Be part of the solution

[kp_higgs]

I just said that to a guy on a crowded Muni bus this morning, so I figured I should take my own advice.

My friends and I, both long time burners and newer ones, have been discussing some potential solutions to the ticketing issues this year.

Be more like FireDrums:
I go to a fire dancing festival every year. They sell only about 500 tickets so its pretty small scale, but, how they handle ticketing could be done by BM on the large scale.

1) First of all, FireDrums doesnt give you tickets ahead of time - you are on a list at the gate to get your tickets and must show your id. This eliminates scalping completely. Gifting to friends can still happen and you can get rid of your extra tickets, see below.

2) Participants can buy up to 6 tickets for themselves and their community then you either transfer the tickets to friends who are registered on a waitlist on their website, or you release your extra tickets to the general waitlist. Those who buy off the general waitlist pay with their credit card and your card is reimbursed when they purchase. If you are the person with extra tickets, you just look on a list for your friend's name on the waitlist and transfer your ticket. If you want to release your ticket to the general waitlist, the first person on the list gets it.

I know this is not a perfect solution and it is easier said than done, but, I bet the STEP program can be modified to do this. The tricky part would be processing everyone at the gate as a "will call". That would require a lot of work on BM's part and would be a complete change, requiring everyone to have an ID. But, I like this plan because it still allows gifting and it elimiates scalping. The scaplers would have to release their tickets to a waitlist if they want any of their money back.

[lemur]

i dont see how this eliminates scalping


how does this system tell the difference between a gifter looking to change the owner of a ticket and a scalper ?

[kp_higgs]

So, I guess a scalper and a person can make a side arrangement to gift tickets on the website...but thats so sketchy its on par with the (fake) Nigerian DubStep camp scam. Would people really do that?

I think scalpers, finding no takers for their electronic tickets, would just release them back to the site and make their face value back...giving real burners a chance for their waitlist ticket.

No paper tickets means relatively no market for scalpers.

[remi]

So, I guess a scalper and a person can make a side arrangement to gift tickets on the website...but thats so sketchy its on par with the (fake) Nigerian DubStep camp scam. Would people really do that?

I think scalpers, finding no takers for their electronic tickets, would just release them back to the site and make their face value back...giving real burners a chance for their waitlist ticket.

No paper tickets means relatively no market for scalpers.

Already they're not printing tickets until June.. I don't really see how this new system would help, especially with the fact that some people don't want to show there ID at the gate (as already discussed on this forum.)

[Major]

I thought this thread was going to be about actually making things work this year rather than yet another round of complaining and suggestions for the future.

How about this:

Whatever happened with ticketing this year, the fact is there are many people with tickets whose groups are no longer together (be that groups of friends or theme camps). If you've got a theme camp you think you can still make work with a few new people to help out, let us know. There are a lot of people looking for connections right now. Let's make those connections and have a great burn.

I'll start: Last year was my first year, and it was one of the best times of my life. I got a ticket in the lottery this year, but none of my friends did. They're bummed, I'm bummed, but here we are. So I'm faced with the choice of going alone (daunting, and probably not as fun), finding another group to go with, or not going. I'm in San Francisco, so if you're around here and you need more people to fill out your camp, let me know and maybe we'll be a match.

Who's next?

[Ugly Dougly]

Scalping wasn't the source of the problem. It was the huge demand.

[kp_higgs]

Major:
I appreciate your enthusiasm and you're on the right track, but, I think you'd have better luck putting your post in another thread...not the 2012 ticketing thread.

Others:
I think we is naive to think that the influx in ticket interest in the lottery is from first time burners alone. I think a lot of people are on hard times and see the potential profit in scalping tickets to this event that is so near and dear to peoples' hearts. I heard a rumor that a Reno radio station was even suggesting people scalp tickets. (I know, total rumor mill...I hope this didnt affect my credibility).

I think we should make an announcement to all current ticket holders that no paper tickets will be mailed and all tickets will be picked up at the gate with and ID (unless transferred as I talk about above). I know its radical....but I think it will help us solve some of the issues we are currently facing.

How do we solve scalping?
One of the few solutions I can see is not to offer paper tickets until you are at the gates of the event with your ID out. I hear people do not want to show their ID. I think showing your ID to get a ticket is a small price to pay to ensure that tickets remain at face value and arent scalped...this is for the good of the community. I've been getting my tickets through will call for the last 5 years, so I really dont see why this is such an issue for people considering the immense trade off it would make for the community as a whole.

