Extreme Stunts

Posted on December 24, 2007 by Alvin Trusty

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If you visit Disney’s MGM park, you must see the Extreme Stunts show.  Half a dozen cars “dance” at speeds up to 70 MPH in a cozy venue similar to what you would find at a county fair.  The cars, motorcycles and jet skis all move in a high-speed choreographed chase with lots of burning rubber, fire and jumps.

In the behind the scenes tour the guide said they go through a complete set of tires for every car in each show.  Our show was flawless, but judging from the stacks of spare bumpers and fenders, they probably have a few mishaps along the way.

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Disney Tech

Posted on December 23, 2007 by Alvin Trusty

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I have been impressed with the technologies used “behind the scenes” at Disney World.  Our park entrance ticket is a credit card with a graphic on it.  The one I’m holding has the Incredibles.  Are tickets worked for multiple days.  As we checked in, we swiped the card and touched a finger print scanner.  The scanner prevents multiple people from using the same card.

Most of the popular rides had FastPass stations.  By swiping an entrance ticket a FastPass card was generated.  Using the FastPass a rider could skip the normal queue for a ride and go right to the front.  If you have been to Cedar Point, they use hand stamps to do this.  This limits a rider to a total of two line jumps per day.  At Disney, the technology behind the FastPass lets a rider have more than two FastPasses per day and it does so in a fair way. 

Each FastPass has a one hour window when the short-cut is available.  There is also a time printed on the FastPass, usually an hour or two after the FastPass is issued, when the rider is eligible for another FastPass.

Another cool technology was the Photopass.  Disney is all about Disney characters.  There’s Mickey, Goofy, Donald and all those movie characters.  They are stationed at different parts of the park and at each venue there is a professional photographer.  Guests are free to take as many pictures as they like, but a Disney photographer also snaps a few with a high end DSLR and links your pictures to a Photopass (in picture above) using a 2D barcode.  Once you have a Photopass from on venue, any other Disney photographer (and they are everywhere) can snap your picture and scan your card’s barcode.  Over time, you can have photos taken all over the park linked to one Photopass.

When you get home, a URL and code on the card get you into all your photos.  The prints are expensive, but if you miss a shot of your daughter with the Little Mermaid, it might be worth it.

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The Drive

Posted on December 22, 2007 by Alvin Trusty

Today we are driving to Florida along with what appears to be most of North America.  From Ohio to Atlanta, Georgia, the trip has been perfect.  Somewhere around Macon, Georgia, everything came to a crawl.  This continued about every half hour until we reached the turnpike in Florida.  In other words, the stretch took about three hours longer than it normally does.

Fortunately we are equipped with more technology than the first moon landing.  We have a DVD player in each van (we have a two-car caravan going here).  That has kept the kids occupied.  We watched (they watched while I listened) A Christmas Story, Christmas Vacation, The Santa Clause (1, 2 and 3), The Grinch (original version) and several Mickey Mouse Christmas things I have never heard of before.  We also have a few computers with wireless and DC/AC converters to keep everything powered.  We tried a wireless game of Ages of Empires, but had problems with the signal even though we have two cantennas.  Three of the kids have Nintendo DS consoles and use the wireless to play head-to-head games. 

With all these creature comforts, the “when will we get there” question was frequent once we were eighteen hours into the drive that was suppose to take sixteen.  I don’t know how we ever managed to drive across the country as kids armed only with a couple of coloring books and an AM radio.

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Tech Car – Prius

Posted on December 21, 2007 by Alvin Trusty

I had a chance to ride in a “drive by wire” car today.  Buzz finally took possession of the Prius that he ordered in the spring.

This car is truly a technological marvel.  The key doesn’t need to be inserted in the switch to start the car.  The vehicle senses the key is inside the car and enables the “Power” switch (top left of picture).  Pressing the Power button brings all the internal electronic readouts to life, but doesn’t start the engine.  The car initially moves using electrical power and makes no noise.  This takes a little getting used to.

Some notable differences in the normal driving interface include a gear shift with only three positions: forward, neutral, reverse.  There is a “Park” button similar to the Power button. 

The navigation screen above the radio is so big it includes a warning displayed during start up.  “Don’t read items on this screen while driving.”  The touch screen includes mileage/engine information, turn-by-turn GPS information, reverse gear camera and sound system controls.  We managed to get an impressive 54 miles to the gallon on our five minute trip to lunch.

The stereo includes a six-disk changer that plays MP3 and WMA audio files.

This may be the first car I have seen that requires some professional development before purchase.  I like it.

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USB Ports… Gone

Posted on December 20, 2007 by Alvin Trusty

I don’t know if this is another Vista problem or if it is a problem with the iPod Touch. 

Last week my mouse stopped working.  I noticed it right after I plugged in the iPod, but didn’t know if it was related.  I wasn’t using the computer before plugging in the iPod, so I didn’t know if the mouse was already out of commission.  I grabbed another mouse, but it wouldn’t do anything either.  A little checking revealed that nothing connected to a USB port was working.

I did a reboot and that did not help.  I thought I may have blown out my USB ports which are integrated on my motherboard.  I always keep a spare USB and 1394 card in my “just in case” box.  I popped in the USB card and switched everything (mouse, head phones, hard drive) over to the new card.  Everything worked fine.

Out of habit, I plugged the iPod into a front USB port… and it worked.  I know those two front jacks are connected to the same place on the motherboard as the USB ports on the back of the computer.  I had tested the front and back jacks before adding the extra USB card.  None of them had worked.

I plugged everything back into the original USB ports leaving the add-on card empty.  Now all the built-in ports worked.

About a week later, it happened again, and I did note that it was triggered by plugging in the iPod.  A reboot didn’t fix it.  I did a full shutdown and then pulled the power plug (sometimes that will reset the power).  That did it.  Everything came back to life.

Tonight it happened again.  I plugged in the iPod and all the USB ports went dead… no power, no nothing.  I did a shutdown and pulled the power plug.  Everything came back to life on the first reboot.

Has anyone else seen this happen?

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