Many people know that if you've been SCUBA diving or snorkelling deep down, you need to exhale as you surface - and not rise too quickly. This is because a rapid decrease in pressure as you surface can cause bubbles of nitrogen to form in the blood, leading to potentially fatal bends.

Well it seems a similar pressure-related phenomenon has been causing bats to drop dead near wind turbines - although instead of nitrogen bubbles forming, their lungs have been violently haemmoraging. Simply put, the high air speed around the tips of the blades cause a dramatic drop in air pressure. Bats can't detect changes in air pressure with their echolocation, so fly through this areas. When the air pressure drops, their lungs expand and then pop.

For a great article about this, head on over to Ed Yong's award-winning  Not Exactly Rocket Science.

Here's NewScientist's video on the same subject:

One simple solution posted on Ed's comments section suggest that a high-frequency noise might keep the bats at a safe distance. That would have the added benefit of keeping away the teenagers!

Here's the link to an old post about an exploding wind turbine.

Yep, Turbine just announced opening applications to Beta Test the upcoming Mines of Moria expansion, in order to apply - all you have to do is go to the Unlock the Mines of Moria website and participate in the mini games. Lighting up all 5 stars on the "Friendship Door" (Remember from the books? Come on people, Speak Friend and Enter!) not only puts in your application for the Beta, but it also unlocks an item for your character(s) in game. The item is said to be a custom cloak with a special click buff on it (Further details forthcoming).

As a small note, this application is for current customers of the game only, non players will have to apply (starting today) via the website (link forthcoming, the promised announcement isn't up as of 2:33 MST).

Here is the official announcement for players:

Greetings everyone!

We're pleased to announce that the Mines of Moria™ expansion is now in the final stages of Beta, and that we are now accepting applications for the Beta Program! The Beta Program is by invitation only, and we'll be adding more and more of you as the Program advances. We wanted to give our community the chance to get in and apply to participate in the Program before the general announcement hits on Friday, August 29!

To apply for the Beta program, please do the following:

1. Create an account, or login to your existing account, at the Unlock the Mines of Moria site
2. Click on the Mini-Games & Beta Application tab to view the Moria Gate
3. Click on the fifth star, the one that is pulsing, to open the Beta application form
4. Complete the Beta application and click submit at the end!

If your Mines of Moria Beta Program application is approved you will receive an additional email containing information on how to access the Beta!

We've written a brief FAQ to try to answer some of the questions you may have. Thanks for playing LOTRO, and we'll see you in the Mines of Moria!

Source: The Lord of the Rings Online Community Forums

You know what this means right? This means that this much anticipated (by me at least, and my opinion is all that really matters in my blog :p [just kidding... sorta]) expansion to this wonderful MMO is just around the corner! Stay tuned for when they release the Pre-Order information (I will also update this post with the link for non player beta testing).

Bats, a flying animal near and dear to me, are at greater risk of death by wind turbine than birds.  Despite the large number of bat carcasses found near turbines, the recovered bat bodies have no external injuries or visible cause of death (in contrast to birds which are killed by direct contact with the blades).  Bats adequately detect and avoid contact with turbines using sonar, but are dying from an unknown secondary impact of flying near windmills.

As an investigation into how wind turbines are killing bats, researchers in Canada collected and autopsied nearly 200 dead bats from wind farms to determine cause of death.  Of the bats investigated, 90% showed signs of internal hemorrhaging.   The results of these necropsies indicate damage to the bats' delicate lung tissue.  The movement of turbine blades causes a drop in air pressure around the blade tips.   When bats fly through this pressure vortex, their lungs suddenly expand, bursting the tissue's blood vessels.  Also known as barotrauma, these bats are dying from the bends.

Here's the highlights:

...The developers want to be as true as possible to what Tolkien laid out for the region. For example, he described the entrance to the mines as having 300 stairs. As a result, the first stairway that players will come across in the expansion area has exactly that.

