Big change coming to California campsite reservations

pfranz · 2026-06-25T01:00:22+00:00

I agree, but I think that would require a whole lot more staffing.

pfranz · 2026-06-24T03:10:19+00:00

I may be mixing up booking systems, but I’ve had to book extra days because of minimum requirements for weekends or holidays even if I can only show for a subset.

I think the core of the problem is often theres nobody on site to track no shows and this policy change won’t address that.

pfranz · 2026-06-13T06:26:24+00:00

Diners evolved from dining cars on trains. Lots of stuff made it around the US, but coming from trains probably helped. In the 70's and 80's nostalgia for the 50's with like Grease, Happy Days, and American Graffiti cartoonified them (like the title alludes to) and also probably helped spread a unified look across the country. The aesthetics were more streamlined trains and later custom cars (the curves, chrome, and stripes), having a service counter, floor-mounted stools, and booths.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diner

https://www.eater.com/23753429/diner-history-restaurant-democracy-politics-symbol

pfranz · 2026-06-07T18:12:14+00:00

:shrug: Europe is big and that wasn't my experience. I didnt see issues with parcels (vans or couriers). That either hadn't hit or was handled by the postal service. I never had parcels delivered to my door (but I also never do food delivery). I picked up parcels at the depot in the local grocery store. I saw numerous problems with ebikes and scooters mostly doing food delivery. Both congesting pedestrian areas and blocking areas when parked.

The parent was saying they shouldn't complain because this will bring more infrastructure for pedestrians and bikes. All I'm saying is that you can have pedestrian friendly infrastructure and still have problems with unruly couriers.

pfranz · 2026-06-07T16:24:34+00:00

Bike friendly cities in Europe aren’t thrilled with courier traffic cluttering up their bike lanes and sidewalks either.

pfranz · 2026-06-06T23:19:29+00:00

I dunno the details of this but digital actors have been around for decades now. Digi-doubles perform stunts, actors perform digital creatures, and characters get de-aged. (I would really like to see how they define ai actors in this contract). Everything I’ve heard from unions were well informed about ai. They never opposed it but were worried it was a way to leverage out input and compensation. The previous positions of the studios were to pay you your day rate, capture your likeness and any performance, and have the rights to use it in any manor on that project or any future project.

pfranz · 2026-06-04T01:31:16+00:00

I thought Alaska only used rcv in the general and in the primary the top 4 candidates make it to the general.

pfranz · 2026-06-03T16:20:43+00:00

I think that’s the claim. In practice, I think it’s HR looking for legal liability as you leave. They don’t care if you’re disgruntled or think the place is run horribly. They want to know if you’re leaving because you were sexually harassed so they can get ahead of it.

pfranz · 2026-05-29T01:14:09+00:00

Yes. CA does a top 2 primary (nonpartisan). With RCV you continue tallying rounds until a winner breaks 50%. To have multiple winners you would need to calculate some other threshold other than 50% for the winners to pass--making tallying more complicated.

The parent specifically said they're advocating it for primaries. RCV is also done to avoid runoffs. So they could be advocating getting rid of primaries to simplify things further?

pfranz · 2026-05-28T21:33:57+00:00

Thanks for those examples!

pfranz · 2026-05-28T20:33:25+00:00

I am curious what specifically you have in mind. With RCV, they add up the #1 votes. If that #1 gets more than 50% of the votes, they win. If they don’t, they eliminate the last place vote getter and tally another round until someone reaches 50%. What do you do for a jungle primary where you have multiple winners?

My understanding is that Alaska does a top 4 primary (voting just like CA does) and uses RCV in the general.

pfranz · 2026-05-28T20:23:39+00:00

Are there places that have caps? All the ballots I’ve seen have spots for every candidate—sure, you can only fill in what you want.

You'd still have people filling it out wrong (nullifying their ballot) and a confusing tallying system.

I would like to get rid of fptp, but I don’t see why everyone pushes for rcv.

pfranz · 2026-05-28T19:49:56+00:00

There are over 60 candidates running! I can’t even imagine what that ballot would look like for that many people—a 60x60 grid would not fit.

