Home Nest Thermostat: Game Changer or Gimmick?

You have seen the ads for the Nest Home Thermostat and marveled that a former Apple executive left to reinvent the thermostat industry that had been stagnant for decades. Perhaps you did some cursory research on the Nest to see if it was worth it for your home. To find out if the Nest if worth it, you need to look at the bigger picture.

Price point
The first thing that jumps out about the nest is the price. The price of the nest is around $250 which puts it at about the top of the range of programmable thermostats on the market. If you only intend to use it the same way that you would use your current $50 programmable thermostats to achieve your current comfort level, you need to decide if the Nest is worth the extra $200 for a more esthetically pleasing thermostat. But if you plan to put the Nest to work utilizing all the bells and while to achieve greater energy saving then the cost may be recouped in energy saving through the lifetime of the unit.

Talking and Learning 
One of the advantages of the Nest is that if you have two of them, they can talk to one another. This is an excellent feature in a dual zone home so that the upstairs and the downstairs units are not working against one another because someone decided to leave one on "hold". While other thermostats are programmable they work on an individual level so you have to know when you will be in each zone and manually program the units accordingly.

Most programmable thermostats are only programmable; the Nest selling point is that it learns your habits. It can tell when you are not home and after working with it for a couple of weeks it automatically learns your patterns and follows them. This system can help reduce energy use in your home, but this is not necessarily an advantage for a family with an erratic schedule. Your pattern may be so distinct that it is not able to be learned for more efficiency. This is probably not a problem for most people, but it may be for you.

Wi-Fi capable
The ability to control your thermostat with your phone is cool and being able to check the heat from miles away can be fun but is it worth it. Before the invention of the Nest how many times did you sit at work and ponder the temperature of your home? Probably not much, so why would you worry about it more now that you can change the temperature from your phone? There is a time when you forget to change turn the temperature down, but do they justify putting in a new device for that ability? Only you can decide that. Even though the Nest is Wi-Fi capable it is still a stand able device that cannot be integrated into a whole home automation scheme which may need to be considered when looking at your big picture plans.

The bottom line is that whether replacing your existing thermostat is worth it is an individual decision. It may be worth it to one person and not to another, depending on the cost and overall home heating and cooling strategy. Only you can decide if the Nest fits into your budget and overall home automation plans.

Osteoarthritis Definition, Symptoms and Treatment

Osteoarthritis Definition (OA)?

Osteoarthritis is a degenerative joint disease caused by wear and tear of the cartilage. This result is thinning of cartilage and grinding of exposed bones. This may cause bony spurs at the joint. Osteoarthritis affects mainly older people and people who are overweight.

Signs and Symptoms of Osteoarthritis

Common symptoms are:

• Pain
• Cracking joints
• Swelling
• Loss of flexibility
• Bone spurs

It is important to consult your doctor if you have any of these symptoms. Early diagnosis helps prevent further damage.

What are the treatment options available for Osteoarthritis?
Depending on the severity of the disease, you can consult your doctor on some of these treatment option listed below.

Treatments generally fall into 3 main categories:

Lifestyle modifying activities
Exercise
Maintaining healthy body weight.

Non-surgical treatment
Analgesics (pain killers)
Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDS)
Cox-2 inhibitors (COXIBs)
Glucosamine sulfate
Food supplement, herbal and traditional medicine
Infra-articular injections

Surgical treatment
Joint replacement surgeries

Medical research recommends taking 1500mg of glucosamine in a single dose. This increases the concentration of glucosamine available to your body and your joints, providing better therapeutic results.

How to Use PowerPoint Presentation Effectively

How to Use PowerPoint Presentation Effectively

Every now and then, students are made to report in front of their classes. For the sake of more effective reporting and conveyance of intended message and information, students are typically advised to use visual aids. For a couple of decades now, the Microsoft PowerPoint remains one of the most widely used graphic presentation tools employed as visual aids during reports, lectures or seminars.

