jonnyfingers

What movie have you guys in the US got tomorrow? We have Megashark vs Crocosaurus in the UK. Not sure if its the same schedule on both sides of the Atlantic. Edit: just saw Elissa'a post about Snowmaggedon!

Big mike in the ball chute is epic! Back in the line now so probably be another 24 hours before my go is up.

After nearly 24 hours waiting I finally got my go. And I picked up a ball! ..............which fell at the last second before being dropped.

I'm in finally! Only 13 hours to go till I can actually play though.

^Agree completely.

I'm not sad to see Jaws go. The last time I went on it was back in 2000 and even then it was outdated and a little bit lame, albeit enjoyable! Also there's a whole generation of Theme Park goers who have never even seen Jaws so I think an update to something more modern is the correct thing to do. I'm not sure about another Potter expansion though. If we are to believe it, there will be no more Potter books and no more Potter movies. In 10 years time will it still be a draw to the park? Probably, but a big enough draw to warrant having two Potter themed areas? But whatever it is I really hope it's a top class attraction.

The themeing looks great. But as planes regularly fly over Thorpe Park I imagine a few passengers will wonder why plane fuselage is on the ground beneath them!

Looks like Paulton's Park are getting a new ride in 2012. This cryptic website opened up last week. http://www.theresnosmokewithoutfire.com/ No idea what the ride will be but is that a Raptor I see?

Riding Megaphobia in the dark at Oakwood 18 times in an hour, in heavy rain, with full glow gear on, and not being entirely sober! So much fun but I woke up the next day with plenty of bruises. Worth it though. Megaphobia + soaking wet track = insanely fast ride! A close second is the Loopathon Weekend at Alton Towers and Drayton Manor with the RCCGB. ERT on Nemesis in the dark is fantastic. And our little group's choice of accommodation was great. We found some log cabins a few miles from Alton where we had some EHTT -Exclusive Hot Tub Time! A great weekend with fellow coaster-crazy friends.

^I'd imagine a trip to the dentist will be less painful than queuing for this ride once it opens. Thorpe Park was absolutely packed at times during the summer. But really looking forward to The Swarm, I'm quietly confident this will be a good smooth ride!

This was filmed by David Ellis, one of the members of the RCCGB. It's a great video! Here's a link to David's post on the RCCGB forum if anyone is interested.

I have plenty to look forward too. Coaster related there's - The Swarm at Thorpe Park. Thorpe Park is right on my doorstep and during the summer I can drop in for a couple of hours after work so will hopefully get plenty of rides on it. - Nemesis -What lies Beneath at Alton Towers. - In April I get to go to Blackpool Pleasure Beach for the first time in about 20 years! - And of course the highlight of the year, TPR Europe Trip 2012. Expedition GeForce, Silver Star, Blue Fire, new Woodie at Europa, new B&M at Parc Asterix and possibly Winjas and Black Mamba if Phantasialand is part of the trip. The whole trip will be great. - I also might be doing a mini Spain trip if I have enough holidays left and the girlfriend lets me! Non-coaster related: - I turn 30 in February and I'm celebrating by hitting a few Michelin-starred restaurants in London and making it a good weekend. - The Irish soccer team will take part in the European Championships in June for the first time since 1988 so weeks of fun drinking beer and watching the games. So 2012 is shaping up to be an awesome year.

^ True but it something new attracts people who can then enjoy the old I'm all for it. But first things first, I'd just like to see the park back open again.

Great to see some investment going in. Hopefully it will all work out. And can I just mention to the potential park owners that $3 million will buy you a GCI Big Fun woodie! Perfect for the park!

^I presume he means that there are no turnstiles to stop you. But to answer his question I'd imagine cast members would be monitoring the gates and stop anyone that doesn't scan their RFID tag.

Would love to be in Orlando right now at IAAPA!

^Exactly. For the Europe Trip next year I'm saving £200 a month. This goes into my savings account the day I get paid. I also pay all my bills straight away, so rent, car repayment, light & heat, council tax, TV/Phone/Internet. Then I assign a certain amount for any food shopping for the month and other predictable expenses, and then put some away for unexpected bills. Whatever I have left is what I have to spend, end of story. If it's not enough to go out for a meal, we don't go out for a meal. If we haven't enough to go drinking, or to the movies, then we don't go. It's as simple as that really. But most of all my girlfriend and I don't miss out. Instead of a meal at a restaurant we'll cook something really nice and have a night in for a fraction of the cost. Instead of going to the movies we'll watch something on TV. But those small sacrifices mean I'll be able to go on a roller coaster tour of Europe next year! Easily worth it.

