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Why Disney World doesn't have mosquitoes
- m3kw9 5y agoReal world UX
- 2bitencryption 5y agoSeriously. Everyone probably knows the famous use of forced perspective at Disney. [0] Or the famous story how on the soft-launch days, Walt would hand children candy at the entrance, then watch how far they walked before they threw the wrapper on the ground. That's where they would place the garbage cans. (Yeah, sounds fanciful enough to be a fable, and perhaps it is. Even if the story is embellished, it definitely reflects the truth of the attention to detail at the Disney parks) But did you know they do similar "real world UX" magic with music as well? The different "themed" areas of the parks play different music to match the theme. As you walk from one themed area to another, the "transition areas" play the treble from the area you are leaving, and the bass for the area you are entering. Since all the music is in the same key and tempo, it produces a "fading in/out" effect as you travel, and never sounds dissonant or clashes, even though the themes in the different areas are totally different otherwise. They also do crazy things with smell. In certain areas they emit (very subtle) scents to evoke certain sensations. This is something you may never notice, but once it's mentioned, you'll definitely notice it. Here's an interesting article that describes some of this: https://factsandfigment.com/2020/05/01/the-illusion-of-fantasy-part-four-sounds-and-smells/ https://factsandfigment.com/2020/05/01/the-illusion-of-fanta... (that article describes the use of projected/highly directional sound, but not the "fade in/out" technique... I'm trying to find a source for it, maybe someone else can confirm) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forced_perspective https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forced_perspective
- bingidingi 5y agoyeah it’s a little bleak tbh, the scents are an attempt to influence your memory and make you hungry, and things like magic bands are meant to make you spend as much money as possible by making money more opaque
- WalterBright 5y ago> watch how far they walked before they threw the wrapper on the ground I'd throw those kids out of the park. Probably why I could never be Walt Disney :-)
- easton 5y agoThe two fun facts I’ve always liked about this are: - They change the texture of the ground in between lands/park areas so when you walk over it you realize something’s different and look around. - they “invented” a color, Go-Away Green, which emulates the color of grass, and the fire hydrants and other structural stuff are painted with it. Look in a flower bed next time you are there and you’ll see them if you’re careful, but you don’t realize them until you know. https://insidethemagic.net/2021/04/disney-go-away-green-lp1/ https://insidethemagic.net/2021/04/disney-go-away-green-lp1/
- leviathant 5y agoDisney is amazing at marketing, but hundreds of years before Disney called it go-away green and their workers were proclaimed it as something they invented, "Invisible Green" was all the rage in Georgian England, to the point where it even appeared in poetry of the era https://janeaustensworld.com/2010/07/26/invisible-green-a-favorite-colour-for-georgian-landscape-buildings-and-garden-fences/ https://janeaustensworld.com/2010/07/26/invisible-green-a-fa...
- laurent92 5y agoHow much of it is fandom (=people admire Disney for it just because it sounds logical and because they like the Disney identity), how much of it is actually making a difference in the children’s mind. Maybe it’s only additional details to keep adults busy with something to notice. Maybe “whatever” would suffice. We need A/B testing to check whether it increase sales ;) Have they tried positioning the park West-East vs North-South to check the conversion rates!?
- chrisseaton 5y ago> Have they tried positioning the park West-East vs North-South to check the conversion rates!? How would they practically do this?
- nwiswell 5y agoThis is what we in the business call a "joke"
- dhosek 5y ago> How would they practically do this? https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.indystar.com/amp/4354705 https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.indystar.com/amp/4354705
- checker 5y agoAMP-free link https://www.indystar.com/story/news/history/retroindy/2014/01/07/indiana-bell/4354705/ https://www.indystar.com/story/news/history/retroindy/2014/0...
- codycraven 5y agoI think it was a joke, I actually thought it was pretty funny
- panda88888 5y agoThis is really interesting! Thank you for sharing the article. Looking forward to reading it this evening and learn something new.
