{"id":1847,"date":"2011-06-02T08:00:22","date_gmt":"2011-06-02T07:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.mentor.com\/colinwalls\/?p=1847"},"modified":"2026-03-26T16:34:58","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T20:34:58","slug":"tilting-at-windmills","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/2011\/06\/02\/tilting-at-windmills\/","title":{"rendered":"Tilting at windmills"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I have a lot of ideas and particularly like trying to look at things from a novel angle. Sometimes my ingenuity is shot down in flames, when someone points out a flaw in my thinking. That is OK &#8211; it was playing with the idea and discussing it that I enjoyed. Although I hold out hope that, one day, I will have THE idea &#8211; something that changes the world.<\/p>\n<p>I am also keen to hear other people&#8217;s original thinking and often have those &#8220;Why did I not think of that?&#8221; moments &#8230;<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>A particular topic of interest for me is sustainable energy. I find it quite perverse that we are surrounded by energy sources &#8211; solar, wind, tide, geothermal etc. &#8211; and yet have built an entire civilization [well, economy anyway] around a limited, planet-destroying approach.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-1851\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/51\/2011\/05\/wt.jpg\" alt=\"wind turbine\" width=\"269\" height=\"202\" \/>What do you think about wind turbines? I quite like them. In many contexts, I think they have a majestic beauty that can enhance a landscape. I guess they do make a noise, so maybe they should not be too near to habitation. Unfortunately that is one of the problems with their deployment: their remote locations make distribution of the generated power more difficult. I also quite like electricity distribution pylons. Again, in the right context, I think they have a certain beauty.<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-1863\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/51\/2011\/05\/pylon1.jpg\" alt=\"pylon1\" width=\"160\" height=\"210\" \/><\/p>\n<p>On the radio a few days ago, someone put forward an idea which showed that they think along similar lines to myself. Their suggestion was simple: just mount a [small] wind turbine generator on top of electricity pylons. Nobody could complain about their view being ruined, as the pylons are there anyway, and distribution of the generated power is a no-brainer.<\/p>\n<p>Now, why did I not think of that &#8230; ?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I have a lot of ideas and particularly like trying to look at things from a novel angle. Sometimes my&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":71677,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spanish_translation":"","french_translation":"","german_translation":"","italian_translation":"","polish_translation":"","japanese_translation":"","chinese_translation":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[302],"industry":[],"product":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-1847","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-off-topic"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1847","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/71677"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1847"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1847\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9967,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1847\/revisions\/9967"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1847"},{"taxonomy":"industry","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/industry?post=1847"},{"taxonomy":"product","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product?post=1847"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=1847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}