As someone who deals with RFID everyday I'm delighted to see it in use at Epcot. There are huge pros, if it's done right you wont even have to retrieve your ticket from your pocket for the reader to be able to read the tag. A good example is any running event where all the runners have a chip on their ankle and just have to run over a reader mat to be scanned. It does seem like Disney, by going with tag readers that look like those at subway stations, are not going down this route. I'm not sure how sensitive these readers are but if they're like similar ones I've seen you'll have to be within a foot at least for the tag to read. Maybe this will be improved on in the future. Another pro is what can be done with a tag assigned to a person. The tag itself will just hold an ID number that will be in a database. When the tag reads the ID it looks up that record in the database and the system can then access whatever information is stored there. It's what's in that database that makes it so powerful. The possibilities are endless. It could hold personal information, medical information, it could (and looks like it will be) linked to a debit/credit card, or Disney credit account, that you could use to pay for items. You can add permissions to access certain areas/doors. It could be used with the fastpass system. Really anything about yourself could be linked to your account, and your RFID tag will give the system access to that. For the park they could also track people as they walk through the park. It could be used to calculate real-time, accurate queue times, it could be used for metrics to measure the popularity of rides and areas of the park? It could log all the meals being eaten by people to work out what's popular/unpopular. If you go down the route of a personalised account for each person attending the park the possibilities really are endless. For now I could see the personalised approach being taken only for those with annual passes. The only think you'd need would be enough tags and enough readers to read those tags. But the beauty for regular park-goers is that you can re-use the RFID tags. So they could buy a ticket "tag", it gets written with their unique ID number, that ID number has certain data assigned to it on a database such as park access permisions, the park-goer uses the tag all day to do whatever they can do with it. And as they leave the park they just put that tag in a bin for used tags and they're used again the next day. As for the pros, the main one is the difficulty restricting entry for those who don't have an RFID tag, or have an expired ticket. The beauty of RFID means that you can just walk over or near a tag reader and it scans you. However it usually uses this scan to open a locked door. If you don't have permission you don't get in. How will Disney police this if there is nothing to stop someone just walking through? Also if Disney go down the personalised route it brings up security concerns. People may not be comfortable with having their information stored, or by getting tracked as they walk through the park. Also if you bring in financial interactions using your tag you would need to tie it in with some sort of personalised pin to avoid fraud. It would be easy for someone to steal someones ticket and use that to pay for things. It would also be possible to make your own tags, if you knew what needed to be programmed on it, so this would have to be in some sort of secure format. But for me the pros far outweigh the cons and I can't wait to make a trip back to Epcot in the future if this system is still in place.

Great news! Excellent job Elissa and Robb. Thanks for all your hard work organising these trips.

Have you seen the job application form for Hooters? They give you a bra and say "here, fill this out". Thought a joke would be better than just saying "I see this thread"

Fantastic TR! Once again I'll say what many have said in the past, Piers needs to be give his own TV show! One question from an ignorant Irish guy, what is "blates" supposed to mean?

I would love to go for it. But I only recently moved to the UK from Ireland for work so don't think I'll be moving again for a while! But I may get in touch with their HR department to find out what they're ideally looking for. That way I could build my CV/resume to go for a similar job in the future. I have the electrical and controls programming experience, but I'd imagine they'd ideally like someone who has worked in a similar role before.

It depends on how many parks you will be visiting, and if all those parks are participating in the Club TPR discounts benefit. But as a member of a roller coaster club in the UK and Club TPR I think the membership fee is good value, regardless of the potential savings using the club discounts. The download-only membership option works out at around £28. The magazine you download is very good, with plenty of videos added too. You get a nice little membership pack, which includes a very nice lanyard, much nicer than one I had to buy separately with my UK club. If you plan to do a Club Trip the saving you get for being a Club TPR member basically pays for the membership. On top of that when you go on your NE tour you will most certainly save some more money on park entry/parking/some other discount. I know on some of the Six Flags parks you can save over $20 on admission. So by that reckoning if you do two or three of those parks you've saved the cost of your membership.

Very interesting interview, thanks. He mentioned that Electircal Engineering is an area the company could improve in, and I just had a look at their website and they're advertising for an Electical Engineer. I'd love to give that job a go. Unfortunately not being a US citizen would probably hamper my chances!

well jerk is just the third derivative of position in respect to time. So if you know the position, and therefore velocity over a time period you can work out the acceleration, and then work out the jerk. I'm not sure I understand what you're asking. But a derivative is a measure of how a function changes as its input changes. So for jerk, the third derivative, the input will be the change in acceleration. Using that derivative over a time period will give the rate of change of acceleration, which is the jerk. So really derivatives are just equations that make calculations a little easier. Its not easy to explain simply but the way I consider it once you know the acceleration you dont need to know the velocity, as the acceleration comes from velocity over time. So in any equation with velocity over time you just substitute one value, acceleration, which is the derivative of velocity. Once you know the acceleration over time you can calculate the jerk. And as we mentioned before jerk is an important factor in designing comfortable roller coasters and to calculate it you need the third derivative of position in respect to time. Where it would get complicated is that all points on the coaster track would have to have the jerk calculated to ensure a smooth ride, as at all points the velocity and acceleration, and therefore jerk, will be different. There is a fourth derivative, measuring the rate of change of jerk, which could be used to do that.But such calculations are beyond my lowly electronic engineering brain!