Johnny Rotten wrote: I found these researchers to be very willing and open to discuss their area of research and more importantly calm a somewhat paranoid kiteboarder about a windfarm that is popping up that they're not "stealing our wind"
SSK wrote:
Johnny,
If this is how I am coming across then I obviously am not choosing my words correctly
,
Dammit stop misinterpreting my shit would ya! If you weren't such a pendantic socially retarded engineering type
you'd be able to turn on your right brain on a little and understand that the paranoid kiteboarder I was referring to was not you but ME! Yes I've found myself at a wedding sitting next to some marine energy government big wig social retard engineering type
trying to find something to talk about, and ended up spending the evening drawing diagrams of windfarms, their turbulent wake, googling papers and studies on phones and ipads and discussing the possible impact of wind farms on kiteboarding. Ultimately I ended up coming to the conclusion that I was a paranoid fool for even bringing up the topic but It was one of the most educational discussions I've had in a long time.
Now before ANYONE gets offended by my right brian "attack"on engineers, please consider MY probable background to be willing to have this type pedantic conversation with SSK or the governement guy in the first place.
SSK wrote: I am an engineer and data analyst and one thing I have learned from this is that a lot of kiteboarders are right brained.
Sadly this isn't the kiteboarding community this is majority of the population in general As a data analyst I'm sure you've come across a situation where some anectotal photo or cutesy video showing 1 anomaly countering hundreds of thousands of data points and every study ever performed is displayed and this is what people remember and choose to believe.
For example [all hypothetical here] imagine there was a cute fuzzy fast flying endangered bird species that started nesting on wind turbine platforms because larger non native predators were frightened of the blades and or were too slow to navigate the turbines in the wind so wouldn't attack their nests. The popuation begins to thrive and makes more progress in 5 years on the windfarm then they have under 25 years of environmental protection. Some bird watcher goes out there makes a video to show the astounding progress and captures a rather inspirational video of the fuzzy father bird dancing through the turbine blades carrying his body weight in minnows bringing food back to the nest in order to show how well these birds have adapted to their surroundings
Then some NIMBY cottage owner, opposed to a potential wind farm development in their area takes said video off the web and edits it such that all you see is a baby bird calling for food. The father dancing through the turbine blades with his mouthful of minnows to some dark and dangerous anxiety inducing music, followed by a shot of an approaching turbine blade ending in a clap of music on a white screen. Then pans back to the cute baby bird calling for food with melancholy music inthe background.
BOOM! guy has the support of his ENTIRE community [in case you needed an apporach laughinman] even though EVERY single study supports that windfarms are FANTASTIC for that bird species. You can talk data till your blue in the face most people won't understand it and as a result won't trust you. All they remember is that harrowing fuzzy bird getting smoked by the evil wind turbines...cuz they "seen it" with their own eyes......when infact the fuzzy bugger made it....Like he does 8 times every day....
The horns rev wake photo was one of those anecdotal pieces of shit. A VERY cool and impressive photo. But a completely inaccurate representaition of the wake. And misleadingly gives the impression that the wake fans out turbulently and violently for miles indefinitiely. A few comments like "a picture is worth a thousands words" and "now I wouldn't kite near a wind farm" meant that the true wake was in need of further explanaiton.Your "You're wrong, I'm right" response was rather right brained and baseless...but hey you're a kiteboarder right?
... So again had to call you out. Otherwise everything else you presented was BANG ON well researched and very well written I enjoyed the discussion and learned some extra stuff reading the studies.... woulda liked to have you at that wedding, I mighta had a chance debating with that Marine Energy fellow.
Cheers brah!