If that sounds like a lot of stairs, it is. Seeing the in-game demo, the gathered reporters got a real sense of the size and scope of the new area. "It's not just a cave," Campbell said, "it's an ancient civilization."

He wasn't kidding. Anyone who was expecting to see a claustrophobic, dank, underground area is in for a disappointment. Turbine has even gone so far as to create a new technology that will allow them to layer floors, creating the enormously high ceilings that don't cause performance issues...

I mention this because I was truly blown away by the look of the mines. While you are most certainly in an underground environment, you don't necessarily notice it at every turn. Some of the visuals in this area are truly breathtaking, including looking up and barely seeing the ceiling overhead at such a height...

This new expansion also gives the developers the ability to explore beyond the areas specifically detailed by Tolkien. The "endless stair", for example, which Gandalf had to climb after his battle with the Balrog will be in the game along with many new and variations on old monsters. It's a delicate balance between re-creating described areas and creating new areas that fit in with the "feel" of the original story.

In the presentation though, they covered a lot of what we've already heard about. Campbell briefly touched on the new legendary weapon system that will see players obtain a weapon akin to Frodo's Sting that will actually advance in power (and gain XP) alongside its wielder.

There are two types of legendary weapons. The first is in the form of swords and similar type weapons, the other will be items that benefit a player's class abilities (one would assume for those classes which rely on magic-like abilities for combat).

The Mines of Moria will see the game's level cap raised by ten from 50 to 60. The game will also see a number of new three and six-man instances as well as a new twelve-man raid.

One of the biggest features of the new expansion is the addition of two new classes:

The Runekeeper - LotRO's first overtly magical class withh be able to cast both offensive spells like fireballs and lightning, but also healing spells. There's a trade-off though. If you focus your attention on casting offensive spells, your healing spells will lock. Similarly, if you decide to heal, you will find youself without many of your offensive abilities. After a certain amount of time out of combat, your abilities reset and the whole dance begins again.

The Warden - A new medium-armor tanking class that will make use of combo attacks called gambits. The Warden has three different types of attack: threat generating, defensive and melee strike. As they use skills from these categories in a sequence, more powerful attacks will be opened up for their hack and slashing pleasure.

I think the classes, more than anything, have stirred up some controversy. For one thing, it sounds like the Warden has been playing too much Age of Conan. And then the Runekeeper uses magic... and the developers and the players have always been real firm on keeping the whole "normal players don't use magic" thing intact. Sort'a reminds me of when SOE went against "the Jedi are all but extinct" issue. But, in this case, I'm not too offended or disappointed. I think they've got a good thing going over there, and they know what they're doing. I'm not sure why they felt these classes were necessary, but I guess we'll see how people feel once it goes on sale in the Fall.

Thats it for now, but look for tidbits with my opinions about the upcoming Mines of Moria expansion for Lord of the Rings Online and much more.

This company has made substantial progress in the market place for both wind farms, commercial and residential installations. Helix Wind, www.helixwind.com .  Unlike my previous posts on early entrants into the vertical wind market, see http://mygreensuit.com/2007/09/10/vertical-wind-turbine/ .  Helix has built products that are quiet, efficient, and look good.  I could see this is a back yard, knowing that it was producing energy and helping our environment.

See their video

Look for costs to continue to come down, as lower cost materials are used and mass production starts.  Believe it or not the height required for most of these units in a residential setting, is 30 feet above the tallest trees in your surrounding area.  Clearly, many people could get away with a simple, lower cost installation and start going green.

I think I've mentioned this before, but I'm a big fan of Dungeons and Dragons Online. And I'm proud of that because there's, like, eight of us. The instancing lets nearly everyone play with maxed out graphics without experiencing lag, plus it allows the developers to go crazy on the missions (with voiceovers, disarmable traps, hidden doors, etc). And the gameplay? Far and away the best you can find on the current market. It plays like a single player hack'n'slash game. You can jump, climb, find secret tunnels, click to swing your sword, aim to fire arrows... It's much more immersive than your average MMO. Plus, you can adjust dungeons depending on how big your party is, which changes the loot, experience, mob density, and even the objectives.

