Received: from opus.hpl.hp.com (opus-fddi.hpl.hp.com) by jr.hpl.hp.com with ESMTP (1.37.109.24/15.5+ECS 3.3+HPL1.1) id AA075590576; Thu, 28 Jan 1999 19:29:37 -0800 Return-Path: <mdf@bluedini.engr.sgi.com-DeleteThis> Received: from hplms26.hpl.hp.com by opus.hpl.hp.com with ESMTP (1.37.109.24/15.5+ECS 3.3+HPL1.1) id AA095940574; Thu, 28 Jan 1999 19:29:34 -0800 Received: from sgi.com (SGI.COM [192.48.153.1]) by hplms26.hpl.hp.com (8.9.1a/HPL-PA Relay) with ESMTP id TAA15285 for <wind_talk@opus.hpl.hp.com-DeleteThis>; Thu, 28 Jan 1999 19:29:34 -0800 (PST) Received: from cthulhu.engr.sgi.com (cthulhu.engr.sgi.com [192.26.80.2]) by sgi.com (980327.SGI.8.8.8-aspam/980304.SGI-aspam: SGI does not authorize the use of its proprietary systems or networks for unsolicited or bulk email from the Internet.) via ESMTP id TAA06905 for <@sgi.engr.sgi.com:wind_talk@opus.hpl.hp.com-DeleteThis>; Thu, 28 Jan 1999 19:25:36 -0800 (PST) mail_from (mdf@bluedini.engr.sgi.com-DeleteThis) Received: from bluedini.engr.sgi.com (bluedini.engr.sgi.com [130.62.244.69]) by cthulhu.engr.sgi.com (980427.SGI.8.8.8/970903.SGI.AUTOCF) via ESMTP id TAA61559 for <@cthulhu.engr.sgi.com:wind_talk@opus.hpl.hp.com-DeleteThis>; Thu, 28 Jan 1999 19:25:35 -0800 (PST) mail_from (mdf@bluedini.engr.sgi.com-DeleteThis) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by bluedini.engr.sgi.com (980427.SGI.8.8.8/970903.SGI.AUTOCF) via SMTP id TAA95809 for <wind_talk@opus.hpl.hp.com-DeleteThis>; Thu, 28 Jan 1999 19:25:35 -0800 (PST) Message-Id: <199901290325.TAA95809@bluedini.engr.sgi.com-DeleteThis> To: wind_talk@opus.hpl.hp.com-DeleteThis From: Martin Frankel <mdf@sgi.com-DeleteThis> Subject: Re: UPDATE re Coyote Crisis In-Reply-To: Your message of "Thu, 28 Jan 99 14:21:08 PST." <36B0DE83.C32DE066@ix.netcom.com-DeleteThis> Date: Thu, 28 Jan 99 19:25:34 -0800 Sender: mdf@bluedini.engr.sgi.com-DeleteThis
I don't think that a bunch of whining and handwaving will do any good
at this point. "You don't understand, this really sucks!" "It's hard
sailing a small board through a wind shadow!" etc... isn't going to
cut it. For all appearances, the developers have spent a lot of
money, done their homework, and acted with due diligence to address
our concerns. There are only two possibilities that I see:
1) Their study and their conclusions are sound, and we will not be
significantly affected by the development.
2) Their study is unsound, due to bad methodology, mistaken
assumptions, or even intentional misrepresentations.
As a windsurfer my intuition suggests the latter. However there is a
credibility gap which we need to address with more than intuition.
On first reading there seemed to be a few things in the study that
were kinda bogus.
1) Measured wind velocity instead of wind energy, but as they point
out, the energy goes up with the third power of velocity. A small
change in velocity has a large effect on a sailor.
2) They never demostrated the validity of their model against the real
world. If you go out on a boat on a west wind day and measure the
wind shadow on the water at the same grid points, would it match their
wind tunnel results? The fact that they did not do this calls the
entire study into question.
3) There are no references or literature to support their methodology,
they just assert that it is an accurate model. If we talked with
another meteorologist or aerodynamicist or whatever, what would they
say?
-- Martin Frankel |||| mdf@sgi.com-DeleteThis |||| (650)933-6191
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