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Hi Pierre: Well the way I see it, they have their new Dave Santos, with, as you’ve noted, so many similarities, and whose friends had said seemed to possibly suffer from a similar malady. Today we have a very Santo-esque new video, lasting a few brief seconds, showing no power generated, just like Santos’ “blink-and-you-missed-it” videos. I think this group should therefore declare him “head of the class”, or maybe “the second coming”. and put him in charge of this entire operation. That way they can just “cut out the middleman” and let him directly censor anything he doesn’t agree with. (I tried to be nice but it doesn’t help.)

Last night I awoke to find Youtube still running, spoon-feeding us videos, and was amazed to see footage of an accomplished pianist, singer, and conductor who had suffered an infection of the brain which destroyed his ability to form new memories. The result was a life of reliving the same 30 seconds over and over, always thinking he “just woke up”, writing down what time it was, with a comment about having just awakened.

LINK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_HfSnQqeyY
(Start watching it just before 53 minutes in)

The video shows his reaction to his wife entering the room. where he expresses great joy at seeing her, thinking it has been a long time since he has seen her. He always thinks the same thing, no matter how many times he sees her, or how much time she spends with him. He not only can’t form new memories, but can’t believe when people try to explain it to him, and gets real angry at one point. Well we can hardly blame him - what would any of us do? It makes me realize how lucky any of us are to have a brain that works anywhere close to “normal”.

Anyway, it was the middle of the night when I saw this, but it really woke me up, because it seemed so familiar. Lots of people I talk to point to world events and ask "How can people be so stupid as to believe what is being said - don’t they remember all the previous times the same sort of stuff was said and it never times out to be true? Why do they keep repeating this nonsense? Why do they keep falling for it? What could be wrong with their brains? One such guy asks this talking about his own brother for whom we in general have the most respect and admiration. Yet in a similar way, so many people seem to have “a screw loose” in their heads!

Of course it reminded me of the string of AWE efforts claiming to (in the future) power X hundred homes at location Y by date Z, or the claims of companies repeatedly claiming to have AWE systems “developed”, “on the market”, “shipping” etc.

Like this poor gentleman always thinking it is the first time he sees his wife, when she is there on a regular basis, people here seem to fall for the same line over and over, like they’ve never heard it before. It just really reminds me of the willingness of people to believe people who have lied to them over and over again, as though they have no memory of the previous outcomes, or indeed people who think the whole world is brand new, with no valid standards, no rationale for the long-held beliefs of others, or indeed long-proven truths. I’m really interested to see the rest of this video. It seems to offer insights to how the world can sometimes seem so crazy. A lot of it seems to come down to basic memory, and ability to reason.

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They do not even understand what a lift-based or drag-based wind energy system is.
It was already the most basic categorical delineation in wind energy when I first began my research in the 1970’s. Anyone can look up the difference between a lift-based wind energy device and a drag-based wind energy device. This is one of the many glaring holes in basic, established terminology and knowledge, where AWE people can always be counted on to show their seemingly perpetual and incurable ignorance.

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Or just accept that the terminology used for AWE differs from other wind?

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The problem is that AWE is an other wind…

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That IS the topic, and we can see the results! A whole lotta nothing! The problem has been, most AWE people do not even understand, they ARE the topic! :slight_smile:

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Hi Doug, AWE players are not idiots. They are clever and skilled. But AWE can be a dead-end. This is what its evolution tends to show, and the inversion of drag and lift features in regard to that of current wind power does not change anything.

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Sorry Pierre, I was once again using long-established terminology from wind energy, where it is understood that there are always people insisting they can outperform the existing wind energy industry, and so far, they have always been wrong. We just call them “idiots”.

Just because someone is smart and talented doesn’t mean they can’t occasionally act like an idiot. I probably slap myself almost every day over some thing I do where I say OMG what an IDIOT I AM!!! So please don’t take it personally, and it doesn’t apply to everyone.

For example I don;t think it applies to you, because you haven’t been insisting that some clearly whacky, poorly-performing configuration is the answer to wind energy. You have not made ridiculous promises that never come true, nor have you ripped off investors for millions of dollars pretending you have an answer. You merely explore some ideas, build occasional prototypes to try out these ideas, and contribute to the thought process that might someday lead to a successful AWE technology. So it is not you, or every AWE person, I am talking about.

But really, when you are familiar with what DOES work well in wind energy, the constant parade of newcomers insisting that today’s practitioners don’t know what they are doing can only be called “idiots” from the viewpoint of actual practitioners of the well-refined art of wind energy. That is just what we call them. What else do you want us to call them? How about just “crazy”? Or maybe “Highly insistent pathological nutcases suffering from the delusion that every wrong thing they say is a breakthrough”? Too complicated. “Idiots” is the actual word used. And sometimes “crazy”. They’ve always been there. They never stop. Before AWE, it was usually vertical-axis wind turbines or some Santo-esque strip of plastic that wiggles, a pole that shakes, or whatever - just IDIOTIC CRAP, usually long-disproven.