When I left two years ago, it was because the game lacked content, so we had to run the same missions over and over. Plus, it was getting harder and harder to get my friends together to do those missions and there wasn't much to do outside of dungeon running.

But, along comes Module 8. Which introduces, among other things:

-A new character creation process. Players can now chose a template (melee, ranged, support) before looking at the classes that fall under those headings.
-New tutorial island. You get shipwrecked on a snowy island and help take it down with a slowly growing party of NPC members.
-A new hireling system allows you to buy henchmen that scale to your level. They also follow orders, so they can wait, attack, open doors, and hopefully do more useful tasks (such as heal and find traps)

This turbine is suppose to create 80% of your home's energy, and it's suppose to be reasonably priced.

Philippe Starck's Rooftop Wind Turbine - Read more

Quite a busy year in the games industry, lots of interesting tidbits are coming down the line slowly but surely. As I have always stated, GameTap is doing well and has a great idea going for it - Cryptic, after making a shaky move in selling the City of Heroes franchise certainly has its hands full with 2 new upcoming productions (Go get em Statesma-- er.. Jack).

Our good friend Ames has fired a salvo at John McCain's policy reversal on offshore drilling. He calls it, "...a feel-good answer with no substance," and "...empty symbolism and empty 'hope'."

Oh where to begin...

First off, as previously stated, McCain is not suggesting we put all our hopes and dreams on offshore drilling. He has rightly said that this is one part of a more comprehensive strategy. Keep in mind that he was promoting alternative energy when Obama was still ignoring the plight of his poorest constituents back in Chicago. This has not changed as he continues to speak about alternative energy on the campaign trail as recently as June 19.

So let's talk about some basic logic. Given that the environmental concerns over offshore drilling were effectively dispelled when our oil industry safely weathered Hurricane Katrina we are just left with the question of, "Why not?" The only arguement I can understand is that a focus on drilling could make us take our eyes off the long range goal of energy independence. But, as stated above, McCain is not ignoring other energy sources.

Ames makes an arguement I don't understand here:

...any real scientist (don’t take my word for it) will tell you that drilling in ANWAR, or off the coast, is a money-losing proposition that won’t show any results - not even bad ones - for at least another decade.

To my knowledge oil companies are not asking the government to subsidize new drilling in the gulf. They are willing to put up huge amounts of start-up capital to get oil production moving forward. So if it costs the American taxpayer no money, I must again ask, "Why not?"

There is also a significant investment of time and money to get other forms of energy off the ground. Wind power, for example, would cost an estimated $1.2 trillion to build turbines and transmission lines. On top of this power companies have still not figured out how to efficently move the heavy load of new electric over long distances to where it is needed most. I have to wonder why Ames does not see this as, "a money-losing proposition that won't show results...for at least another decade."

If we look at the auto industry we see that even if they have an epiphany and decide to switch to hybrids and hydrogen-based cars overnight, there would be a significant time period before a fuel grid can be established, not to mention how many years would go by before they replace all cars in the U.S.? Would an Obama administration mandate Americans buy new cars or would they provide some sort of tax break for these purchases? Either way, this is a significant blow to our economy and a LONG TERM solution.

Obama's energy plan is over-dependent on bio-fuels and under emphasizes wind and solar. It also relies on a market-based incentive program called a Renewable Portfolio Standard which has proven to be ineffective when not coupled with Production Tax Credits, which he does not mention.

The fact that Ames ignores is that any and all new solutions to our looming energy crisis are going to be long term projects and require billions in monetary investment. Even the best solutions will not replace oil completely, so wouldn't it make sense to still work towards a goal of increased domestic production,  while at the same time pursuing alternatives? And Ames too quickly dismisses the positive results of decreasing trade pressure from suppliers and competition from fellow consumers.

McCain is not selling false hope, as Ames puts it, but rather he has changed positions to favor one more line of attack in a multi-front war on our energy needs.

Check it out here on Instructables.

