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Subject: Viridian Note 00101: Design Undersides
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(((bruces remarks: Enthusiasm for wind power should not blind one to the fact that windmills are machines, an energy infrastructure is a complex system, and that all designs necessarily have downsides for somebody somewhere sometime.)))
Source: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, September 26, 1999 "Some Wisconsin Residents Oppose New Wind Turbines" "GREGORVILLE, Wisconsin == Ken Loeber had no objections when he first heard about plans to build a wind farm near his home in Kewaunee County. The 51-year-old artist moved here in the early 1970s for the peace and quiet. When a utility started talking about the project, he had visions of watching state-of-the-art wind turbines silently making electricity in this breezy corridor south of Door County. "'Now it's more like we are living in an industrial park,' Loeber said from the living room of his log cabin, a few hundred yards from the closest spinning turbine. 'It's so noisy that, some nights, we can't open our windows. But I think that now that they are up, they placed them far too close to people's homes.'
"Even though they don't belch smoke or pose thepotential danger of a nuclear power plant, Wisconsin wind farms are generating something else == local opposition. The tall towers, with their hypnotic, rotating blades, strike many as a cool way to make electricity. But some of the people who live nearby believe their quality of life is being buffeted by these new contraptions, which rise more than 30 stories to capture the best winds.
"Wisconsin Public Service and Madison Gas & Electrichave erected 31 turbines in the towns of Lincoln and Red River along an outcropping that produces the highest sustained winds in the state. The Danish-built machines represent the largest concentration of wind generation east of the Mississippi River.
"Those who are bugged by the projects say the turbinesare too loud, foul up TV reception and ruin the night sky with their flashing red lights. For some residents, when the sun hugs the horizon, the shadows from the twirling blades create a strobe-light effect that can turn a walk across the living room into a bad rock-concert experience.
"We were getting these shadows in the afternoon andnow, as the sun moves lower in the sky, we're getting them in the morning,' said Julie Thiry, who can see turbines from both her kitchen and her living room. 'It's terrible. You have to keep doing double takes.'
"Both Wisconsin Public Service and MG&E say they areworking to fix the problems. 'It's a big deal whenever someone is unhappy with what we do,' says Gregory Bollom, a market planner for the Madison utility. 'As elegant as some people think a wind turbine is, they are still a machine, and some people aren't going to like it.'" (((bruces remarks: Now for another design issue, the downside of the Viridian Ranking System. As the Viridian list grows larger, it becomes more valuable in attention terms, so strangers are increasingly eager to exploit it. Such was the case recently when a list subscriber industriously removed all the anti-spam chevrons and stars from people's log-in addresses, and invited them to join an unmoderated pseudo-Viridian mailing list, run on egroups.com.
(((Unmoderated mailing lists are, of course,profoundly anti-Viridian by their nature. Their design limitations necessarily makes them attention hogs of the first order. Some people trusting enough to respond to the friendly and cunningly worded invitation are now emitting screams of anguish directed at the Pope-Emperor. For instance:)))
From: brucebiles@yahoo.com^* (Bruce Biles)
I really enjoy your Viridian newsletters. I like the movement. I write you HORRIFIED by the INCREDIBLE amount of redundant email I get from having joined this e-group. Had I known what such a move entails I would've NEVER joined. Now I don't know how to stop them! I just spent an hour going through DOZENS of emails...some of them quite stupid...many of them just REDUNDANT. Please help me get away from these people. I have to go now as this public Library closes in 1 minute. I really can't stand this Viridian SPAM. (((For the record, you get off egroups lists by mailing egroups.com. For this pseudo-Viridian imposture, try viridian-d-unsubscribe-(your email address)@egroups.com. Maybe that'll work. I'm praying for you. (((Enthusiasm for the Viridian List should not blind one to the fact that we are still on the Internet. Yes, I can protect you from utter gibberish in the lists that I myself edit. But! If you trustingly wander into the Internet's outer darkness, it's at your own peril. I believe that the Viridian Ranking System gives us a refreshing sense of community solidarity, rewards creative effort, and adds to the value of list discussions. But there is a downside: people who glimpse your log-in name can tug your chain, if they're in the mood to try it. In case of future incidents, and there are likely to be some, keep in mind that "Viridian" traffic is never Viridian unless it comes directly from fringeware.com or bruces@well.com.)))
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