Nonetheless, when you add up:

  1. the number of projects
  2. the number of people involved
  3. the amount of money spent
  4. the promises made
    and contrast that with the lack of meaningful results
    especially now that the whole AWE story seems to be collapsing
    or at least getting to be kind of an old (yawn) “story”
    you’d have to admit there must be a lot of idiots involved somewhere!

Since I have been castigated by many “true-believers” for confidently using that term from day-one, I feel validated at this point.
Before it was “How can he say that?”
Now it’s more like “Well, yeah, maybe he has a point…”

You have to understand, as I’ve been explaining all along, the stupid things the AWE promoters have been saying from the very beginning were mostly ALREADY KNOWN TO BE REALLY MISGUIDED AND WRONG IN WIND ENERGY.
NO PERSON IN WIND ENERGY EVER QUESTIONED MY USE OF THE TERM “IDIOTS”.
WIND ENERGY HAS ALWAYS ATTRACTED NUTCASES!!!

As I’ve long explained (ad infinitum?)
Wind energy is a magnet for crackpots
Airborne wind energy is a NEODYMIUM SUPERMAGNET!!!

And the reason is simple:
WIND IS INVISIBLE!!!
Since wind is invisible, people can imagine the wind doing exactly what they want.
But the wind does NOT do “what they want”.
The wind acts as the wind acts.
And how to harness it is a long and hard-won art amounting to thousands of years of accumulated knowledge. The newbies know nothing of any of this.

Here’s what they think:

  1. I am really smart
  2. Wind energy is easy and the people doing it are stupid
  3. I am so smart I can think of a better way without even knowing anything about how it works
  4. My first shoot-from-the-hip initial impressions are more valid than 2000 years of accumulated knowledge
  5. Because I am such a genius, my unstudied ideas will take over the market

And they are almost always wrong!
Their “shoot from the hip” initial impressions are just the exact same, typical, 100% wrong first impressions we ALL had coming in, except some of us are capable of learning!
They are not capable of learning. Or they have no desire to learn.

So, when you have people who are either incapable of learning, or unwilling to learn, pretending they know what they are doing and saying the actual experts do not know what they are doing, wasting millions of dollars on stuff that keeps failing over and over, what else could you possibly call them?
Idiots.
It really is that simple!

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As long as you’re not expecting any different results from your rant @dougselsam
Good to see the bilious nature of the message becoming ever more focused and distilled
Keep it short

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Starting a toy business might be a way to get experience in business. There are easier businesses to start though, and also becoming an inventor or launching a toy is much much more likely to lose you money than gain it.

If you’d like to sell toys you could look at toys you’d like to sell that you think you might be able to sell and sell those.

I think the idea needs more development to make it appealing as a toy. I’d start perhaps making it a self-assembly kit made from thick paper so it’s cheap to send over the mail. Even if that goes nowhere it’s probably a nice learning experience.

Not every idea has to work. You can just start and while you develop it get a better understanding of it and see if it makes sense to take it further, ideally before you spend thousands on it.

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Hi Doug, how do you explain that none of the wind companies granted interest for AWE? It’s not just a matter of terminology. These companies quickly understood that there was no meaningful future for AWE.

Where is AWE?

As for me I think that although the chances are low, there might be some possibilities but not with the methods generally discussed, unless they fit in as sub-systems of a probably aerostatic whole with a high angle of elevation allowing taking up little space on the ground.

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Thankfully I know a guy who done that sort of thing. He work once for phones 4 you. has been a manager and own a 3D printer. Often referred as a hole,by some. but he’s good at what he’s does. Even if it is a quips some thing awful. I should know some point next week as he’s busy right now. I’ve also knocked up a stl file for a 6 blade rotor though will need conversion to svg. For lazer cutting. might need some work.to save on waste margins. Definitely k.I.s.s approach
Rotor blade…stl (130.6 KB)
Tinkercad. I believe I’ve a lazer cutter near by I can send it to. Though have no idea of cost. 4mm material. use what you got . could be just a case of printing / cutting the side wall. insert lolly sticks and glue with whatever you got. The last I knew a pack of lolly sticks was £1 for 250 lolly sticks. 4mm plywood or cardboards rather cheep. £15 m2 the last time I checked. If lazer cut on mass the a lot of end bits. Sold as a package deal self assembly kit. with a section of ducted pipe as a stand an easy £5 and up all day long. Which should cover the cutting or printing expenses if sold on mass. Depending complexity. the design cost margins may vary.
I thought the toy route far more practical. safe bet for sure.

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As long as you’re not expecting any different results from “ascending” to a “position” of gleefully and judgementally deleting other peoples’ posts, have fun pretending it is advancing the cause.

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OK Pierre, just so you know, if there was a K-12 school for wind energy, the difference between a lift machine and a drag machine would be taught in Kindergarten. It is the most basic starting point for learning ANYTHING about wind energy.

Let’s transpose this same ignorance of basic terminology into an art you are well accomplished in: playing piano. Pretend thousands of people came along and declared they were going to supersede today’s well-developed art of piano playing by playing with their feet. The stated advantage would be eliminating the legs on the piano, claiming they take up too much material.

And say these same people claimed they would be able to play better than anyone in the world soon, and kept promising they would be playing Carnegie Hall or Julliard “next year”.