How do we gift tickets if we dont get paper tickets untill we are at the gate?
Transfer them online as I suggested above. The recipient shows their ID at the gate to get their gift ticket.

What do people do who have extra tickets they cant give away?
Release them to the waiting list as I suggested above. This also gives people who thought they'd try to sell their tickets to make a profit an opportunity to release their tickets to the event so people who want to go to the event can get a ticket at a fair price.

[remi]

Your forgetting the fact that (from what I've read) plenty of burners don't want to show their ID at the gate (i'm not one.. infact, I'm for non-transferable tickets.) I know you mentioned it's a small price to pay, but these people don't see it as that, as well, it will take extra staff and more time to execute this. Unfortunatley, this is the only way to have tickets non-transferable.. so I would have to side with you on this one. Don't get me wrong, I love the fact that your trying to come up with ideas to help the festival, but the non-transferable tickets thing has been exhausted on this forum.. no matter how often we suggest it.


Also, your talking about solving a problem that doesn't exist. Solve scalping? As far as we know, there are only a hundred tickets or so being 'scalped' right now. I haven't even heard of anyone thinking about buying any of these tickets because the sellers don't have them in hand, and won't until mid-June at the earliest.. so I believe the current ticket proccess did a great job at solving the scalping issue.

[theCryptofishist]

...all tickets will be picked up at the gate with and ID (unless transferred as I talk about above).

Expect huge issues at gate. And I don't know what would happen if someone doesn't have a ticket and the ride just drives into BRC...That could be very nasty...

[Rice]

...all tickets will be picked up at the gate with and ID (unless transferred as I talk about above).

Expect huge issues at gate. And I don't know what would happen if someone doesn't have a ticket and the ride just drives into BRC...That could be very nasty...

That plan would be bad. Envision 15000 people trying to pick up their tickets at the gate on opening night. So, you wait 5 hours to get to the box office, and then 5-10 hours to get your ticket, then back in line to the actual gate, once at the gate, ID matched to ticket. (The traffic for the box office alone would completely mess up the gate line.)

* You would think that people can wait patiently in line and do what they are told. It has been my experience and direct observation that is simply not the case. I envision the entry times doubling or tripling as a minimum with that scheme. *

If everyone does not have tickets in the vehicle, that vehicle would be sent away. No one is allowed to drop people off at the gate. The vehicle is earmarked and not allowed into the event... Until the tickeless person is dealt with...

[ZaphodBurner]

I'm not sure if this idea has been posted yet because I've been at work at can't keep up.

After hashing it out with a bunch of PDX camps this weekend, we camp up with the following thoughts. The ticket problem is like a stock market crash; artists, musicians, camps and performers are reluctant to invest. Camps are dropping out because they're hearing that camps are dropping out.

Take 1000 of remaining tickets and distribute, say, a maximum of 5-10 as necessary (at full price) to camps that request them. That would stimulate 100-200 camps to get to work.

For example, my camp is The Green Hour. We have one ticket out of 20 campers. If we can buy 7 more tickets before April, we can bring root beer, absinthe, publically-rideable mutant vehicles, playa art, lights, music, a public shade structure and chill space, and a reputation of being an LNT camp every year we've gone. Or, they could sell 8 tickets at random and risk losing some percentage to scalpers and Girls Gone Wild types. 8 of our camp veterans can bring all this, and welcome x-amount of people--virgins welcome!--to join us. It leaves 90% of the extra tickets available to the general population AND stimulates the collective planning and construction process.

I believe most individuals who make an effort to go will get a ticket in time. We just need to inject the collaborative participants with a sense of hope. Thoughts?

[kp_higgs]

stretch80:
Sure, with the current way the gate works, there would certainly be a cluster. But, I'm saying that we restructure the infrastructure and the way things are done to allow this system to work.

Ok, what if everyone were "will call," how would we structure the gate and entry system to most efficiently allow this? We would definitely need to change the way the entry gate works. This would require ticket takers with mobile devices or scanners to process the people in each car...we would need more volunteers for gate. We can make it work, after all, we are burners.

