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Comment Re:Even less dependency on foreign oil (Score 1) 315

we are all going to have to get over seeing them as ugly or migratory-bird killers ...

A lot has been done to make wind turbines safer for birds. Bats, on the other hand:

"...wildlife fatalities at wind turbines are now a bat issue, not a bird issue."

It seems that bats, for some reason, are flying so close to the blades that the get caught in a vortex and suffer explosive decompression in their lungs. Yikes.

Even worse - bats tend to fly more frequently at low wind speeds. Note that this invention allows wind turbines to operate more efficiently at low wind speeds. Unfortunate combination.

I'm not saying that wind energy is bad - far from it. But regardless of what we do (i.e. seek 'clean' energy sources), there's going to be complications and a big, steep learning curve.

Here's a radio interview with one of the bat researchers

Comment "break fix stuff" (Score 1) 411

Every time you "fix a broken desktop", you're saving the company the cost of a brand new desktop, minus the price of parts + your labour. If you like, throw in a day of lost productivity for the user who has to configure and acclimatize to the new system.

It's a gross underestimate of the real value, but even a PHB should accept it.

If you need to counter the argument, "well, if you could fix it then so could the user," keep a list of the problems you've fixed and how frequently each one occurred (i.e. diverse problems with low frequency). That's where your expertise is most valuable.

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