Knowing how to use a PowerPoint presentation does not necessarily equate to being able to effectively convey the intended message to the target audience. There is a need to know on how a student could make PowerPoint presentations more effective, both before and during a report.

Here are some pointers on how you can make an effective PowerPoint presentation.

• PowerPoint presentations could be sometimes, distracting instead of engaging. This happens when your slides have more text than it should have. More text could distract the audience into reading it instead of listening to the reporter, who should be the center of attention during any report. Likewise, too much text will tempt the reporter to the text verbatim.
  
  Thus, the content of a PowerPoint slide should be as much as possible contain condensed text in bullet form, as they also serve as reminders for the reporter not as text to be read.
• When using bullets to form the content of a slide, it is best to set a certain limit, or else the slide will become too crowded and too disengaging. Try to set the number of bullets to around five, making sure that a slide has enough content that could be presented in a max of one-and-a-half minute.
• The text content of a PowerPoint presentation is only as effective as far as it can reach the audience. If the audience sitting at the back of the room or hall cannot see clearly the content of a slide, then the effectiveness of a report on them is dropped by half. So when making a PowerPoint presentation, a reporter must make sure that the font type and size is large enough for the people at the farthest part of the room to clearly see. He should take into account the size of the presentation monitor,
• Visual aids typically aids in livening an audience because they help get rid of any boring moment during a presentation or a report. Diagrams and graphics – particularly those that are timely and relevant -- could help the audience better understand what the report is trying to say or convey. However, some students fall into the trap of putting too much pictures -- especially those funny or moving ones -- that the audience may focus only on the graphics, and may lose sight of real message.
• When a reporter is finally making a presentation, it is best if he try his best not to turn his back on the audience. If a reporter turns his back to look at the slide, the audience engagement is likely to fall over 50 percent. The audience would think that the report is not really keen on engaging with them and thus would reciprocate the action. A few glances may be tolerable but the reporter should not look at the slide as if he is talking to it. Remember, the reporter is tasked with engaging the audience, not the PowerPoint presentation slides.
• During or before the report or presentation, make it a big taboo to provide handouts to the audience. This because the handout would steal the attention of the audience away from the reporter. Instead of listening to the reporter and taking some good notes, the audience will lose focus since they already have what they need on the handouts.

About the Author

A 31-year old wife with a real passion for reading and writing, Manuela Theissen has dedicated her life to taking good care of her family while refining her knowledge. She is into diverse topics like usage of English for college students as well as benefits of education to young people.

Why Men and Women Lie

Why Men and Women Lie

Ever wonder why relationships are all fun and frolic first but eventually tend to take a turn for the worse? Often, in the initial phase of a budding relationship, people are on their best behavior, to project an image of themselves that is not necessarily genuine. They want to appear perfect in the eyes of their partner and in the process, often resort to hiding their reality and twisting the truths. Overall, there are various factors attributing to why men and women lie to each other.

Why do men and women lie to each other, despite their shared mutual attraction? Let’s face it, relationships are tricky business. You might think you've found someone who catches your fancy and matches your taste, but more often than not, that person has deviated quite a bit from the truth to inflict an impression upon you. The frequency of lie, of course, varies from person to person. Some lies are white, and told merely for the purpose of sparing your feelings from getting hurt. Some, on the other hand, are told to conceal facts that upon revelation, tend to bruise you and leave you devastated.

Lying in relationships is more common than one would imagine. The frequency of lies by men and women are somewhat similar. Gender doesn't really play a strong role in this front. Both the sexes are capable of telling lies that range from predictably mundane to immensely creative. Although nobody likes being lied to, it is perhaps an unspoken agreement between couples that trivial white lies are acceptable and thereby forgivable. What you can’t possibly overlook, are the elusive lies that are hurtful and deceitful.