I think the assumption that this is just high demand cant rule our actions....without making sure the high demand isnt from non-burners wanting to make a few hundred (or more) dollars by scalping their paper ticket.

I think the STEP program, as they describe it, is a good start. But we also need to be able to gift without paper tickets, and the next step falls naturally....remove paper tickets entirely.

[Rice]

stretch80:
Sure, with the current way the gate works, there would certainly be a cluster. But, I'm saying that we restructure the infrastructure and the way things are done to allow this system to work.

Ok, what if everyone were "will call," how would we structure the gate and entry system to most efficiently allow this? We would definitely need to change the way the entry gate works. This would require ticket takers with mobile devices or scanners to process the people in each car...we would need more volunteers for gate. We can make it work, after all, we are burners.

I think the assumption that this is just high demand cant rule our actions....without making sure the high demand isnt from non-burners wanting to make a few hundred (or more) dollars by scalping their paper ticket.

I think the STEP program, as they describe it, is a good start. But we also need to be able to gift without paper tickets, and the next step falls naturally....remove paper tickets entirely.

The playa is unusually hard on electronics. Imagine trying to keep it functioning in a constant dust storm... I am not saying it is impossible, just extremely difficult. Ok so right now there are about 9 gates. All of the "scanners" (or whatever) would need to communicate with a central server to confirm each scan (verify validity, check for duplicates, etc) not exactly complicated in the default world. For each gate, one would have to assume that each device will fail every day, so lets say 7 backups per gate, thats about 63 devices. There should be at least 2 backups for all other systems.. Again, not completely impossible but challenging. So, if this system fails... no one get in. Paper tickets don't crash.

As far as the gate goes, it certainly does not have to stay as it is. There are limits placed by the BLM, manpower limits, etc. Not completely impossible, but more than you would think.

Have you worked gate? I know it is much more complex than it looks.

[igor47]

The playa is unusually hard on electronics. Imagine trying to keep it functioning in a constant dust storm... would need to communicate with a central server... lets say 7 backups per gate, thats about 63 devices.... Paper tickets don't crash.

i see this re-hashed on the forums over and over again. the people who work information technology for bmorg don't do a very good job. now, i'm sure they're overworked and underpaid and do it because they love it, but in the meantime they've conditioned a lot of burners to expect that IT is... hard.

technology is FUCKING EASY. look at all those artists putting together all sorts of blinky art on the playa. a lot of the time, these people are inventing the technology they're using as they go. after they're done inventing it, they dust-proof it and then make it work with minimal supervision in the harsh environment on the playa, and they do it on the smallest budget they can cobble together. this, if anything, should convince people that our problems are NOT technical.

the servers being overwhelmed by load from ticket sales. barcode scanners that work in the desert. a website to exchange tickets. all of these things are so painfully easy to solve it makes me cry! so stop using that as an excuse. our problems are not technical, they're social. people are much harder to figure out than electrons.

[lemur]

the servers being overwhelmed by load from ticket sales. barcode scanners that work in the desert. a website to exchange tickets. all of these things are so painfully easy to solve it makes me cry! so stop using that as an excuse. our problems are not technical, they're social. people are much harder to figure out than electrons.

OH.. its so painfully easy is it?!

since it appears easy to you... we should just shutup about it?

we arent talking about fricken BLINKIES here.

this system has to work for over $10,000,000 worth of tickets...at the gate it has to work 24 hours a day for 2 weeks. It cant 'go down' it cant fuck up..if it does it means nobody can come in to the gates of burning man.

so lets uhh.. do a rehash of your suggestion.

.

"That doesnt seem so hard.. I took economics 101 AND electrical engineering 101... This problem would be easily solvable if people like ME were working on it.. This is so painfully easy that it makes me CRY!!!"

i see this re-hashed on the forums over and over again. the people who work information technology for bmorg do a very good job. now, i'm sure they're overworked and underpaid and do it because they love it, but in the meantime they've conditioned a lot of burners to expect that theyll get the job done, no matter what the conditions are... the results might not be the best, and sometimes shit will go wrong.. but theyll git er done.

technology in the desert is FUCKING HARD. look at all those artists putting together all sorts of blinky art on the playa. a lot of the time, these people are inventing the technology they're using as they go. after they're done inventing it, they dust-proof it and then it breaks and they feel really sad.

