A question for Kurt

[charlieb]

The 15 year old is driving and I finally have some time for leisure reading. After reading Kurt's comment on Chinese society I just have to ask the question...........What the heck is the purpose of your sorties into China?

[Nolan Kienitz]

Maybe to reset his overall mindset and then have a reference when the traffic in the Chi-Town area gets terrible.

He could muse that all-in-all ... it is not that bad in Chi-Town.

[]

[hausdok]

The 15 year old is driving and I finally have some time for leisure reading. After reading Kurt's comment on Chinese society I just have to ask the question...........What the heck is the purpose of your sorties into China?

Well, you know all those emails that most of us don't open that refer to getting your...er...."manhood" enlarged?

Well, Kurt has big asperations, if you know what I mean. Think I heard him mummbling about being the next John Hol.........

ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!!

Mike

[kurt]

Maybe to reset his overall mindset and then have a reference when the traffic in the Chi-Town area gets terrible.

He could muse that all-in-all ... it is not that bad in Chi-Town.

[]

That's part of it; it definitely provides the overview that we live in the best of all countries on Earth. One doesn't appreciate how good we have it until one experiences how rough a billion+ people have it. Being poor in America is a luxury country club cakewalk compared to being poor in China.

There's the beautiful part (if you think the Rockies are beautiful, you should see the karst mountains in Guilin, or experience the buddhist temple on Wudan Mt. (if anyone saw Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, it's the temple @ the end of the movie.) All that ancient Chinese art wasn't just showing fantasy....it's what it looks like. I'm going to Yunnan sometime in January, then to western Hubei mountains to someplace called Enshi, a Chinese medicinal herb school...not that I believe that stuff, but it's ancient and it's interesting.

The people, once you get outside the tourist zones and big cities, have a warmth that's incomparable. It doesn't matter where you are or what you're doing, strangers will provide you tea, comfort, and it doesn't matter if you can't speak the language...they just want to provide welcome. It's part of the culture.

Farming here is amazing. No machinery. None. Hundreds of thousands of square miles are terraced fields, worked by hand. I grew up rural, it's a mind blower.

Partly business. I made contact a few years ago with an entrepreneurial type that has a T-stat that one can control by iPhone/internet/etc. He's figured some stuff out that no one in America has (so far), and I am involved in trying to get it going.

Chinese are the most intensely hard wired entrepreneurial folks I've ever been around. Everyone, and I mean everyone, wants to be in business. There's a sense of personal responsibility that is disappearing in America; it's powerful here. Everyone is pulling their weight. The only panhandlers you see here are the truly needy and tragically injured; everyone else is working.

So, it's a lot of reasons. More than I can describe for the time being. It's a wild place, beautiful, the culture amazing, the people incredible.

Don't forget, the food. Chinese food doesn't exist in America; we get some strange mix of Hong Kong stuff.

I forgot the rhinoceros horn that supposedly will make my wiener bigger. Mr. O put in his order too.

[Richard Moore]

Partly business. I made contact a few years ago with an entrepreneurial type that has a T-stat that one can control by iPhone/internet/etc. He's figured some stuff out that no one in America has (so far), and I am involved in trying to get it going.

I saw my first Nest thermostat in a house a few months ago. Something similar?

[kurt]

Only in the Internet connection part. The Nest is really cool and really expensive. Ours looks like a beige thermostat, it's cheap and there's an entire underlying software base for data gathering and analysis. We can do comparative analysis across wide ranges of variables, including geographic.

The Nest is designed by folks that worked at Apple, our guys are control systems engineers that have designed environmental control systems for some of the largest players in the industry. They're young and famous in their industry, and changing how large buildings are managed.

We've been doing beta testing for a year. It works. It's price competitive with Honeywell. No, it's better and way cheaper. We're making a DIY video, we want folks to self install.

The Nest is a profound design statement. Ours is a thermostat that folks will want and can afford.

[charlieb]

Thank you for the response. So, your Chinese (entrepreneurial) side is in play. Never had ANY desire to see Asia but the warmth you describe must be a joy to experience. Enjoy exploring. It's what I enjoy the most about travel.

[Mark P]

I lived in Japan for 13 years and traveled just about everywhere in Asia. In college I minored in Asian studies and earned a Masters in International Relations. I've lived more of my adult life overseas then I have in America. I love Asia and now that I'm stuck in the Midwest I envy Kurt. I was in China in 1990 or 91, it was incredible, I could tell stories.

Here I am in 1984 in a village outside Tokyo.

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[Jerry Simon]

Kurt forgot to mention; he's got a babe there, too.

[John Kogel]

Kurt, another product we could use is a Mandarin or Cantonese to English translation program that does a better job than this, which may have been produced by a computer.

From www.electriccircuits.com

"DC to AC Inverter by IC 555 and TIP41 TIP42

This be basic AC inverter Circuit. Convenient for the initiator who have to is extremely fond of something experience. Because of use IC 555 highly popular, perform produce the frequency ,then enlarge with transistor NPN and PNP number TIP41 and TIP42 drive the coil transformer. Get by can pay Voltage output about 120V to 230V at frequency 50Hz. By have R4 perform control the frequency and should use. Voltage supply about 5V to 15V the detail sees in circuit picture sir."

