Why we Need to Take Risks

It does not matter if you are a Doctor, a Lawyer or an infantry soldier in the Army if you want to be the best and get ahead, you will need to take risks. A doctor may have to take risks when working with a patient. The Doctor may have to experiment with different forms of medications or new surgical procedures when all else has failed in an attempt to help the patient. A lawyer may have to argue a case in an unorthodox manner to win the case, but if the lawyer wants to become the top lawyer and make millions of dollars fighting high profile cases lots of risks have to be taken. A soldier may have to take a risk and run thru gunfire to save another injured soldier, to complete their mission, or just to secure an area from being overrun by enemy troops, after going days with little to no sleep, but if a soldier wants to get promotions and eventually lead men into battle they also need to take risks. These risks are not unlike someone looking to get rich in a casino, they have to be willing to risk everything they have to get that million dollar payoff. If you play it safe in a casino you may get lucky and win a big jackpot on the slot machines, but if you want to make millions you are going to have to play games such as Poker, Blackjack, Roulette and Craps . These are the games that with some skill, some luck and a lot of risk taking you can retire off your winnings. The same can be said about life in general. No one gets ahead in life from playing it safe. You will not meet your special someone if you are too afraid to risk getting rejected by someone, you will never get that big promotion unless you take risks at your job. It is very important to continue to take risks in life. To stop taking risks means to stand still in life. Standing still in life is one of the main causes of depression. These are usually the people afraid to confront the boss and tell him that they demand a raise; they are the ones that allow life to pass them by out of fear. The entire purpose of fear is to stop you from taking a risk. Fear is nothing more then the unknown. If you have always wanted to quit your job and open a shop but you are too afraid to do it, this is because you are afraid of failing and risking what you already have. It is important to learn to take risks in life if you want to be happy, you may not always get the things you risked for, but you will know that you tried, and in the end it does not matter in my opinion if you succeed or not it is how many risks you try to make that is the real test of how successful you are. Just remember if no one took risks we would be a world without flight and probably no automotive vehicles at all, maybe we would have no electricity. So risk truly is needed to improve the world.

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Wind Turbine Generators

 Wind Turbine Generators - Free power from mother nature. Maybe we could install it now.!!

Wind generators are one of the most reliable forms of alternative power sources on the planet.  They are made to manufacture power by transforming the kinetic energy of the wind into mechanical energy, which is then either harnessed directly (in the case of windmills, for example, which were used to change wheat into flour, or to pump water for farming) or coupled to a generator that creates a DC output that can be used in a more general sense.  In this article I will be talking about the type of wind generators that produce electric energy, as this is more useful to us in our daily lives.

Wind turbines are basically large windmills, with gigantic blades that rotate in the wind and produce power from the conversion of the winds force.  Wind turbines are manufactured from plastic, aluminium, steel and numerous other space age metals.

Wind turbines have a few negative impacts on the environment.  They are very visible, and quite unsightly since they must be put in proximity to windy, open terrain to be useful - attempts to locate them off the coast have been met with great success.  They require a great deal of energy in their manufacture, energy which is typically fossil-based, and therefore it can take a considerable amount of time before they are positive in terms of total carbon emissions - this time can be anywhere from 2 to 5 years.  Wind turbines are linked to the mauling of rare species of birds that can be mutilated as they pass through the turbine fans during migratory passages.

With all of the downsides aside, wind turbines should be a choice when talking about a broad plan for renewable energy.  Once erected, wind turbines are amazingly efficient in a larger sense - they generate power from a natural, eco-friendly renewable resource, without the hidden social or environmental penalties that we incur with the use of fossil fuels - theres no need to mine for fuel or to transport it - there are no global warming pollutants created, and no need to store, process, or to dispose of toxic wastes.

At the small side of the scale, turbines can be as tiny as 5 feet in diameter and are capable of only a few hundred watts.  On the high end of the spectrum, turbines can be as huge as three hundred feet in diameter and are capable of generating two to five megawatts of power.

Similar to photovoltaic solar power generation, there might be rebates available for construction, and excess energy can be sold back to the power company.