the servers being overwhelmed by load from ticket sales even happens to big names like TicketMaster. barcode scanners that work in the desert. a website to exchange tickets. all of these things are so much more complex than it seems that it makes me cry just to think about it ! so stop using "HEY I AM AN INTERNET EXPERT I CAN FIX IT" as an excuse. our problems are not SO EASILY SOLVED., they're fuckin hard.. people who are much more experienced than me have figured out a way that works for them in the conditions they have to deal with..

also, if you really do think you can offer real solutions: volunteer or contact the departments that are relevant

fill out a volunteer questionnaire: http://www.burningman.com/participate/q ... naire.html

visit the 'OFF PLAYA' volunteering page: http://www.burningman.com/participate/v ... round.html

find the contact info on this page for the SF Office Squad: http://www.burningman.com/participate/sfoffice.html email them about your ideas and ability

find the contact info on this page for the Technology Team: http://www.burningman.com/participate/techweb.html
email them about your ideas and ability

find the contact info on this page for GATE: http://www.burningman.com/participate/gate.html
email them about your ideas and ability


If you really kick ass so much that these ideas seem so simple that youre crying im sure that the parties above would be MORE THAN WILLING to hear about your solutions.. and ya know, volunteering for burning man is really fun!!

Fix the problems for us igor47!!

[RedHeaven]

I'm not sure if this idea has been posted yet because I've been at work at can't keep up.

After hashing it out with a bunch of PDX camps this weekend, we camp up with the following thoughts. The ticket problem is like a stock market crash; artists, musicians, camps and performers are reluctant to invest. Camps are dropping out because they're hearing that camps are dropping out.

Take 1000 of remaining tickets and distribute, say, a maximum of 5-10 as necessary (at full price) to camps that request them. That would stimulate 100-200 camps to get to work.

For example, my camp is The Green Hour. We have one ticket out of 20 campers. If we can buy 7 more tickets before April, we can bring root beer, absinthe, publically-rideable mutant vehicles, playa art, lights, music, a public shade structure and chill space, and a reputation of being an LNT camp every year we've gone. Or, they could sell 8 tickets at random and risk losing some percentage to scalpers and Girls Gone Wild types. 8 of our camp veterans can bring all this, and welcome x-amount of people--virgins welcome!--to join us. It leaves 90% of the extra tickets available to the general population AND stimulates the collective planning and construction process.

I believe most individuals who make an effort to go will get a ticket in time. We just need to inject the collaborative participants with a sense of hope. Thoughts?

I think that is very well said. COLLABORATIVE PARTICIPANTS(cannon) WITH A SENSE OF HOPE
When I think of being a part of the solution, I think of people dropping their egos and get out of the comfort bubble, work with other burners....Its like a HUGE puzzle that we can solve with a good helping of hope and creative thinking. Beautiful stuff can still happen if people let go of the Anger part of the change grieving and move on to real solutions.

[igor47]

lol. armchair expert my ass. my software controls datacenters full of tens of thousands of servers, which must stay up no matter what, and the amount of money flowing through the pipes at those datacenters is WAAAAY more than a measly $20m.

since it appears easy to you... we should just shutup about it?

well... no, i didn't say THAT exactly. it's just, nobody "official" has complained that they can't make barcode scanners work because they have trouble running servers in the desert. i think that when people focus on the technical aspects of the problem, they're focusing on the wrong thing. do you think i'm wrong?

we arent talking about fricken BLINKIES here.

actually, some of the larger arrays of LEDs out there require a lot of infrastructure. have you ever individually sequenced 1k discrete tri-color LEDs? you need fast computers, serious power, lots of distributed drivers, and wiring that shit up is a real nightmare. also, it becomes a harder problem because the technology is not off-the-shelf. on the other hand, you can buy 500 different kinds of barcode scanners with different characteristics, suitable for different environments, and they cost next-to-nothing. google 'mil spec barcode scanner' and you'll get the product that solves the problem as your first result.

also, if you really do think you can offer real solutions: volunteer or contact the departments that are relevant

thanks for the links.

