IEEE Consultants' Network of Long Island

Growth Rate - John Dunn, Consultant, Ambertec, P.E., P.C.

Now and then, admittedly out of uncertain motivation, I like to take a journey into the frivolous.

I once read a "Ripley's Believe It or Not" claiming that fingernails grow at twice the rate at which toenails grow. Why that might be so I have no idea, but it got me curious about just what kind of growth rates were being addressed. I decided to find out by enacting the cliché of watching one's nails grow. (I still don't have the patience to watch paint dry.)

Using a rigid box to position my camera at exactly the same height each time, I photographed my hand on a flat table top over and over again through a period of thirty-seven days until I felt I had a before and after pair of pictures which I could compare.

The collected pictures looked like this:

Taking the first and the last pictures, I photographed a ruler that I placed on the table on top of two pads of 8½x11 paper to bring the ruler to the same elevation as one fingernail.

I then made measurements from those three photographs with the following result:

The 1.4 mm of growth doesn't sound like much, but do you remember that old cigarette ad about that "silly little millimeter"?

My next move was to go find a nail scissors.

Fakery and Panic, Part 2 - John Dunn, Consultant, Ambertec, P.E., P.C.

Another bogus message came in just today, right on the heels of the first one. Take a good look.

Just like the earlier scam message, the e-mail address is not that of Optimum and just like before, the effort is made to induce panic.

Since two of these scam messages have arrived on two successive days, I have to assume that I've been added to some sucker list and that more of this tripe might be coming in for some while yet to come. If so, I won't be putting up any more posts.

I will simply discard whatever comes along.

Fakery and Panic - John Dunn, Consultant, Ambertec, P.E., P.C.

Check out this bogus message that came in today and take special note that the date this message arrived was May 25, 2023. That date's significance will be apparent in a moment.

This bogus message threatens "account deactivation" if there is no response by May 26th, just one day after this thing was sent and received. The intent was to panic the message recipient into "OMG!!! They're going to cut me off if I don't do what they say and do it right now!!!"

Panic is the sender's motivation tool. You and I are the motivation targets.

Please don't fall for anything like this.

Burned Orchids - John Dunn, Consultant, Ambertec, P.E., P.C.

Neotinea ustulata (syn. Orchis ustula), is a decorative variety of orchid flower that is called a "burnt orchid".  That flower is NOT the topic of this write-up. The ruined flower you see immediately below is the topic.

This flower was on display in the Main Greenhouse of Planting Fields Arboretum in Oyster Bay, New York. An otherwise ideal blossom was needlessly and carelessly destroyed by someone who decided to see what the bloom petals felt like to the touch and who fingered the petals to find out.

The temperature of human skin is lethal to orchid flowers. They are indeed that delicate. If the petals of an orchid flower are touched by a human hand, the petal tissues thus touched will be burned and thus be destroyed.

On a different day, we visited this same facility and I was sickened to see something like twenty orchids in a row on the display tables, each one ruined in exactly this same way by someone who had gone from flower to flower, touching and fondling and thereby ruining each one.

At one time, there had been a sign posted at the door of the orchid display area informing visitors of this orchid vulnerability but that sign disappeared some while ago. Still, a greenhouse such as this is a botanical museum and as in any museum, the cardinal rule is:

"Look but do not touch."

The Scammed - John Dunn, Consultant, Ambertec, P.E., P.C.

I've often read how the "elderly" are more likely to fall prey to a scammer who either poses as an intended victim's  dear relative or poses supposedly on behalf of an intended victim's dear relative and says that bail money is urgently needed because that dear relative has been arrested and is languishing in some prison cell. The "elderly" are presented as more likely to panic and send the demanded money.

As many times as this exact scam has been exposed on line, in newspapers, in magazines, in radio and television broadcasts and so on, I came across an article today describing just such a scenario having happened:

What really got me this time was that the woman who was deceived, the woman who fell prey, is exactly my own age. I could have gone to kindergarten with this woman. Statistically then, I have become a prime target for the bad guys.

It's a little disquieting.

Cactus Moment Arm - John Dunn, Consultant, Ambertec, P.E., P.C.

Now and then, nature sneaks in something really impressive and unexpected if you just happen to look in the right place. Such was something we found at Planting Fields Arboretum in Oyster Bay, NY in the cactus section of their main greenhouse:

Look closely at the base of this cactus where two growing sections meet. Notice how narrow the two sections of cactus are where they meet at the plant's base and try to imagine the moment arm that the narrow cross sections are supporting for that 45° angled section.

Ho-hum? So what? Are you not impressed? Well, it certainly impressed this kid.

The stress level on the cactus tissue has to be enormous. That such stress would be borne in this way apparently as a matter of course seemed extraordinary.

License Plate Obliteration - John Dunn, Consultant, Ambertec, P.E., P.C.