I getting drift, am wonder if we all be talking in this manner in few decades?

[Marc]

Kurt forgot to mention; he's got a babe there, too.

Babe has been explaining perplexing mysteries throughout human history.

What else could spew more mysteries than a...mystery.

Marc

[kurt]

No, that translation was probably a human; computers do it better. That sort of "English" is everywhere. Some of the signage is hilarious; I'll post some pics when I get back.

[kurt]

Kurt forgot to mention; he's got a babe there, too.

Babe has been explaining perplexing mysteries throughout human history.

What else could spew more mysteries than a...mystery.

Marc

True words.

[Scottpat]

I have a Nest t-stat and I love it. If you can make a similar type device for half the price it will sell itself.

[kurt]

Your words are music to my ears.

The Nest is like an iPad; as soon as you hold one, you want it. It's an outstanding design statement, unique, a joy to interact with, "self programming", very smart. Cons...expensive, no analytical community.

Ours is not a design statement; it's a beige rectangle like everyone else's.

Pros.....Extremely cost competitive. Everyone can afford it. We have iOS/Android/Win mobile device & computer compatibility. We have an analytical package where one can compare energy usage to similar houses across neighborhoods or the continental US, track savings from retrofit/remodel alterations, calculate savings, etc. We have a detailed questionnaire for each new user wherein their home is tied into our database. Our database is linked with Google Maps. We're going to have a website forum for energy related stuff. There's more I cannot talk about yet.

Our design team is the classic engineering genius's from China; they're Purdue educated and their day job is university teaching and developing control systems for the biggest of the big buildings and corporations. Can't name names, but think big players.

It's all rather heady stuff; it could be a sonic boom changing everything, or it could be an old thread on an internet forum we laugh about in a few years. Regardless, I'm in China, and I'm going to the factory in Yichun, Jianxi Province next week to have my first face to face with the China side of the team.

[Nolan Kienitz]

KM -

This T-Stat sounds like the "bee's knees". I've been looking into the Nest as one of the providers down here has it on one of their offerings.

I got a new HVAC system three years ago and had the White-Rodgers "Big Blue" T-Stat installed. Lots of programming possibilities, but I'm having to bring out the manual to refresh my gray matter on changing settings.

FWIW make sure (if there is a panel, touch-screen access) that the blame thing is visible and has fonts in a size that people with vision limitations can see it to make changes.

Of course with it being accessible to so many of the devices (iOS, Android, etc.) ... at least I could access it from my iPad or iPhone.

I'm one of "those" that has the dang visual limitations in seeing the panel of the W-R Big Blue T-Stat. Dang aging thing again []

I'm certainly interested in learning more about y'all's T-Stat.

I know you are enjoying your trip most of all.

[charlieb]

So Kurt,

If we all kick in for your air fare, can we be shareholders?

[Rob Amaral]

Ran into the Nest recently.. pretty nice.. got the hang of it pretty quickly...Luxury condo in Boston..

[Garet]

I haven't see a Nest yet, but just so happens I installed the Honeywell version today. DIY installation was a breeze, with the exception that it needed a common voltage wire, so I had to run new cable to the furnace. Software installation and setup was a breeze. We're looking forward to being able to turn up the temperature from the airport when coming back from IW in January.

My one disappointment with it is that the phone app doesn't let you change the permanent schedule settings -- you have to do that from a laptop or from the faceplate.

[kurt]

What'd you pay?

Ours is programmable from any device. The Honeywell works fine, it's just software deficient.

[Scottpat]

The Nest in some applications needs a common wire as well, but Nest says that is rare and only with a couple of systems. If you do not have a common wire the Nest recharges its lithium battery when the heat or a/c is running with most of the systems. The rest of the time it is in a standby mode and running off it's battery. I have a Goodman A/C and gas furnace and it works fine.

I was at Lowe's and they had the first generation Nest on sale for $189. According to Nest the first gen will have the same software and functions as the second generation Nest once it downloads the new software.

[John Kogel]

I found a comparison of the four leading smart T's here:

http://mashable.com/2012/04/30/smart-thermostat/

The normal list price for the Nest is $249. EcoBee is twice that and needs a pro to install, Honeywell doesn't display a price.

We are going to need an App that can recognize what we are looking at. I would like to walk into a house and test the furnace and the thermostat without destroying the programming and setting the curtains on fire. []

[Garet]

What'd you pay?

The Honeywell was $120 @ the BOB (Big Orange Box).

[Jim Baird]

A few yrs back I read that most of the native plant species in China have yet to be "identified" by Western science. My favorite mail-order nursery in Aiken, SC, called Woodlanders, has been offering plants of sometimes uncertain species brought back by plant enthusiasts for trials as landscape material. Many plant seed have been gathered from the areas to be flooded by the 3 Gorges mega-dams. I had a Buddliea that came from 99 Dragons Mtn and lived at an elevation of 9K feet. It did not survive here, either heat or cold killed it.

[kurt]

There's a lot of landscaping plant types that I've never seen before. The fancy places have major over the top landscaping schemes. The ancient gardens are amazing.

Most of the stats have standard overrides so testing them during our job is just like doing it now.

Everyone will have one of the smart stats someday. They're great. How I got involved in the whole escapade is a crazy story. How it all plays out is a mystery.