[lemur]

lol. armchair expert my ass. my software controls datacenters full of tens of thousands of servers, which must stay up no matter what, and the amount of money flowing through the pipes at those datacenters is WAAAAY more than a measly $20m.

datacenters are climate controlled and access controlled environments that arent often far away from resources such as.. electricity, water, and connectivity.. also, there are many thousands of datacenters in place around the world which basically turn them into a solved problem (hell, you can buy a datacenter in a box and basically just plug it in to needed services)

how does software writing experience for that environment translate to finding solutions for the problems burning man faces?

burning man happens in a remote environment in a fragile ecosystem far away from electricity, water, internet connectivity and spare parts.. Highly corrosive dust is pervasive, the extreme temperatures and dust storms put strains on even the best systems.. Everything is run off of generators which can.. and many times do go down.. Connectivity to the outside world is by line of sight radiolinks which surely can, and do go down.. .and it all has to be able to be setup from scratch transported on bumpy unpaved playa used during the event and removed within about 1 months time.

The people who need to work with the gear at the gate, and box office (and elsewhere) are more than likely volunteers who might not have a lot of training, or experience with how to properly deal with problems that might, and do, arise.. there are also very few people on-site who can work on problems and fix things.. they are probably spread very thin even in the best situations.

Also.. there really are not many analogues to this whole burning man thing.. If there are, they are very small scale... many of the problems are not solved as they have not become routine like they have in the datacenter world..


it might appear to you to be routine to solve an issue such as running a STEP website, or a Ticket website..or all of burning mans tech problems.. I think the experience ticketmaster has had with crashes/issues with ticketing shows us that it just might not be so easy.. even the most experienced biggest name folks in the tech industry have problems with their services when demand is high.. and even when demand isnt high..

so uhh.. how exactly does writing some software for a datacenter translate into easily fixing burning mans problems ?

more so than just fixing.. but cryingly easy fixing..

if it was just as simple as getting "mil spec" gear.. don't you think that theyd have done that already ?

[lemur]

oh yeah and also... burning man doesnt have a nearly endless budget to solve problems like the US Military does..

[igor47]

lemur, why are we arguing here, and what are we arguing about? you claimed that since i talked the big talk I should offer my expertise to the org, and I agreed and thanked you.

so the only other difference of opinion we have is: i think we should involve technology in smoothing the ticket process; i think the technical problems are solvable, and that we shouldn't let them distract us from the real issues.

what do you think? they're not solvable? they're too hard to solve? we should throw our hands up in the air and... what?

[lemur]

lemur, why are we arguing here, and what are we arguing about? you claimed that since i talked the big talk I should offer my expertise to the org, and I agreed and thanked you.

so the only other difference of opinion we have is: i think we should involve technology in smoothing the ticket process; i think the technical problems are solvable, and that we shouldn't let them distract us from the real issues.

what do you think? they're not solvable? they're too hard to solve? we should throw our hands up in the air and... what?

arguing? i dunno if i felt we were arguing.. i thought we were discussing your suggestion that the problems were so painfully and cryingly simple to solve that we should just stop discussing them in the way we were..

i suggested that i think we might have heard that before, from many arm chair experts on this forum..I suggested that maybe if you can do it.. maybe you should get involved..

you retorted that you wrote some software for a datacenter..(complete with an LOL! and a "my ass" ) so!! hey! its way easy!! (and you also said 'thanks' for the links! after the whole 'my ass!' thing)

...i reply saying the difficult conditions dont really apply to working in a datacenter ......and well.. youre not interested in talking anymore..


what do i think.. hmm, that the problems certainly arent as easily solvable as armchair experts think! if i knew how to solve them i probably would be banging down the doors at BMHQ right now.. theyd probably pay me!..

throw our hands up in the air? no! that wont fix anything

saying things like the problems are "so painfully easy to solve it makes me cry! so stop using that as an excuse" without apparently thinking it through??...that is likely to be even worse than throwing up our hands... because.. you know, overconfidence can be pretty shitty out there in the black rock desert.

[BBadger]

If I recall, the servers last year were utilizing Amazon's cloud computing service which had more than enough hardware to handle the computational load. However, I believe the database system itself was ovewhelmed and that was what caused the problems, maybe from fragmentation or something, something which even brought Microsoft's database servers to their knees when distributing Windows 7 RC.