I do notice that there sure a lot of fetch quests in the game, and navigating can be a bit tricky at the start. While some of these quests are mind numbing, more times that are quite fun, and when you're not collecting some meat or some silly plant, you are taking on all the evil that plagues Middle-earth.

I'll be talking about the game a bit more later this week.

• Add solar panels
• Plant a vegetable garden and fruit trees
• Insulate, insulate, insulate
• Install weatherstripping
• Recycle
• Compost
• Set up cisterns for water catchment
• Put in an attic fan
• Build a windmill (okay, a turbine) (J is Dutch) (half Dutch)
• Set up some sort of gray-water system
• Cover the windows with triple-cell honeycomb blinds
• Buy a front-loading washer
• Use a clothesline (we air-dry a lot now, but it takes up a lot of floor space inside)
• Build a water-permeable driveway

Hmm. It seems like we have more goals than that. But it's a start.

This turned into quite a rant. Stick with me.

I just exceeded my tolerance for the term "WoW killer" in relation to Warhammer Online. The offending comment was actually delivered indirectly, from a post on Book of Grudges last Monday (catching up on my RSS feed after returning from Las Vegas, I'm behind!), called "Taking a Step Back". arbitrary was checking reactions to the Mythic announcements about cutting classes and capital cities, and found this quote on Kotaku:

The so called wow killer is releasing half a product and expecting to compete?

I can't take it any more. Who's calling it a WoW killer? Who's expecting it to compete directly with WoW? Mythic has already stated that they believe their game has different gameplay elements, will not outsell WoW, and they're not directly competing with them. Has anyone at Mythic also stated that Warhammer will be a WoW killer, or is this giving forum blathering from burned out ex-WoW subscribers way too much credence?

I think some of us who follow MMO's suffer from Compare-itis. Since there are relatively few MMO's in the Western market, they inevitably get compared to one another, and I don't think that's healthy.

The first time I saw Compare-itis in action was when I started playing DAoC, when it first launched. I still had friends playing EQ, still visited message boards with EQ players, and there was far too much time spent talking about what each game lacked compared to the other game. It was like they had to be the same game somehow, and differences were bad. I'd try to tell my EQ friends what I liked about DAoC, and they'd sharpen their virtual pencils and tell me in detail why DAoC wasn't like EQ, and hence, why DAoC was Bad.

The reverse was also true. There were plenty of people who liked DAoC who'd slam EQ for not having features like DAoC. Neither stance made much sense to me, but clearly, Compareitis is still alive when WAR's being touted by forum posters as a WoW killer.

Saying WAR is like WoW, or DAoC was like EQ, is like saying Half-Life is like Quake, just because both games have weapons and multiplayer options. It's like saying Company of Heroes is like Warcraft III because they're both RTS games.

There are TONS of design decisions that go into making an MMO. You start with a massive world, either a level-based or skill-based system, put in PvE and maybe PvP combat, tradeskills, maybe housing...and it's like those elements alone are suddenly enough to compare games like comparing apples to apples.

I think it's time we start to look more at the differences between MMO's, and the different design goals chosen by developers, instead of thinking that WAR and WoW are somehow wildly similar games. Or AoC and WoW, or LoTRO and WAR, or whatever you're chosing to compare.

I played a ton of EQ, and a ton of DAoC. They had a common genre underpinning, but they were very different games. I've played a ton of WoW and quite a bit of the WAR beta. Mythic is shooting for a very different gaming experience with WAR than what I enjoyed in WoW.  Comparing them directly is bound to be inaccurate, because they have very different design goals. Yes, they share a common heritage, but I think the genre is maturing enough, especially with second and third generation MMO developers, to stop directly comparing games.

The paucity of choice in the MMO market contributes to the desire to compare games head-to-head. We probably have more triple-A MMO titles available right now than we've had at any point in MMO history, yet there are still only a handful of good choices for gamers. I guess it's inevitable that the games are lumped together, but each developer puts their own spin on the genre, and comparing them directly just seems silly to me.

