When the one guy finally moaned it instantly reminded me of when I was kid and got the wind knocked out of me. I couldn't suck in any air. I had to let someone know I couldn't breathe and that moan was exactly what came out of me. Then I was able gasp in some air and start to breathe again. Really scared me at the time.

I think I might have seen this myself.

I was sailing in a race half way around Ireland (Dun laoghire to Dingle), which takes 2-3 days. We were coming into Dingle at about 4am with hardly any wind, and heavy wind the previous evening had got me out of bed early.

There's a famous dolphin in Dingle, and I distinctly remember a glowing green dolphin shape appearing a few times, swimming along with the boat. However, in the state we were in, our reactions and motivation were so low that I never managed to call it out to the others in time.

So either I was the only one to see the glowing green outline of an otherwise invisible dolphin, or I was enjoying a pleasant side-effect of sleep deprivation. Either way it was really really cool.

This is a problem not exclusive to wind machines and is, thanks to social media, a universal problem. Unfortunately, many/most humans believe the first thing they hear/see regarding an issue. It is possible to "inoculate" a population against this viral misinformation, but it requires that accurate information is widely distributed before the malicious virus is.

@WmGn: hard to blame the media for his messes, but if we are airing our wishes to the wind...

wish the president would distance himself for the mic. save lives.
wish the president would wear a face mask. keep people from getting ill [mud fence of a man]...at least a ball-gag...let him take the pain for once.

Social distancing of 6 feet will not prevent overloading the health care system.

Check your state https://covidactnow.org and the point of no return of overwhelming the system.

I think of it as smelling a smoker's smoke. Sometimes you can smell their smoke from 10+ feet away. and farther if you are down wind. That smoke is what they exhaled.

When they are done and come inside or such you can smell it coming off them.

Just trade the smoke for the virus, 6 feet is not enough.

This still does not wish away the problem of having to cover all wind and solar power sources with backups for windless nights.

North Africa is still the same time-zone. Consider connecting Australia.

Yes, California could export more solar and wind power, but would be forced to stop removing fossil fuel plants, stop creating new renewable energy generation, and would have to buy dirty electricity from it's neighbors. We also would, as mentioned, lose all control over our energy production to the federal government, which is owned by the oil industries.
If it was as simple as selling our excess electricity, it would be great, but it's simply not. Joining an RTO would mean California would not be able to go 100% renewable ever, because our neighbors don't and the Fed doesn't want to.
If our neighbors want to make an agreement outside of the Fed to share our cleaner power, we would likely jump at it, especially if we could insist they agree to strive for 100% clean renewable energy production. If the Fed is involved, it's a non starter. We've spent billions on making our state cleaner, fighting the federal government tooth and nail the whole way. There's no way in hell California is going to toss that investment and the freedom to regulate our own energy production in the toilet just to sell our excess to our dirty neighbors. We would rather secede.

*promote

That's an odd finding. On the video, it looks like the incoming pilot landed on an apron between two pads. Even if the departing helicopter was centered, that's still awfully close. Sudden gust of wind and it might have happened anyway.

Edit: Ok, I see how the layout is.

https://goo.gl/maps/EnzXgvDf6YHMEj9S7

Seems a screwy setup, to be honest. I note the satellite image shows a chopper parked even worse than the first one in the video.

I was thinking about car safety and how the biggest variable is likely the driver...how specific cars are driven on average, and it struck me that the best way to promote public safety would be to make your maximum speed limit variable based on gvw (gross vehicle weight). This is already done for vehicles with more than two axles or those towing trailers because it's obvious they take longer to stop. The same logic should apply to every car. It's a no brainer that a Humvee takes longer to stop than a Miata, and is far less controllable under emergency braking. For the safety of both those in such larger vehicles and the general public, they should not be allowed to go as fast as cars weighing 1/4 their weight with better brakes.
A side benefit of such a system would be greater average fuel economy, because bigger cars have greater wind resistance (on average) so become less efficient at higher speeds.
Of course, I wouldn't expect that kind of reason to ever fly in America where the most popular car is a heavy truck that's never used for hauling and could be replaced with a Honda Civic with no loss of functionality for >75% of owners....but everyone wants to drive a tank so they're safer, with no thought about what that means for the other cars on the road.

*quality explanation of why crash testing is only a tiny part of real life safety in cars
*promote

Today is actually summer solstice https://twitter.com/BOM_Vic/status/1208492322721271809

It's not actually too bad here, we're hundreds of kilometres from the NSW fires, although they are so big that the smoke reached New Zealand. Rather weirdly, the smoke even reached Melbourne on Friday due to an inversion layer and unusual wind conditions. Our Bureau of Meteorology provided a video here https://twitter.com/BOM_Vic/status/1207815448571633664

My Sydney based colleagues on the other hand have had air conditions much like Delhi in India (and for similar reasons). In fact my one young colleague who travelled to Delhi for a few weeks probably had better air quality there after rain cleared up the air in Haryana and Delhi!

I loved that South Park chose to use a song off their debut (best) album, as i thought Van Halen music declined quickly after their first couple records.

On a side note, It was also my first record purchase along with Boston's second album and The Best of Earth, Wind & Fire, Vol. 1. Man i had good music taste at thirteen years old I still remember being in the store picking out those albums. A pretty exciting day as i recall. Good memories

5.) You don't tug on superman's cape
6.) You don't spit into the wind
7.) You don't pull the mask off that old lone ranger
And you don't mess around with Jim

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TajUFGstkk4

Safest...of those we discussed, maybe. It's certainly not safer than well designed solar, wind, micro hydro, wave/tidal, etc.

Some in Fukushima have seriously elevated risk for cancers, but no one died of radiation poisoning that I've heard of (but many still can't go home). Not true in Chernobyl. I've not seen claims of thousands dead since the very early days, but a short investigation shows estimates vary widely, from 4000-60000 early deaths from radiation related cancers, and even the lowest estimates are unacceptable. Direct radiation related deaths seem to be around 100 there.

It does seem that today the evacuations cause more deaths, likely because of safety measures required after Chernobyl and the fact that most are only exposed for extremely short times because they evacuated and are not allowed to return until exposure levels are low.

There are real, honest health concerns involved, including indirect impact caused by evacuations or shelter in place stress. That said, there's plenty of exaggerated fear mongering too.

What say you to those who grow their own food, produce their own power with microhydro, solar, and or wind, (or only buy renewable energy, possible in California) and drive electric vehicles or bicycles when they drive?

What about those who still pollute, but offset their carbon usage by buying credits/planting trees?

Can they blame the problem on the companies who supply destructive products and the junk science that tricks gullible ignoramuses into believing they aren't destructive...or do those companies get to continue to abdicate their responsibility, pawning it off on their customers?

I mean, your position seems to be if you assholes wouldn't buy the lead painted products, we wouldn't be selling it to toy companies and producing studies claiming it's safe....so it's your fault your child is brain damaged....or the same argument over opioids, your fault you listened to your doctor and got addicted, then turned to heroin, not your doctor who told you the pills weren't addictive, certainly not the drug company who told your doctor they were safe, right?
Fortunately, courts don't think that way, just ask Johnson and Johnson.

Yes, customers bear some responsibility for what they buy, but not nearly as much as the sellers, especially true when the sellers advertise by lying about the dangers. When companies lie about their products dangers, they make themselves 100% responsible for their damages.