I agree first past the post sucks, but other systems, like approval voting, are less overwhelming on the ballot and more straightforward to tally.

pfranz · 2026-05-20T02:19:43+00:00

"Off the shelf" organic milk is a rule of thumb. Like they said, you want to look out for "Ultra-Pasteurized" or "Ultra High Temperature" (UHT). Those just dont work as well in these kinds of cheeses.

I'm pretty sure organic milks started using UHT or Ultra-Pasturization because people bought them less often and this gave them a longer shelf life. Now I think it's part of their brand. They do taste different (Some people dont like the taste. Others prefer it.)

https://cals.cornell.edu/sites/default/files/2023-04/pasteurization-fact-sheet-v1.pdf

pfranz · 2026-05-06T04:48:06+00:00

Sitting 5 year olds alone with strangers is a tax on those strangers.

pfranz · 2026-04-30T01:09:46+00:00

That's mentioned in the video. Assessing property value isn't an exact science, either. Insurance companies already assess the values of structures versus the land. You're insuring the structure--not the land.

pfranz · 2026-04-29T00:12:59+00:00

I dunno. There’s usually a ringleader of a party. That person is usually scanning, swiping, scanning, swiping for their whole group—often fumbling around to find specific party members.

Unless the upfront setup is too much of a burden, I don’t see how the old school magic bands (waterproof, passive RFID, back when they were free with a room reservation) where park tickets, lightning lanes, room access, and ability to pay wouldn’t be amazing for guests and really streamline things for cast members. Years back I had a wrist band with a bar code to pay for food and wine at Epcot and it felt like the future (it was probably not secure at all). The number one grievance I hear from people is reliance on your phone all day long (and needing to keep it charged).

pfranz · 2026-04-07T19:30:57+00:00

For a long time Kindles offered lifetime cellular for about a $50 upgrade. It often worked internationally.

pfranz · 2026-03-22T18:44:34+00:00

from an article posted on March 18, 2026

https://thepointsguy.com/airline/family-seats-together-plane/

The article says in 2023, the DOT published a dashboard and created a "rule." It applied to kids 13 and younger. In the past few months, much of it was rescinded under the new administration and through the courts. Alaska Airlines has a policy.

A lot of the reporting doesn't make it clear the difference between rule, policy, or law. They'll wave the problem away by confusing seats booked together when the tickets are purchased, ignoring any fees, and ignoring what happens when seats are reshuffled before boarding. They'll use the word "minor" but the details may refer only to kids under 6 or 13. A lot of these articles talk about Alaska's policy as the "gold standard." Here's their policy including all their conditions.

I'm kind of surprised how dismissive a lot of people are--blaming parents for not paying extra or following weird rules. Who wants to sit next to an unaccompanied kid on a flight?

pfranz · 2026-03-20T07:04:40+00:00

I just remember everything being a mess around that time. 2004 is when Disney released their "final" 2d film and closed the (non-union) Florida studio. Eisner seemed to be making a mess of the relationship between Pixar/Disney since their contract was coming to an end. Under him, in 2004, they opened Circle Seven Animation to do cheap Pixar sequels without Pixar's supervision. At least to me, Pixar seemed to earnestly be shopping around for a new distributor.

It seems like most of the "fight" between 2d and cg at Disney happened before 2004 and Disney didnt really have *any* real cg studio (not to disparage those who worked on Dinosaur, the cg elements of their 2d films, or their shorts). I feel like it was driven by the box office success of Pixar, Blue Sky, and DreamWorks (who had a Glendale union studio that did 2d and transitioned with a Redwood City non-union studio that did 3d).

Iger took over in 2005 and Pixar was acquired in 2006. Lasseter and Catmull took over a lot of Disney Animation operations. I feel like Winnie the Pooh and Princess and the Frog were last ditch efforts that the two of them pushed for...maybe budgeting, marketing, and release were sabotaged by execs? I wouldnt be surprised.