I don't want to see any more WoW killer comments, or posts saying WAR ripped off WoW, or WoW ripped off the Warhammer IP before Mythic started developing the Warhammer IP, bla bla bla, yadda yadda. Mythic has their own design goals, and I think if you HAVE to directly compare it to any other MMO, it should be DAoC, and not WoW, or EQ2, or LoTRO. There's a firm academic basis for comparison with DAoC; an evolution of development, ideas tried, evaluated, kept, or tossed aside. WoW, not so much.

It might be a little too early in the genre for an MMO cladogram, with each branch forking out different design choices, each game ending up as individual species with a particular evolutionary ancestry, but comparing MMO's directly with each other is like bitching that a Stegosaurus isn't just like an Ankylosaur, or that a 10 million Velociraptors must be superior to 1 million Allosaurs. It's ok to be different. I learned that in high school. It's ok to make different choices.

I'm not sure where this Highlander "There can be only one!" attitude regarding MMO's comes from, but I do know that I'm tired of it. There are now quite a few companies making big profits from their first, second, or third MMO, and I'm glad that each game has its own personality, its own goals. We've got to get over the head-to-head, Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots school of MMO fandom.

Listen to me. Suddenly I'm dipping into "Celebrate Diversity!" cheerleading. Well, hell, I like diversity. I like that Mythic decided to do things differently than Blizzard and Sony and Turbine. I'm glad that Turbine tried Monster Play and storyline quests. I like that EQ2 has housing and more developed crafting. I'm happy that WoW is so carefully crafted and detailed and refined. I like boobs in AoC. And elsewhere, for that matter.

I know it's the nature of internet communication to square off in opinion-related cage matches, but I'm hoping for a little more nuanced appraisal of WAR when it's released. It's not WoW. It's not trying to BE WoW. If you start your review of WAR with a comparison to WoW, you're missing the point.

Do people dog R.A. Salvatore because his books are in the same section of the bookstore as the Dragonlance series? Do we have to sneer at Spiderman movies because there are already Batman movies, and they're not the same movie? What is it about MMO's that invites this type of comparison? Is it because the genre is still so young? Is it because it takes so long to make a triple-A title, and because we talk it to death while it's being made and being tested? Is it because, unlike other computer games, you have to pay $15 a month for an MMO, and you want to believe that your $15 is going to the best game, and all the other games suck?

Maybe it's a little of all of that. And I'm gettin' tired of it :)

It's almost disgusting how T. Boone Pickens can spend millions on TV spots to have people go to a website that looks like he is a social enterprise. It is a well crafted site with visuals and a whiteboard tour that mimics ZDNet start-up entrepreneurs.

In fact the mission is to encourage Americans to think natural gas and wind. This will then feed investors and energy companies to support his wind turbine farms. I am not saying it's wrong, I think it is genius and in the historical sense, the greatest innovations of the last centuries came from moguls and their way of thinking that persuaded the messes. 

Tires over train tracks. Combustion over electric.

This is one great pitch.

At this point it seems that Harmonix, Blue Fang Games and Turbine Inc. are some of the most active recruiters in the area.

Prototipo que podría estar en funcionamiento de manera experimental en unos 18 meses y que mejora la eficacia de los aerogeneradores "convencionales". Basado en el principio de los motores a reacción, creando un vórtice de viento que es succionado y que hace mover las aspas de una manera más efectiva que los tradicionales de tres aspas, de bajo rendimiento en condiciones de vientos suaves y con mayor impacto para la fauna y el medio ambiente.

Aún en fase experiemntal y seguramente con fuertes handicaps a superar hasta su puesta en marcha, al menos en forma de prototipo experimental que vea su luz y contemplar la maravilla tecnológica que supone esta turbina tan aeroespacial.

Vía: [Alternative Energy]

+ info

• Revolucionario prototipo de aerogenerador eólico flotante: «Magenn Air Rotor System»
• Proyecto Hywind, aerogeneradores flotantes marinos

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