Women lie for various reasons. Mostly though, they’re trying to spare your feelings. Think about it; she might not be digging your new cologne, she might have issues with your eating habits, she might not like you spending long hours with your buddies. She, however, would prefer to keep these things to herself and lie about being alright with them. This isn't blatant dishonestly, but a mere attempt at adjustment, and can thereby be overlooked. Studies show that women usually lie to make people feel better and spare their feelings, while men are more likely to use a lie to enhance themselves.

Men and women often lie to create a more likable impression. Men lie about how much money they make and how many girlfriends they've had. In contrast, women conceal their true age, weight and such to create a false impression. On first dates, you’ll be hearing big claims and achievements, only to find out later that they were facts blown out of proportion. You could either feel flattered at such attempts to please you, or the lie could be a total turn-off. In these situations, be sure to analyze the person fully before making a relationship commitment.

Universally, the worse lies are the ones that jeopardize serious relationships. People resort to infidelity and lie about that to protect their relationship from falling apart. People resort to dangerous addictions and conceal them to avoid confrontations and disputes. The revelations of such lies always end in heartbreaks and emotional scarring.

 

At the end of the day, the reason why men and women lie to each other is deep seated in a basic lack of courage. Rewind to every lie that you've said or have been said to in your relationships. Whether a lie was told to conceal something embarrassing or inflate one’s ego, they were born out of fear. Fear of being judged, fear of hurting feelings, fear of raging conflicts, fear of being revealed to be dishonest, and so on. Lying always stresses out a person, so in future, try not to be fooled by the lies that someone might be spewing to get into your good books.

How to make Vegetarian Curry Okra

How to make Vegetarian Curry Okra

Today I am going to show you how to make some quick, simple curry okra. This is a nice little vegetarian dish and you are going to love it.

List of Vegetarian Curry Okra ingredients

1 medium sizes onion

3 cloves of garlic

Some fresh ground black pepper

1 tablespoon of curry powder

1 chili pepper

500 grams of okra

3 tablespoons of vegetable oil

Okra is notorious for using a lot of oil when you are frying it so this time I am going to use one of those non-stick pans because of this.

I will now place 3 tablespoons of vegetable oil and my pan is on medium-high heat, I am now going to toss in one medium sized onion that I diced up finely, I am also going to add three cloves of garlic that I just chopped earlier.Make sure to give that a quick stir and turn down the heat to low, after about 3-4 minutes you are going to notice that some of the edges are going to turn brown in color.

There is really a ton of flavor in here so we are going to hit it now with some fresh ground black pepper and we are also going to add one tablespoon of curry powder.

This curry powder is mimicking a madras flavor, sprinkle that in there and give that a good stir, remember that my heat is on low because now I am going to toast this curry powder in order to really release the flavors.

It is already smelling really wicked in this kitchen and it is now time to turn the heat up to medium-high and I am going to add the chili pepper, I am also going to add one chopped up pimento pepper, make sure to give it a good stir as it is going to start going green.

Make sure to have you kitchen window open and it is now time to add all that okra down into that pan, the secret to cooking a great okra is to wash it thoroughly, dry it with some paper towel and cut it up into small pieces that you can easily stir down in the pan.

You also need to make sure that you do not add too much salt, salt is going to make it really slimy and this is why we are going to add the salt near the end, remember to never put a lid on the pot in order to avoid moisture from getting because we want to edges to be nice and toasted and crisp.

If you like lemon you might want to add just a little bit of lemon juice on top, it will give it a nice kick and that lemon juice will definitely lift up the flavor of the dish.

1 medium sizes onion ………………………………….……………. 50 Calories

3 cloves of garlic …………………………….……………………… 30 Calories

500 grams of okra ………………………………………………….. 450 Calories

3 tablespoons of vegetable oil ……………………………………….. 90 Calories

Chef Linda Rosario is a food blogger from Chef Needs, one of the trusted suppliers of refrigeration equipments. She also loves to paint and dreams of having her own art gallery. Aside from painting and drawing, Linda has a heart for cooking and food.