Well, your first reaction would probably be that legs on a piano were worth it, because they formed a stable support allowing consistent playing using the proven “hands” instead of unproven “feet”, and that these people might have good intentions, but might also be very misguided.
Clue 1: feet instead of hands

Then you note that out of the thousands of people making up this movement, NOT A SINGLE ONE EVEN KNEW HOW TO PLAY PIANO.
Clue 2: no knowledge of the art whatsoever

Next you notice that they call a treble clef (G clef) a bass clef (F clef), and they call a bass clef (F clef) a treble clef (G clef). When you ask why, they point to some really lame patent from the 1980’s that some guy with zero knowledge of piano had filed, that erroneously called a treble clef a bass clef, and called a bass clef a treble clef.
Clue 3: no knowledge of established terminology

Now let’s say you were the ONLY actual piano player who decided to engage these thousands of people in discussion, and you were horrified to see that they were SO IGNORANT of music in general, let alone piano playing, that they DID NOT EVEN KNOW A TREBLE CLEF from a BASS CLEF!

Then let’s say when you tried to explain the well-established treble and bass clef, they WANTED TO ARGUE WITH YOU and somehow say “Well, when you are playing a piano with no legs , using your feet, the terminology is different”

How stupid would you then see these people as being? Unbelievably stupid? So stupid that the word “stupid” was not even sufficient to describe them? What would you call them? I think “idiots” would be on the milder side. You’d probably want to strangle them, and the only thing stopping you would be you might injure your hands.

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Please stop bullshitting. You don’t know. And we can see from a mile away that you don’t know. This forum tries to be about applied science and trying new things. No one knows the answers. It helps if you have experience and are educated in related fields, which you are neither – although to be fair many of us are also not.

Anyone trying new things needs to accept that there are many things they don’t know and will get many things wrong. You progress by trying to learn new things and trying things and failing and trying again.

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Yes it is interesting that, as far as I know, for the whole 14 years of AWE, I do not know of any other “player” besides me with actual experience in wind energy. That should be a BIG CLUE. Just like the thousands of piano-with-no-legs people with not a single one who knows how to play piano or even read music at all.

I don’t think the existing wind companies are set against AWE to the point of saying there is no future to it. I think it is more that they are very busy providing 10% of our electricity (and growing) as it is, and meanwhile, if an AWE system came a long that was compelling, they would embrace it, but right now they are just busy implementing today’s technology.

I am not aware of a single wind energy person involved with any AWE project. (Maybe I’m forgetting about someone) Even the idea that any AWE effort ever contracted with an aerodynamicist with wind energy experience is just a “maybe” as far as I know. Of course, just because I don’t know about them doesn’t mean they don’t exist, but I cannot recall ever hearing of any real wind person involved with AWE.

You know what’s funny? The spell-check on this thing doesn’t even understand the word “aerodynamicist”. At least it understands “treble clef”.

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My apologies if that’s the way I came off. It’s Noted. Wasn’t my intention to come off with a side serving of bs. Followed by a faceplant in the muck.
I appreciate we are learners here. Without meaning to be insincere. If something seem logical to me. because it follows a pattern. so sure as hells sure. Seemed like a good idea. I’d say so. That is all. I speak as if Its a journey of discovery for all! myself included. If I know something I will put it plainly. For all to see. Didn’t think I was talking bs. just simple mechanics, And manufacturing methods. Or was I mistaken?

So thank you for letting me know. That I poked a bear and somehow completely missed the point.

If seam achievable, the materials to my knowledge are accessible. I will mention it or reference. If I need to be more precise? I will make an effort. Hopefully I will be able to show something for it…

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One of these “idiots”, as you say, produced an average of 92 kW, far ahead of many other players.

That doesn’t make it a viable device, though.

In a classic Research-gate energy forum, I don’t even dare to talk about AWE.

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You made some claims (definitely, sure thing, etc). You would need to support them.

Here are two videos:

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Then why did Vestas send a large group to the AWE conference?

What you say is not true. Only if the people working in wind companies are also idiots. I can attest these people exist. For example, Vestas made many patents AWE related. Who wrote these?

I say again, its easy to predict failure in an emerging technology just because there will be many failures in AWE and maybe just a few successes. As happened in wind I would think, and in computing and anything new.

Again I urge you to spend your time on developing your ideas rather than focusing on spotting who is going to fail. Its a bit interesting, but its the easiest thing to do.

More interesting is spotting possible winners and even more hard, to predict what the winning tech may be

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OK then, show us a working Vestas airborne wind energy system.
Show us where Vestas promised to power X hundred homes using AWE in Location Y by date Z.

Filing a patent is not the same as being involved in an actual AWE project.

And what I said IS exactly true: that I’m not aware of any wind energy person involved in any AWE project. I didn’t say they don’t exist. But maybe they don’t. Out of thousands of kids in the group selfies, maybe there is a wind energy person somewhere. I just don’t happen to know about them. Certainly it would be more the exception than the rule. If wind energy people were involved, they wouldn’t be reversing the most basic definition in wind energy: lift machines versus drag machines.