- beerandt 5y agoDisney World (Florida) was built on what's basically the top floor of a parking garage, so that all infrastructure and access could be "underground" and out of sight. Which is an interesting enough topic on its own, but one thing this allowed was for trash cans to "bottomless": the trash dropped through to conveyor belts below. No one has to see trash carts or be grossed out watching a trash can be emptied. It also prevented stinky trash drippings from falling on the hardscapes. Along came the recycling movement, and Disney was quick to implement single stream trash collection and recycling, sorting all trash for recycling after it was collected. But people were angry that Disney didn't have visible recycling bins next to garbage cans. They would interrupt employees and give them their recyclables. Employees, knowing it all got sorted anyway, would throw it away. Which made people angrier, even if they were told that everything would be sorted for recycling. So angry, that Disney had to spend a huge amount of money installing "dummy" recycling cans next to the existing trash cans. Cutting holes through reinforced concrete slabs. Major construction. These also emptied onto the same single stream garbage collection system, but visitors were pacified.
- Tempest1981 5y agoThe Disney channel has a 6-part documentary. Parts 1 and 2 cover some of this. (But not the recycle bins.) Some cool engineering, um, I mean imagineering. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Imagineering_Story https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Imagineering_Story https://www.justwatch.com/us/tv-show/the-imagineering-story https://www.justwatch.com/us/tv-show/the-imagineering-story
- beerandt 5y agoYeah the really interesting stuff is what they don't like to advertise. In Florida, Disney actually has corporate control of two municipal incorporations aka actual cities. They get to control who the half dozen or so residents are, and therefore control who the voters are. Which besides complete zoning and land-use control, also gives them an amount of police and judicial power. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Buena_Vista,_Florida https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Buena_Vista,_Florida https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bay_Lake,_Florida https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bay_Lake,_Florida https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reedy_Creek_Improvement_District https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reedy_Creek_Improvement_Dist...
- jimmaswell 5y agoWow, the Banjo Kazooie music effect in real life.
- 11thEarlOfMar 5y ago"A clean environment is a pleasure to the senses." I remember seeing this on a plaque on a porch on Main Street. It had an attribution, which I have forgotten, but could never track down who said it. In any case, that simple concept permeates the parks and created a benchmark that no other theme park has matched (to my knowledge).
- throwawayboise 5y agoA lot of cities could take this lesson. Sweeping the streets, picking up litter, keeping weeds trimmed would make a lot of urban areas look a lot nicer.
- adrianmonk 5y ago> As you walk from one themed area to another, the "transition areas" play the treble from the area you are leaving, and the bass for the area you are entering. That gives new meaning to the term "crossover".
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- kipple 5y ago> No standing water means no ideal spots to lay their eggs. In the ’60s, Potter accomplished this by digging drainage ditches built into the park’s base layers, effectively draining the swamp in its entirety. Seems like this is the real meat, I wish the article had gone into more detail here.
- zxcvbn4038 5y agoThe main gist is to keep the water moving which they do with a combination of levees, aerators, and architecture features designed so water runs off instead of pooling on walkways and buildings. Then they double down by stocking their water features with fish that particularly like to eat mosquito larvae. Then the finishing move is using a garlic oil infused spray to drive away the adults.
- loloquwowndueo 5y agoAha, the garlic spray explains why the place is crawling with children but relatively few adults in sight. :)
- timothyduong 5y agoI was wondering why I had the faint taste of garlic bread in my mouth when I was there...
- elihu 5y agoI don't know anything about how Disney does it aside from what I just read in the article, but mosquito fish I think are used in many places to get rid of mosquitoes. Guppies too, sometimes. I'm not sure if either is invasive in Florida. Mosquito dunks are another approach. Basically, they're floating donut-shaped things that release a bacteria that's specifically harmful to mosquito larvae. That worked really well for me last fall; I had made myself a koi pond, but there weren't any koi for sale at the time and the mosquitoes were only too happy to fill the ecological void.
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- chrisseaton 5y agoLack of standing water, if anyone was wondering.
- treein303 5y agoYeah not sure about that one: https://www.clickorlando.com/news/local/2021/07/30/water-park-disney-guests-swim-in-flooded-magic-kingdom-streets/ https://www.clickorlando.com/news/local/2021/07/30/water-par...
- yosito 5y agoI just spent a week next to a swamp. I've never seen so many mosquitoes in my life.
- seanmcdirmid 5y agoTry Alaska in the summer. They have mosquitos the size of small birds there. Crazy.
