Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google Makani – Wind Energy Kites

google.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 165 posts

Re: Google Makani – Wind Energy Kites

#81

Post by cpayne »

untog wrote: post #44
scholia wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's always worth complaining about this sort of crap, even if it doesn't have any impact on the ardent followers of web design fashion....

Is it? What does it achieve? I think anyone browsing HN knows the opinion of the average HN user on scrolljacking. If they're still doing it it's because either they don't read HN or they have data that proves it works.

Not sure why this was downvoted. I agree, after the 10th discussion on how designers are breaking scrolling, I'm not sure what is achieved apart from "yeah, that still pisses me off too!"

Re: Google Makani – Wind Energy Kites

#83

Post by endtime »

bsbechtel wrote: post #58
downandout wrote: post #53

Earlier 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?

I hate Apple design, but I just don't use their products. All Apple products have a good alternative...not necessarily true for Google, Facebook, Linkedin, etc.

Re: Google Makani – Wind Energy Kites

#84

Post by Already__Taken »

gamegoblin wrote: post #70
damonpace wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It only has to save you enough to make that a rare-ish problem.

Re: Google Makani – Wind Energy Kites

#85

Post by sterlingross »

lemoncucumber wrote: post #65

The 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...

Thank you for the link, I was wanting to read that article but had forgotten about it.

I met Don on a return flight from SJC to OGG. He seemed very kind and passionate about the Makani Power project at the time. The idea, as he explained it, originated from plans to build a self powered kite boat [1] that could circumnavigate the world. The "self powered" part interested his friends at Google and they started funding him. He confessed that he had accidentally become an engineer in the process, but his real passion was wind surfing and kite surfing and he was eager to get back to that.

[1] http://project.kiteboat.com/

Re: Google Makani – Wind Energy Kites

#86

Post by lgas »

meej wrote: post #68
callesgg wrote: post #10

Good, 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.)

Spacebar does nothing for me in Chrome.

Re: Google Makani – Wind Energy Kites

#87

Post by lotsofmangos »

maxerickson wrote: post #50
lotsofmangos wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the USA, the energy returned on energy invested for wind mostly beats oil and is more than twice a good as current photovoltaics. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_returned_on_energy_inves...

I followed the sources there and cherry picked one actual study (in the sense that I didn't even try to look at more than 1). The wikipedia citation cites this meta analysis for the number: http://www.soest.hawaii.edu/GG/FACULTY/ITO/GG410/Wind/Kubisz... I then only looked at the first study from there that I found, linked here: https://www.google.com/search?q=energy+performance+and+life+... They estimated the lifetim…

All numbers regarding things that will happen in the future tend to be estimates, no matter which long term engineering project you care to pick. For fairly obvious reasons.

Re: Google Makani – Wind Energy Kites

#88

Post by calt »

I'm happy to see experimentation in new wind technologies, but it makes me sad to see things like this grabbing headlines when floating offshore is such a strong contender that just needs some more funding for the engineering effort (mostly because it's pushing the currently tested limits of carbon composites).

http://bangordailynews.com/2014/05/07/news/bangor/umaine-get...

Re: Google Makani – Wind Energy Kites

#89

Post by maxerickson »

lotsofmangos wrote: post #87
maxerickson wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I followed the sources there and cherry picked one actual study (in the sense that I didn't even try to look at more than 1). The wikipedia citation cites this meta analysis for the number: http://www.soest.hawaii.edu/GG/FACULTY/ITO/GG410/Wind/Kubisz... I then only looked at the first study from there that I found, linked here: https://www.google.com/search?q=energy+performance+and+life+... They estimated the lifetim…

All numbers regarding things that will happen in the future tend to be estimates, no matter which long term engineering project you care to pick. For fairly obvious reasons.

Sure, that's why I said Those estimates are probably going to be reasonable, because I don't think it is a problem that they are estimates.

But it is sometimes nice to peer through the wikipedia and see what lies beneath.

Re: Google Makani – Wind Energy Kites

#90

Post by lotsofmangos »

maxerickson wrote: post #89
lotsofmangos wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All numbers regarding things that will happen in the future tend to be estimates, no matter which long term engineering project you care to pick. For fairly obvious reasons.

Sure, that's why I said Those estimates are probably going to be reasonable , because I don't think it is a problem that they are estimates. But it is sometimes nice to peer through the wikipedia and see what lies beneath.

Your point seemed to be that the first of the studies you picked was based on estimates for things like total lifetime and decommissioning.

But the fact that the first thing you picked relied on estimates for those things tells us nothing at all about the quality of the data, just that estimates were used for something where estimates are always used.

Post reply on HN