Mica ๐ฝ
Another Angry Womanit is with a heavy heart that I regret to inform you that the tech bros have invented sails
Hall Monitor@stavvers InNoVatiOn
hypnobeard@stavvers oh my god
ouinne@stavvers itโs a pity no one ever thought of this method before in the history of humanity. ๐ฅบ
Mark Britten
Peeble streamer on Doop ๐ฅ๐จ@stavvers always "inventing" something that exists.
๐ก๐๐๐บ๐๐๐๐บ๐ ๐ฐ๐๐๐๐ฑ@Wildheart_Baby @stavvers
Almost like they might've, I dunno, maybe dropped out of school or something, with declarations of "I don't need an education to get rich - I have my own great ideas!".
Almost like they might've, I dunno, maybe dropped out of school or something, with declarations of "I don't need an education to get rich - I have my own great ideas!".
Paul Horn@stavvers Thus bypassing the restrictive, innovation-stifling regulations that such โkitesโ be firmly attached to masts.
The Spoonless Kitchen
Semi Sentient AI Cooling Water@stavvers But, but maybe it's a HyperSail or a GigaSail?
Chris Merkel ๐๐จ๐ผโ๐ณ@stavvers Peter Thiel like "I think this is a fantastic idea, but I think it could be engineered a little more effectively by fixing the kites to the ship itself, a "mast", if you will. Here's a billion dollars"
Tor Lillqvist@chrismerkel @stavvers Good luck retrofitting substantial masts and rigging to existing ships.
Paul de Ferney@stavvers I wonder how long it will take before they a) realise you can combine kites with sails for even greater efficiency and b) it's quite hard to charge money for using the wind.
jan Susu (MOVING INSTANCES)@stavvers this actually seems really good? its not practical to use traditional sails for our big cargo ships and you cant just retrofit big sails on something
Elio Campitelli@stavvers At first I misread this as "Giant kitties".
Spencer W Hunter
Shirley Eugest@eliocamp @stavvers
Interesting thought. Shipping would slow while they are napping though.
https://www.boredpanda.com/giant-cats-surreal-photo-manipulations-matt-mccarthy-part-2
Interesting thought. Shipping would slow while they are napping though.
https://www.boredpanda.com/giant-cats-surreal-photo-manipulations-matt-mccarthy-part-2
Timothy Wolodzko
Darkoneko
Lee Hulme (it/its)@stavvers whaaaaaaaat, that just sounds ridiculous. It'll never work.
Stuart Langridge@stavvers business plan: get acquihired by Sailsforce
Nebulous Menace (Sandy B.)@stavvers I wonder what happened to the 2008 version? Can't remember what the company was called...
Dieu@nebulousmenace @stavvers The article mentions something about SkySails. Never heard of them before, even though they were a German company.
Maybe the idea just didn't fly back then because burning heavy oil still was fucking cheap, YOLO.
alva@nebulousmenace @stavvers I remember too that I heard about it a long time ago
Catherine is not complacent@stavvers giant kites. Whatever will they think of next.
Dreamwinder@CatDragon @stavvers Remember when Uberโs CEO envisioned ride sharing with way more people per vehicle and everyone was likeโฆ โso, a bus?โ
Blake Leonard@dreamwinder @CatDragon @stavvers it's a shame nobody has "thought of" doing a school bus like thing (where it goes to the front of your neighborhood or to your house) but not for school... because city buses use approved stops and routes, all of which are a two hour walk away (and are actually intended for Raleigh residents to get to a Wake Tech campus...)
this is why it's so awful to live in the suburbs, but alas, we can't afford to move...
this is why it's so awful to live in the suburbs, but alas, we can't afford to move...
holly hoppet 
@stavvers i swear to god i've been seeing this headline every few years for the past like twenty years lol
Phil Thane โ
@stavvers Next up,
My kite is bigger than your kite.
To protect our customers our kites can only be used on approved 'kite readyยฎ' ships.
Certification for operating kite ships will be issued following successful completion of our KiteShipโข course. In Seattle.
Kites are supplied as sealed units any attempt to dismantle or repair a kite will invalidate your warranty.
Kites using, for example, third party string or other non-standard accessories will cease to function.
bit101@stavvers The world may be ready for my next invention... large-animal-driven cars. Thinking horses might work.