Wind velocity is impacted by topography and increases with height above the ground, so wind turbines are generally installed on top of large towers.  In a typical application, the wind turbine sits on top of a tall  tower and generates low voltage DC which is used to charge a battery store - this stored potential energy is ultimately utilized by routing it through an inverter that changes the low voltage direct current power into utility voltage alternating current electricity that can be used in household applications.  By concentrating a lot of turbines into wind farms a substantial amount of electricity can be stored and utilized, perhaps for a whole city or town.

Because the wind doesnt blow all of the time in many areas, wind turbines are used as adjuncts in hybrid configurations with many different technologies like photovoltaic panels, and diesel generators to provide a consistent source of electricity.

Dissimilar to fossil-fuel stations, wind turbines are clean and green - they dont create the carbon dioxide emissions that are causing greenhouse gases or the SO2 emissions that cause acid rain.

Todays turbines are divided into 2 categories, namely horizontal turbines and vertica turbines.  Todays horizontal axis wind turbines are actually far better at capturing the wind than vertical axis turbines given the same amount of swept area (which is the diameter of the circle traced by the outside tip of the rotor blades).

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Sleeping Bag Ratings - A New Idea

It seems that sleeping bag ratings have no consistency. Temperature ratings are still determined entirely by the manufacturers of the bags. My 3-pound Sierra Designs bag, for example, was rated to 20 degrees. Honestly, it never kept me as warm as my 17-ounce Western Mountaineering sleeping bag, which is only rated down to 40 degrees. Isn't this a problem when you buy a bag? Maybe a 45-degree bag will keep you warmer than a 30-degree bag. Consistent Sleeping Bag Ratings No matter what temperature a bag is rated for, under any system of testing, it won't necessarily keep you warm to that temperature. We can't solve the problem of people having different metabolisms and bodies. A particular bag might be good for one person down to 20 degrees, while for another it is only good to 40 degrees. You generally can figure out if you are a cold or a warm sleeper, but that doesn't help if you don't know whether a bag is rated too high or too low. You need to know that if a bag says 30 degrees it will keep you warmer than one that says 40 degrees. With that, even if you add or subtract 10 or 20 degrees for your personal tastes, you can still figure out which bag is the warmer one. How do we get this consistency? Begin testing with any sleeping bag, by putting a bag of water in it that is human-sized, weighing perhaps 160 pounds. Have three standard sizes for small, regular and large sleeping bags. Always start with the water temperature at 100 degrees Fahrenheit, and measure how long before it drops to 90 degrees. External air temperature has to always be the same too, whther it is 60 degrees or 40. The numbers are not crucial. What's important here is that once the standards are chosen, every bag is tested the same way, with the same conditions (even the temperature and material of the testing platform would have to be the same). This is what will give consistency to the sleeping bag ratings for warmth. Now, if a bag rated to 40 degrees keeps the water above 90 for two hours, a bag rated for 30 would obviously have to keep it above 90 degrees for a longer time. Pegging heat-retention times to specific temperature ratings would be a bit tricky at first. However, once done, each new bag on the market could be submitted to the testing and quickly given a consistent rating. We would know that a lower rating would always mean a warmer bag, degree-by-degree. We could even have old bags tested to see if it is time to replace them. Manufacturer Acceptance? Would manufacturers pay a private testing company to have their bags rated? Some, at first, because it would be a an advantage for those companies who are already conservative in their temperature ratings. They would have "proof" that the bags are even warmer than they were claiming. Then, eventually, all bag makers would feel some motivation to have their sleeping bags tested, because consumers would be wary about buying ones that weren't tested. I hope someone will take this idea and run with it. An existing consumer rating company, like Consumer Reports, could do this on their own and report the results. Even if they listed the bags without temperature ratings, but in absolute order by which held the heat in the best, it would be very useful. One could look at the list and if their current bag kept them warm to 25 degrees, ythey would know that any bag higher on the list would be warmer. Isn't it time for consistent sleeping bag ratings?

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