- Tempest1981 5y agoAnd CO2 traps, and hungry chickens and fish.
- ketzo 5y agoOne of my chores as a kid was clearing out stagnant water in our backyard if it rained; if someone didn’t during peak season, you would immediately notice a massive increase in mosquitoes in the next days.
- torgoguys 5y agoDisney World has mosquitoes. Go to the store near the entrance and they'll even give you complimentary insect repellent. They do a good job of controlling mosquitoes, but they're not miracle workers. EDIT: it looks like Snopes wrote about this: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/disney-world-mosquitoes/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/disney-world-mosquitoes/
- chrisseaton 5y agoI don't think any reasonable person interpreted this as 'will never see even a single mosquito', come on.
- yellow_lead 5y agoBeing given insect repellent implies the problem is more than one mosquito here and there
- chrisseaton 5y agoGetting 'a couple' of bites while on a two-week vacation in a tropical swamp counts as effectively zero, to me.
- Retric 5y agoMany people get a few dozen over a long weekend. So, it’s a long way from zero especially when you consider just how many people visit these parks. They do put in a fair amount of effort. However, a much more effective solution would be to avoid having large bodies of water near people, but that would make the park less visually appealing.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- irrational 5y agoI’ve been there multiple times. I’ve never been given repellent. I’ve also never seen a mosquito there. This is the first time that has struck me as odd.
- aaron695 5y agoDisney wages its battles along 86 miles of canals, service roads, firebreaks, power lines, fields and fences. They use the same two pesticides widely sprayed all around Florida that are considered safe by state and federal environmental authorities. Employees spray the same routes twice a day, far exceeding the routines of other mosquito districts in Florida. https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/os-xpm-2002-09-21-0209210131-story.html https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/os-xpm-2002-09-21-02092... Plus chickens
- jagged-chisel 5y agoSentinel chickens at that. So fancy.
- aaron695 5y agoThey thought they were going to be killing machines that continuously patrol the many sewers and caverns beneath the planet's ruined surface. Instead they got stuck in a chicken coop waiting to get the West Nile virus.
- FartyMcFarter 5y agoI'm surprised that chickens eat mosquitoes efficiently, seeing as they can't fly much.
- klyrs 5y agoMy guess is that the chickens go after the larvae, not the flying adults.
- spfzero 5y agoThe larvae hatch in water, then molt at the surface which takes a while (during which they can not yet fly). That's probably where the chickens find them.
- xwdv 5y agoIt's a miracle chickens find such tiny things in sufficient numbers to satisfy their hunger at all. Although, maybe if we take scale into account, it would be like a human finding sausages in a river or something.
- frosted-flakes 5y agoYou could see these things too if your eyes were regularly 3" off the ground.
- kbenson 5y agoAll of a sudden I'm having a nostalgia flashback to the early 90's where I'm reading some humorous text doc I'd downloaded from the local BBS regarding the theory of chickens flying at light speed, or something along those lines.
- JaimeThompson 5y agoWas this it? https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/the-chicken-theory-by-douglas-adams.36691/#:~:text=The%20hypothesis%20of%20the%20chicken%20theory%20is%20this%3A,rural%20environment%20for%20more%20than%20a%20few%20feet https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/the-chicken-theory-....
- uncomputation 5y agoTL;DR - All water is kept running - Sloped buildings and structures drain water - Carbon dioxide traps (and save the victims for analysis) - Repellent plants - Chickens at the park (which way mosquitoes)
- floatingatoll 5y agotypo: way->eat
- js290 5y agomosquitos not pedos
- masterof0 5y agoI wonder if the author have been to Disney World. Ever. Getting mosquito bites when you are high or drunk, count too right? One thing is , I went to Orlando once, and don't remember anything(including mosquito bites), and another is "Why a huge attraction park , in the middle of a swamp, in Florida, doesn't have any mosquitoes". What a joke.
- masterof0 5y agoTo the downvoters, I'm sorry the truth bother you. You should visit, is a great place. Just make sure you bring your insect repellent spray.
- jacoblambda 5y agoI'm going to have to disagree. I grew up in Florida and only left in the past few years so I would go to the parks on a regular basis (once or twice a year). Disney World really doesn't have mosquitoes or at least any noticeable quantities. I legitimately can't remember ever noticing a mosquito bite while at Disney or Universal. I've gotten them at Busch Gardens but only in the animal habitat sections of the park.
