like a shopping mall, one assumes implicit permission to come onto the owners' property and avail themselves of the facilities within. The owners are of course free to ask you to leave and have you prosecuted for trespassing if you don't, but the initial assumption is that you are welcome there. Facilities that are open to the public are generally assumed to be encouraging visitors unless clearly marked otherwise.
Likewise, you're free to prevent public use of your AP by taking very rudimentary steps to indicate that it's for use by authorized parties only. Otherwise, as others have pointed out, one could reasonably assume that access is allowed because of the active participation of the AP (and by extension, the owner) in getting you online. Certainly, if the owner doesn't want you using his bandwidth, he won't help you do it, right? Comparing an unsecured AP to an unlocked door is not a good analogy; rather, it's more like a locked door that you knock on, the owner answers, and lets you into the house.