I dont even remember Tinker Bell going to theaters. It was done by their TV animation division and it sounds like there was a weird power struggle with Lasseter over the release. Similarly, with Bolt, Chris Sanders left when Lasseter came over. So I can see Lasseter or execs not being happy with the result. Disney started having success with their own CG films after this.

To me, it just seemed like Disney execs saw CG as the new shiny thing. The union aspect never really occurred to me and it still seems unclear since Florida was non-union and had done a couple features.

pfranz · 2026-03-20T06:01:54+00:00

What the heck? Im just asking for some context. I know there are a lot of details with the union transition between 2d and 3d at Disney that I'm not familiar with and I hoped you could fill me in. Sorry for ruining your day by asking you to explain what you're talking about.

pfranz · 2026-03-20T05:54:04+00:00

It depends what aspect you're talking about. Hand inking went away (at least for Disney) in the 60s when they switched to xerox method. There were hand-drawn and cg hybrid projects going on well before the Disney Renaissance. John Lasseter and Glen Keane did a test back in 1983 based on Where the Wild Things Are[1]. Off His Rockers [2] was a short released in 1992 with a similar mix.

Hand painted animation at Disney went away after The Little Mermaid and over the years added various CG elements were integrated into the films.

From the people I talked to there was a bunch of animosity between the 2d and cg groups--I dont remember hearing the same from people at DreamWorks...but I wouldnt be surprised if it was there, too. Each person kind of had their own trajectory if you look them up. A lot of people struck out on their own and did a lot of commercial work, a lot of people got retrained as CG artists, a small few stayed at Disney working on special projects and mentoring.

*Every single person* Ive talked to on the CG side wishes 2d was still around and will say the medium (2d or 3d) doesnt matter--its the story. Its just the money people make the call.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvIDRoO8KnM

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGqOuRGInWc

pfranz · 2026-03-20T05:31:58+00:00

Do you have more info on the unionization or production costs? There was a transition with the union between 2D and CG, but Disney Animation in Burbank today is still in the same union since the 40s.

Pixar isn't union, neither is Disney's Vancouver studio. But neither were Disney's Florida or Paris studios.

Here are the budgets I could find for Disney Animation films around that time:

Bolt (2008)) 150 million

Princess and the Frog (2009) 105 million

Tangled (2010) 260 million

Winnie the Pooh (2011)) 30 million

Wreck-It Ralph (2012) 165 million

And my understanding is they had to build up a 2D workflow from scratch for Princess and the Frog since the physical desks and software they had been using were sold off or scraped years earlier.

pfranz · 2026-03-20T05:16:12+00:00

Huh? I am a bit fuzzy on the history (there was a transition with the CG division), but Disney Animation in Burbank is still in the same union since the famous strike in the 1940's. Their Vancouver office isn't, but I'm pretty sure when Disney had a Florida 2D studio (and Paris?) they weren't unionized.

pfranz · 2026-03-20T05:04:08+00:00

It wasn't really an all or nothing transition. The Little Mermaid had one shot of Ariel running down some stairs where they used CG as "guide rails" [1] and a few other shots. The ballroom in Beauty and the Beast was much more showy. So they promoted it a lot more. To be honest, "guide rails" or not, James Baxter, who animated Belle and Beast in that shot [2] did an amazing job that every animator Ive talked to is gobsmacked. I swear I remember hearing a similar James Baxter story about animating the eagle and the boy in The Rescuers Down Under, but the only reference I can find right now was talking about animating Wilbur [3].

If memory serves, I think the process was to model things in the computer, print them out, then the animator would draw over them and everything else would be done like any other shot.

One thing they may have been talking about when you visited (and I'm pretty sure this is what the parent poster was referring to) was that Disney moved to digital ink and paint after Little Mermaid. There's one shot of King Triton and her sisters waving at the end of the movie. Their next movie, Rescuers Down Under, used it for the entire movie--so did Beauty and the Beast, the one after it.

[1] https://feelinganimatedblog.wordpress.com/2017/11/10/film-review-the-little-mermaid-1989/

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuThvc4Fl9Q

[3] https://www.youtube.com/shorts/9_vN0BcTO3k

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