Barcode scanners, network syncing and uplink stuff at the gate, etc... yeah, it could be done, but it really doesn't solve the critical issues now. It's kind of like all those moronic moral issues like partial birth abortions that get addressed by presidential candidates instead of more pressing, important issues like the economy. Quite frankly, using barcode scanners, networked gates, whatever, is not going to speed up anything in any meaningful manner. It's not like we're contending with lots of counterfeit tickets. Nor is having some fancy new system to transfer tickets going to do anything more than the current system, because it's just not a problem.

[Rice]

If I recall, the servers last year were utilizing Amazon's cloud computing service which had more than enough hardware to handle the computational load. However, I believe the database system itself was ovewhelmed and that was what caused the problems, maybe from fragmentation or something, something which even brought Microsoft's database servers to their knees when distributing Windows 7 RC.

Barcode scanners, network syncing and uplink stuff at the gate, etc... yeah, it could be done, but it really doesn't solve the critical issues now. It's kind of like all those moronic moral issues like partial birth abortions that get addressed by presidential candidates instead of more pressing, important issues like the economy. Quite frankly, using barcode scanners, networked gates, whatever, is not going to speed up anything in any meaningful manner. It's not like we're contending with lots of counterfeit tickets. Nor is having some fancy new system to transfer tickets going to do anything more than the current system, because it's just not a problem.

Bingo!!

Not everyone can go to burning man cause there are NOT enough tickets (no technology will make that issue go away).

If the so-call burners, really wanted to, they could solve their own entry and exodus issues. Just dont fucking all show up and leave at the same time.


OMFL, lets use a machine gun to kill a fly...

[igor47]

wow. i'm sorry if i offended you personally. and i'm not shying away from the conversation, either. i just don't particularly want to get into a flame war with you, whereas you seem to be extremely focused on getting into one with me. why?

look. i think that if i wanted to implement a system to scan barcodes on the playa, i could do it. i don't think it would be very difficult. i have enough experience running hardware on the playa and running systems and software in general that i could do it. you think i'm wrong? that's your opinion, lets agree to disagree.

why do i think this would help? i really like the solution inog proposed, here: viewtopic.php?f=290&t=53708

i think tickets should be non-special -- just a printout and a barcode. this would make them easy to transfer between people who trust each other, and would make it impossible to buy from scalpers or other people you don't trust. right now, we don't have any clue just how many tickets scalpers are sitting on, but we do know that lots of people don't have tickets and the uncertainty is causing chaos for theme camps and art creators. anything we can do to remove an element of uncertainty would help.

changing the way tickets are sold is going to require using technology. this is the same technology gate already uses for EA passes. i think it could be done. that is all.

[5280MeV]

If I recall, the servers last year were utilizing Amazon's cloud computing service which had more than enough hardware to handle the computational load. However, I believe the database system itself was ovewhelmed and that was what caused the problems, maybe from fragmentation or something, something which even brought Microsoft's database servers to their knees when distributing Windows 7 RC.

Yup. Everyone likes to think that scaling is super easy on the cloud. Just burst and buy a few thousand machines for an hour. Sure, that setup that worked so well on five instances won't have any problem on 1000

Ok, so now you have a thousand servers... and a thousand little bottlenecks will come crawling out of the woodwork and slow your system to a crawl. You just wasted your money on 975 instances sitting around and waiting for a signal from that serial task to complete that you didn't even think about.

Scaling is HARD.

...which is why the fact that BRC could grow to 58,000 just blows my mind

[kp_higgs]

Hey guys...uh, remember the title of this post?? Be part of the solution? At this point my post has denigrated into chest thumping and angry words. Why cant you just pose some solutions to the problems without getting personal?

The point of all of these posts is to talk about potential solutions and brainstorm. What are some real workable solutions...instead of saying "we cant do that" or "we've never done that before"...lets figure out what can work and what we are capable of and put that in motion.

I'm fascinated by how unkind people can be under the veil of anonymity. Are you a builder or a wrecker here? Your opportunity to choose a path starts now...

[lemur]

part of the solution is to shout down with vengeful fury all of those solutions we deem as not part of the solution.


like on the playa, where we embrace "YER DOIN' IT WRONG!!!" as almost an official motto.. you know, "YER DOIN' IT WRONG!!!" is sometimes part of the solution.... moopers, people not seperating the trash correctly.. idiots doing stuff in an unsafe manner.. all many kinds of things

and chest thumping, just lets them know that they should listen to you cuz youre big and strong and wise, too.