From the following URL of July of last year:

https://www1.nyc.gov/office-of-the-mayor/news/475-22/transcript-mayor-eric-adams-crackdown-vehicles-illegal-license-plates

We extract the following image at the head of a lengthy interview transcript:

The vehicle below was seen in the parking lot of a local grocery store. It was an immaculately clean and well cared for vehicle with a smeared out cover totally blocking anyone from reading any license plate number.

The underlying plate could not be read even when standing right up close. I could not even be certain that there was actually a license plate even present within that plastic shroud.

I have seen many similarly treated vehicles being driven at extreme speeds, committing moving violations of many kinds and to all powers of observation, getting away with it.

Blocked vehicle identifications is a topic that has been written about before. From more than ten years ago, please see:

http://licn.typepad.com/my_weblog/2012/08/license-plate-blockages-john-dunn-consultant-ambertec-pe-pc.html

For all this past decade and for many years before, this issue has been well known, well recognized well acknowledged and well ignored. Hidden and/or obscured and/or forged and/or fake and/or etc., etc. automobile registrations have been observed seemingly everywhere you look with little or no attempted intervention by supposed authorities.

This is not a matter of new discovery. This is a matter of long standing neglect and of extended law enforcement malfeasance, not just in New York City, but in other communities as well including my own.

Drivers of vehicles with non-discernible registrations seem free to violate as they choose pretty much any traffic law at any time. This means speeding, red-light violations, stop sign violations, one-way violations and more, all of which have led to fatalities.

In other words, because of this, some people are dead.

New York City was worthy of praise for at least starting to address the situation, but most other municipalities seem stuck in their head-in-the-sand modes. I'd hate to think that in such places, human lives are considered expendable.

Fake Caller - John Dunn, Consultant, Ambertec, P.E., P.C.

One day, we got bogus telephone calls from an apparent robocaller posing as NYU Langone, a local medical institution. When a second call came in shortly after a first call with the same Caller ID display, I let its recorded message play through to see what would happen.

Look at this:

After I let a recorded message play through once, there was maybe twenty seconds of silence followed by the recorded message being played again. At that point, I pressed the "Speaker" button on my telephone console and placed the handset in its cradle which kept the caller still connected without my having to physically hold anything. The recorded message was then played over and over again for an entire hour!!!

It was their nickel paying for the phone time and I was doing other things so I didn't care. It was actually intriguing to observe. Also, while the bogus caller was tied up on my line, other would be victims were for a little while at least not geting calls placed to themselves.

When I finally needed to use my phone, I raised the handset and lowered it again to disconnect the bogus caller.  (Bye-bye.)

In retrospect, the female voice in the recording sounded just like the recorded female voice in the legitimate messages we now and then receive from various legitimate institutions. Maybe that's the result of speech synthesis. I don't know.

The take away lesson: Eternal vigilance is an absolute must.

Keeping A Long Memory - John Dunn, Consultant, Ambertec, P.E., P.C.

Consider the excerpt below taken from twelve years ago:

https://licn.typepad.com/my_weblog/2011/06/two-interviews-john-dunn-consultant-ambertec-pe-pc.html

I got an e-mail the other day with reference to a possible client who was experiencing a difficulty for which they were seeking a consultant to devise a remedy. I was told that one idea that had been offered was rejected by the would-be client because it "can't" be done. (No reason was stipulated for that.) A second idea that was offered was also rejected by the would-be client because it would be "too costly".

It looked to me like one of those situations where the goal was "Fix it but don't change anything." However, the moment of epiphany came when I looked at the name of the potential client. It was the same company that I had written about back on June 25, 2011.

Was this going to be something with the same managerial staff of a dozen years ago? I don't know, but I wasn't interested in finding out.

A Thought About Estates - John Dunn, Consultant, Ambertec, P.E., P.C.

I am well into septuagenarianhood and grateful for the fact. I have survived several life threatening episodes which as a result of good medical care, have left me a still functional man, still able to accompany my wife of several decades in daily activities and still able to play with my three young grandsons.

None the less, I am very much aware of the possibility of impending mortality and I am further aware that my wife and/or my two grown sons will have to deal with many issues of estate once I have passed away. When my mother-in-law passed away roughly ten years ago, I found myself in that very position plus having to deal with the inappropriate behavior of one close relative which resulted in needless delays (two years) plus lawyer fees to bring those estate affairs to conclusion.

Matters of estate are and will remain complex enough on their own, even when everything happens smoothly. I do not intend to add any further level of complexity with which my family will have to contend upon my passing.

My wife and I are donating supporters of various entities. Among them are National Public Radio, The Nature Conservancy, various museums, various public arboretums and parks and so forth. These entities often ask their supporters to set up automated, periodic donations of whatever amount one might choose, but to me, doing so is unthinkable.

Post mortem, my executor(s) will have many issues to address. I do not intend to add any further entity issues to that list. I do not intend to have my executor(s) further burdened than they already will be with having to close any such automated arrangements. They will have more than enough things to do in addition to running their own lives and tending to living family needs.

Live long and prosper!!