- tintt 5y agoTL;DR – drainage ditches, carbon dioxide traps, roofs that don’t collect rainwater and chickens that eat mosquitoes.
- miduil 5y agoYikes I thought this was going to be about why Walt Disney "World" (so TV productions) have mosquitoes and I already started imagining something along "it was too annoying to draw/animate mosquitos by hand" in my mind. Reading about the actual article definitively makes much more sense. I think it is important to also acknowledge the history and importance of eradicating mosquitos for the sake of public health. For example, Italy had to deal with malaria at least until Mussolini. Eventually fully eradicating malaria with a combination of draining wetlands and use of insecticides such as the toxic, child-defect-causing DDT. It's quite funny to see that they are using chickens as a canary method.
- EMM_386 5y ago> Yikes I thought this was going to be about why Walt Disney "World" (so TV productions) It is about Walt Disney World. There are two of them. Disney World and Disney Land. This one is in Florida.
- tylersmith 5y agoThey thought the article was referring to there being no mosquitoes in the Disney universe stories/canon, but then realized it was about the theme park in Florida.
- Izkata 5y agoIt's not exactly within the Disney universe, but they did make "The Winged Scourge": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y68F8YwLWdg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y68F8YwLWdg
- Tempest1981 5y agoAnd a few more Disney parks throughout the world.
- drcross 5y agoThis blog post reads like and advertisment because it claims there's no mosquitoes when of course there is and also no mention of pesticides, when you can be sure there is.
- asdfasgasdgasdg 5y agoAt least when I lived there, a lot of Orlando had similar mosquito control programs in place. It wasn't that you'd never see a mosquito, but in the relatively close in suburbs, you get much fewer mosquitos than you would otherwise expect. The cities in that area conduct municipal mosquito monitoring and spraying.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- a20210806 5y agoSomeone once told me that no one has ever died at DisneyLand... they are given cpr, resuscitation, and other lifesaving operations until they are in a ambulance, and its not until they are off Disney "land" they are pronounced dead.
- boplicity 5y agohttps://www.washingtonpost.com/news/animalia/wp/2017/11/03/disney-knew-its-park-was-full-of-alligators-it-caught-hundreds-before-a-boy-was-killed/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/animalia/wp/2017/11/03/d...
- cassac 5y agoThey may not have mosquitos but boy do they sure have love bugs! When we went the year before covid there were so many at Hollywood studios that we skipped one of the toy story lines. They were literally everywhere.
- Animats 5y agoDr William Gorgas did that for the Panama Canal Zone in 1904. Now that was a big job. 500 square miles of jungle.[1] [1] https://www.insectweek.co.uk/news/mosquitoes-and-panama-canal https://www.insectweek.co.uk/news/mosquitoes-and-panama-cana...
- hcurtiss 5y agoLOL. And insecticides. Lots of them. “ But Disney tries really hard. Crews spray relentlessly. Every morning, every evening.” https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/os-xpm-2002-09-21-0209210131-story.html https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/os-xpm-2002-09-21-02092...
- DoreenMichele 5y agoReally cool. So much we can do with landscaping and building design than just look pretty and it's always a treat to learn sometimes we actually do cool things like this in those areas.
- wombatmobile 5y ago> Why Disney World doesn’t have mosquitos TFA is actually about HOW Disney World purports to not have mosquitos. WHY Disney World doesn’t want mosquitos is a different issue. Disney World is some kind of fantasy expression of an ideal world. For the creators, this means an absence of irritants and an abundance of entertainment, sugar, salt, fat, and merch. The difference between Disney World and the world is that one is an enclave and the other is a world. The fact that mosquitos exist in both tells us something about the intelligence of species.
- seanmcdirmid 5y agoI went to Disney World recently. We went to Disney Animal Kingdom, and the Asian section was beautiful, you really almost felt like you were in Nepal...except the lack of incense made it obvious it was all fake. Same goes with Epcot, visually everything clicks, but the smells are all missing.
- wombatmobile 5y agoWould mosquitos have enhanced the feeling of authenticity or detracted from it?
