Good, could people just stop messing with how scrolling works.
They are pretty much copying mobile paged scroll views, like iOS and co. Mobile first UIs!
Google Makani – Wind Energy Kites
61–70 of 165 posts
Re: Google Makani – Wind Energy Kites
#62Would it plummet out of the sky if the wind dropped suddenly?
presumably it would go into helicopter mode and return to base.
There's also autorotation, which means you need very little power for a controlled descent (still need some power to steer).
Re: Google Makani – Wind Energy Kites
#63[deleted]
Re: Google Makani – Wind Energy Kites
#64Crazy ideas should come with graphs. Not clear how much it costs, how much energy it will generate, and how it will recoup the cost.
Re: Google Makani – Wind Energy Kites
#65The New Yorker did a great article about this tech (and the guy behind it) a couple years ago: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/05/20/inherit-the-win...
Re: Google Makani – Wind Energy Kites
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
Google is in the position to have done exactly this kind of analysis, and apparently the majority likes this crap. I'm glad I am not alone in hating it though.
Google, and to a certain extent Facebook, LinkedIn, and all other large web companies are in positions to make data driven design decision, and every time it's done I hear lots of complaining. I'm wondering how great data driven design really is. On the flip side, how often do you hear that Apple's software design is driven by data analysis, and how often do you hear complaints about their designs?
> how often do you hear complaints about their designs?
Every time I turn on my MBP.
Re: Google Makani – Wind Energy Kites
#67This looks a lot like a project being developed by Bryan Roberts (IIRC) in Australia, that New Scientist covered about fifteen years ago. He was using a gyrocopter-like structure (he called it a gyromill) to keep the devices up in the air, and with an intent to be much higher up than these things seem to be aimed at, but the principle remains the same (tethered, high enough to gain some consistency of wind).
Can't find the NS link, but this provides some more info: http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/enviro/EnviroRepublish_18...
[Edit: add url, fix historical reference.]
Re: Google Makani – Wind Energy Kites
#68Good, could people just stop messing with how scrolling works.
Ironically, it works great with the spacebar. (I've become accustomed to people breaking spacebar scrolling entirely, especially in Firefox.)
Re: Google Makani – Wind Energy Kites
#69I'm still a bit confused about how the forces line up for the flight path. If I'm understanding: - the wing flies in a circle which is perpendicular to the wind (oriented the same way an ordinary wind turbine would be) - the tether is up-wind from the wing, so the force from the tether pulls the wing into the wind which generates lift, which is used to propel the wing along the circular path - the propellers are driv…
Here's a Ted talk from 2009 about the early version of the tech. http://www.ted.com/talks/saul_griffith_on_kites_as_the_futur... The tethered airframe converts wind into high-speed lateral motion, sort of like a sailboat would if it were sailing into the wind. These higher speeds can drive the blades faster than if they were simply pointed at a wind source.
Wow 6+ years.
Re: Google Makani – Wind Energy Kites
#70I think this is pretty cool, but several questions spring to mind which I haven't found good answers for. The first is what sort of density can you get out of these? How many per acre/hectare? 1? 3? California has a number of wind installations and some of them are pretty dense [1]. The second is what sort of radar signature does this thing have? Probably not a navigation hazard but should be interesting on the weath…
I would imagine if they were timed properly and coordinated using software they could be extremely dense.
Software can't entirely save you -- a structural failure could cause one kite to careen into another, taking down a lot more kites.