[Colonel Monk]

The playa is unusually hard on electronics. Imagine trying to keep it functioning in a constant dust storm... would need to communicate with a central server... lets say 7 backups per gate, thats about 63 devices.... Paper tickets don't crash.

i see this re-hashed on the forums over and over again. the people who work information technology for bmorg don't do a very good job. now, i'm sure they're overworked and underpaid and do it because they love it, but in the meantime they've conditioned a lot of burners to expect that IT is... hard.

technology is FUCKING EASY. look at all those artists putting together all sorts of blinky art on the playa. a lot of the time, these people are inventing the technology they're using as they go. after they're done inventing it, they dust-proof it and then make it work with minimal supervision in the harsh environment on the playa, and they do it on the smallest budget they can cobble together. this, if anything, should convince people that our problems are NOT technical.

the servers being overwhelmed by load from ticket sales. barcode scanners that work in the desert. a website to exchange tickets. all of these things are so painfully easy to solve it makes me cry! so stop using that as an excuse. our problems are not technical, they're social. people are much harder to figure out than electrons.

Yeah I'm not buying that. The dust is hard on everything. My Mackie mixing board and crown amp were in the dust last year for TWO WEEKS and they still work fine. I didn't even have it covered.

UPS uses handheld scanners and they are banging on everything and blah blah - I really don't think it could be that bad.

5 years from now? Yeah, if they replace those scanners as often as their ranger radios (at failure ) then there might be an issue but no well built scanner is gonna die in just a few days of influx.

I wouldn't expect it to be perfect the first year, it could be a disaster - but again, no worse than having many tickets potentially in the hands of people who have no intent on going.

[Colonel Monk]

If I recall, the servers last year were utilizing Amazon's cloud computing service which had more than enough hardware to handle the computational load. However, I believe the database system itself was ovewhelmed and that was what caused the problems, maybe from fragmentation or something, something which even brought Microsoft's database servers to their knees when distributing Windows 7 RC.

Barcode scanners, network syncing and uplink stuff at the gate, etc... yeah, it could be done, but it really doesn't solve the critical issues now. It's kind of like all those moronic moral issues like partial birth abortions that get addressed by presidential candidates instead of more pressing, important issues like the economy. Quite frankly, using barcode scanners, networked gates, whatever, is not going to speed up anything in any meaningful manner. It's not like we're contending with lots of counterfeit tickets. Nor is having some fancy new system to transfer tickets going to do anything more than the current system, because it's just not a problem.

I disagree. Because the only reason to use the scanners in the first place is to authenticate the ticket or printed barcode or whatever it ends up being, with ID....

If they tried to authenticate using stacks of paper or a computer or whatever that is a disaster.

Does anyone here every fly these days? You know how you can print your ticket at home, and if you're not checking luggage you can just mosey right to the security checkpoint (meh, which still sucks) and be on your way. But at least you don't have to wait in line, while the ticket agent stares blankly at some terrible software written in the 70's with that blank look... No not their fault, but the system sucks.

So, if we needed to do this, the scanner is the way - you scan the ticket, your name or DL# or whatever pops up, show your ID, done, And all this can happen while they are searching your car! I don't see why it really takes longer than that.

Yes, it's a system they don't have, but it's a system that is available to the world, they would need only get it.

[lemur]

UPS uses handheld scanners and they are banging on everything and blah blah - I really don't think it could be that bad.

5 years from now? Yeah, if they replace those scanners as often as their ranger radios (at failure ) then there might be an issue but no well built scanner is gonna die in just a few days of influx.

these are some old articles to be sure.. but the numbers today, with their latest gen DIAD equiv. is surely not much different:

they spent $150million to develop their rugged Delivery Information Acquisition Device in 1999.. now they got a fancy new one.. probably wasnt much cheaper considering it uses much dif technology than back then..

oh yeah, and their IT budget was 1 billion in 1999.. probably bigger now.. if only burning man had a 1 billion$ IT budget!

UPS, which has an annual IT budget of $1bn, is currently involved in a number of other major IT projects

http://www.computerweekly.com/feature/U ... ery-alerts

Project Costs and Benefits
UPS has estimated the total cost of the project at around $150 million. Senior executives point out that the resulting increase in market share — let alone retention of the company’s competitive edge — completely justifies the investment

http://www.mobileinfo.com/Case_Study/ups.htm