- seanmcdirmid 5y agoMaybe enhanced if they were coupled with mosquito repelling incense.
- realreality 5y agoWhat is Epcot supposed to smell like? The future?
- seanmcdirmid 5y agoThey have an international pavilion section that does a great job at setting the scene for various parts of the world. At least visually.
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- the_only_law 5y agoI remember growing up I’d see the mosquitoes. Tons of them and you could tell when they bit you or landed in your arm. Nowadays though, I feel like I don’t them. They seem invisible or not even there anymore, until I get home and am trying to figure out how they got to my ankles.
- judge2020 5y agoThose might not be mosquitos - I've had to deal with gnats when I head to the Georgia coast, and I barely feel them when they bite, so that might be the case for you as well.
- throwawayboise 5y agoThey are called "no-see-ums" by the locals.
- RandyRanderson 5y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceratopogonidae https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceratopogonidae
- cinbun8 5y agoHow is this hacker news material? The article is poorly written too. It's just paraphrasing a Sun article at best.
- polynomial 5y agoPersonally I'm still waiting for the promised technology that scans the area for mosquitoes (using computer vision) and then takes them out individually with a low power laser. The main benefit of this seems to be controlling mosquito populations while not bluntly eradicating all bug life (as other traps do) much of which contributes to a healthy ecosystem.
- realreality 5y agoThat will go well with the Amazin Laser https://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/amazin-laser/2860997 https://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/amazin-laser/2...
- orionblastar 5y agoIt should read Disney World has a good mosquito control system. That does not mean it has no mosquitos but they limit the mosquitos by various means.
- simonebrunozzi 5y agoHalf-joking: the person that will find an effective, low-cost method to repel mosquitoes will become a very rich person. Nathan Myhrvold tried, but apparently failed [0]. [0]: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2017/07/laser-shooting-mosquito-death-machine-nathan-myhrvold.html https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2017/07/laser-shooting-mosqu...
- quantified 5y agoNot joking. More desired than a better mousetrap almost everywhere.
- canuckintime 5y ago'Nathan Myhrvold tried' is relevant to this topic as another example [1] of a submarine story: > Myhrvold, who has a Ph.D. in theoretical and mathematical physics from Princeton, envisioned Intellectual Ventures as a merchant of ideas [patents], not a producer of products. > Not everyone appreciated paying for something IV was just sitting on and not “productizing.” The company has often been accused of being a “patent troll,” squatting under the bridge of innovation demanding its tribute to cross; CNET once called it “the most hated company in tech.” Myhrvold defended his patent business in an article he wrote, headlined “Funding Eureka!,” in the Harvard Business Review in 2010, which just so happened to come out the month after his ted Talk on the Photonic Fence. Maybe that wasn’t a total coincidence: Being known as the guy who shoots down malarial mosquitoes with laser beams is, if nothing else, a good way to change the subject. > The only problem was that if you listened carefully, it became clear that the TED demonstration was a little bit faked. Myhrvold swapped the invisible infrared laser used to fry the bugs in tests at the lab for a cool-looking nonlethal green laser pointer that aimed at a Lucite box of mosquitoes across the stage, targeting them for theoretical death. But, since he knew the audience’s insect bloodlust could not be disappointed, he followed up the nonlethal light show with those slow-motion kill videos of the more carefully stage-managed mosquito target practice filmed at the lab. One of the most vivid images was a close-up of an execution in which the mosquito was, it turns out, glued to a pin, disabling flight, to “control variables.” But the TED talk has now been viewed 847,000 times, and the crowd went wild, so it was easy to get carried away with thinking this was coming out soon. “We didn’t dissuade people from saying it’s ready either,” Makagon admits. “Or communicate with people how long it would take.” > And so, over the last seven years, “it got lots of attention,” says Myhrvold. “Lots of people who would kick the tires a little bit,” without actually deciding to invest in it. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28093743 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28093743
- dredmorbius 5y ago9 advertising placements in a single article. Even with adblock, reading flow of the text is utterly disrupted.
- rerbrerb 5y agoBoils down to classic “Disney magic!” — mostly poison.
- ChrisArchitect 5y agoanything new here from the mostly 2018 mentalfloss article it is based on? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20368845 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20368845