IEEE Consultants' Network of Long Island

Thermal Time Constant and Specific Heat, A Second Look - John Dunn, Consultant, Ambertec, P.E., P.C.

A while back, we looked at how the specific heat of a heat sink mass can be used to examine the thermal rise time of an eight pound mass. We will now rescale that to a one pound mass, just to make these numbers a little easier to deal with, as we examine one additional issue regarding thermal rise, the time.

The Nutcracker and Job Creation - Dick LaRosa

This is the third year that our granddaughter Kaitlyn has performed in the Eglevsky Ballet's "Nutcracker". I consulted the program booklet to learn how to spell "Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky" and could not find it there. I had to consult Wikipedia, and learned that Tchaikovsky composed the music, but the story came from other people. When I first saw it two years ago, my initial impression of the first act was that it was cluttered by an awful lot of details and characters. I soon realized that the Christmas celebration in the plot created many roles for young people. This year, the performance that I saw had 10 Dancing Party Children, 6 Children Party Guests, 10 Soldiers, 7 Mice, and 5 Rats. In addition, the first act had 11 Party Guests and 14 Snow Flakes, which I assume were more experienced dancers. There were also the principal dancers and characters.

 

Industry's Adolescence - John Dunn, Consultant, Ambertec, P.E., P.C.

There seemed to be a time when the semiconductor industry was maybe in some kind of adolescence when advertising of hi-tech products had a humorous, if not always politically correct, touch.

I find I miss that.

Let me cite just a few examples:

Higher and Warmer on the Right - Dick LaRosa

"Higher and warmer on the right" is a memory aid for oceanography students in the Northern Hemisphere. If you are looking in the direction of the flow of an ocean current, the water at the right-hand edge of the stream will be higher than the left edge. The Coriolis parameter at a particular latitude is twice the Earth's rotation rate times the sine of the latitude angle. Multiply the velocity times the Coriolis parameter times the water density and you will get the sidewise pressure gradient. Integrating this gradient in the transverse direction will tell you how much greater the pressure is on the left side of the stream compared to the right side. This pressure difference is balanced by a greater sea surface height on the right edge. Divide this pressure difference by the (density times the acceleration of gravity) to get the actual difference in height. For the Loop Current (LC) in the Gulf of Mexico (GoM), this difference is about 34 cm. In the Near Real Time GoM Altimetry Viewer, the center line of the LC is at the 17 cm contour and the right-hand edge is at the 34 cm contour. These are approximate estimates. The contours are shown at 5 cm intervals, and the 35 cm contour is an adequate boundary for our purpose.

Job Hunting - Part 3 - John Dunn, Consultant, Ambertec, P.E., P.C.

Okay, let's still say that you're not a consultant and that you don't ever plan to be. Let's say instead that you are seeking employment. Having once worked at an employment agency, I have written the following advice to you from my former perspective at an employment agency:

Honesty: 

The Carol Burnett Show had a recurring character that was portrayed by Harvey Korman called "Tom Truth". This was a guy who could not help himself except to tell the absolute and total truth of whatever situation was at hand, no matter how embarrassing it might be for whoever was nearby.

Job Hunting - Part 2 - John Dunn, Consultant, Ambertec, P.E., P.C.

Okay, let's still say that you're not a consultant and that you don't ever plan to be. Let's say instead that you are seeking employment. Having once worked at an employment agency, I have written the following advice to you from my former perspective at an employment agency:

Personal Presentation:

Some of this material is NOT going to be politically correct, so just forget about political correctness and lose any ethnic or cultural sensitivities you may have. In this modern day's business world, you do need to adhere to certain social conventions, whether they match your own or not. If your personal conventions depart too far from commonly expected norms, be assured that nobody will care about that as you exit through the door without having gotten a job for yourself.

Job Hunting - Part 1 - John Dunn, Consultant Ambertec, P.E., P.C.

Okay, let's say that you're not a consultant and that you don't ever plan to be. Let's say instead that you are seeking employment. Having once worked at an employment agency, I have written the following advice to you from my former headhunter's perspective:

Your resume:

A resume should be presented in Word and never in any other format because Word is today's Lingua-Franca of the business world. Stay with that, and only that.

Risk Management - John Dunn, Consultant, Ambertec, P.E., P.C.

Good management skills ought to include risk management. However, it seems in so many cases (the gulf oil spill, the Challenger disaster)  that we see a lack thereof which often seems to come from the attitude that some particularly untoward event is very unlikely to occur.

What's missing from that thinking is the question of whether we can live with the adverse consequences if and when that untoward event actually does occur. 

 
STONE SOUP © 2011 Jan Eliot. Used by permission of Universal Uclick. All rights reserved.

Which Is The Positive End of A Diode? - John Dunn, Consultant, Ambertec, P.E., P.C.

"Which is the positive end of a diode?" is a seemingly silly question, but guess what. I've seen the answers to this question ( Yes, I do mean to be plural, not singular.) cause intense arguments among folks who should have known better.

The two opposing answers are illustrated here:   

 

Municipal Malfeasance - John Dunn, Consultant, Ambertec, P.E., P.C.

I took this photograph not too long ago. We see a main east-west street of this neighborhood, looking to the east, where a broken irrigation sprinkler was sending a six-foot high arch of water right into the middle of the westbound lane.

Many drivers of westbound cars when coming to this water would swerve into the opposing eastbound lane, right into the path of oncoming eastbound traffic. I witnessed many near misses of head-on collisions. It is only by the grace of an unseen force that no such collisions actually took place, only the near misses.