Aad Schippers ๐ช๐บ@stavvers ๐๐๐
FeralRobots@stavvers
I guess it's annoying that anyone could get an inflated valuation from this since any such system would be sold with really narrow margins for the foreseeable future. But to be clear it's not "sails" & it's not stupid, it's just not cost-effective at present.
I guess it's annoying that anyone could get an inflated valuation from this since any such system would be sold with really narrow margins for the foreseeable future. But to be clear it's not "sails" & it's not stupid, it's just not cost-effective at present.
Phil Wolff@stavvers "Pirates Redirect Containership of Apple Devices By Hacking Sail Controls"
Jake in the desert@stavvers about time it was finally done amirite
@stavvers I would use Timelord technology and stuff it all in a mini-submarine.
Mark Tomczak@stavvers Okay, but in fairness they invented sails of massive scope that could catch winds above the sea-level wind and would be tethered via sturdy cable.
โฆ so, you know, way more dangerous sails. ;)
nadin brzezinski@stavvers @lisamelton they just call them kites
Hermit the Frog@stavvers they never fail to disappoint.
But will those kites have the ability to self-distruct?๐ค
DeterioratedStucco@SoftwareTheron @stavvers I'm sure they'll excel at this, or invent Google glasses for seeing in the distance.
B Caligari ๐ช๐บ@stavvers "leveraging wind currents going forward"
katre@stavvers Let me guess: you have to lease the sails and if you stop paying they disintegrate, but actually it's all due to a cloud service so sometimes you're in a dead zone and they disintegrate anyway?
@stavvers These are more akin to what some catamarans have on board. Their version of it in basic terms is a kite attached to the bow that can be used for free propulsion and fuel efficiency. Not a bad idea.
John Colagioia@stavvers "If only they would loosen up those pesky child labor laws, so that someone could fly those kites..."
(Yeah, I'm aware of the technology that they're talking about, which makes it all the more laughable, because they've been talking about it for fifty years and still haven't gotten the media a picture that doesn't make them look dumb.)
caitmuenster@stavvers Oceans are now Start-ups
Kate Watson@stavvers Oh my Lord, this is so much funnier than when they invented cellars a few years ago ;)
Steve Torrente@stavvers This sounds awesome until you're crossing the North Atlantic and a bankruptcy or a bad update bricks your propulsion system.
BlackDutchSnark
Charlie Stross@stavvers TBF this is a GOOD idea purely in engineering terms: kites can take advantage of wind speeds and directions that vary at different altitudes, aerofoils bolted to the deck on rigid masts are limited to surface winds. But it's still only a supplement for engine power: modern supply chains can't cope with VLCSs getting becalmed.
The real answer is marine nuclear propulsion. Or teleportation booths. Or sparkly unicorns. Or something.
Chris Hopkins
dr2chase@dr2chase @stavvers Here's the LARGEST diesel engine in the world, per wikipedia, the Wรคrtsilรค-Sulzer RTA96-C. Two-stroke cycle, 14 cylinders, puts out 80MW (or about 107,000 horsepower), weighs over 2,300 tons. Used for powering 170,000 ton (and up) container ships.
It's hard to see how to replace a medium-sized city's power station with any kind of sail (or to abolish this scale of shipping in a century when climate change will cause frequent local crop failures).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W%C3%A4rtsil%C3%A4-Sulzer_RTA96-C
ChookMother ๐ฆ๐บ๐ฆ
George Steel@cstross @stavvers The big advantage of kites is that they're completely retractable and don't affect vertical clearance, which is strictly limited at most cargo ports due to their loading cranes (preventing the use of masts).
Also, even if this doesn't replace engines, it's still quite useful. There are some long-distance ferries in the pacific islands currently using a combination of sails, solar, and diesel generators (running scheduled service between high-clearance ports) that saw an over 90% reduction in fuel consumption compared to their predecessors. Kites could possibly expand this to low-clearance ports as well.
Dylan Roskams-Edris@stavvers boats crossing the ocean powered by nothing but wind!?
What a time to be alive.
Tina Stormcaller@stavvers this one is actually legit. Modern container ships canโt use traditional sails because the rigging would interfere with the containers themselves, so folks have been looking into using parasails or rotating cylinder sails instead.
billheywood@stavvers
They really are very dim
They really are very dim
Samer Kadoura@stavvers They will call it smart sail.