IEEE Consultants' Network of Long Island

ESOP and Social Security Number - John Dunn, Consultant, Ambertec, P.E., P.C.

This came in the mail the other day and it is with good reason that all identifying information has been blocked.

According to this, to look at one's ESOP information, one must enter one's social security number (SSN) while on-line. This is not an unusual requirement these days, but from the standpoint of identity theft avoidance, imposing this requirement is irresponsible. 

Our medical insurance provider realized this years ago so that instead of using your SSN as your personal identifier, a different nine-digit identification number has been assigned to each insurance subscriber.

Why this isn't more generally done is a sad commentary on the hypocrisy that emerges from companies such as the one above when they espouse themselves to be concerned about the security of your personal information.

 

Misplaced Faith In Technology - John Dunn, Consultant, Ambertec, P.E., P.C.

There is much misplaced faith in technology.

Years ago, if you had trouble with a bank account, some wag would tell you that you must be wrong because the bank does everything with computers and as we all know, computers are perfect and never make mistakes. Of course, the advent of personal computers with Windows crashing from time to time largely put that canard to rest.

Years ago, if someone was accused of firing a gun in the commission of a crime, a skin residue sample would be taken to look for the chemical signature of gunpowder. If that was found, that person was taken to be guilty of having fired a gun, in all likelihood it was assumed, the same gun that was used in the crime being investigated. Then it turned out that some housecleaning products leave the same residue behind.

THE RUSH TO ELECTRIC-ONLY VEHICLES----Carl Schwab

It does appear that the time is right for a mass shift to EVs, Electric Only Vehicles, particularly as a “second car” and in some cases even the “only car”. This writer has pointed out that it makes much more sense to compare CPM, cost per mile rather than MPG, miles per gallon. For sure as gasoline/diesel approaches and exceeds $4/gallon, which computes to $.20/mile when your mileage is about 20 mpg. Even for hybrids that produce 40 mpg, the CPM is still $.10/per mile.

Once off Long Island electrical power ranges from $.04 to $.14 per KWh. A good number of E-only cars are becoming available now that provide a 100 mile range per charge with a charge of 23-25 KWh. Now the CPM is (25 x .14)/100=$.035 in this case---SUBSTANTIALLY less expensive.

AN ASIDE---Ford in promoting their FOCUS Electric only, uses the term MPGe, meaning miles per gallon equivalent. They are promoting the FOCUS EV as 100 MPGe. This is true if cost for KWh =$0.14 and the gasoline is priced at $3.50/gallon.

Irony - John Dunn, Consultant, Ambertec, P.E., P.C.

Seen at the local grocery store: 

Lose it here, gain it there I suppose.

Maybe this is an example of one-stop shopping.

The Teaching Experience - John Dunn, Consultant, Ambertec, P.E., P.C.

My mother was a math teacher whose last position was at a private business school. When a family emergency arose and she had to travel to the mid-west for two weeks, I took over her two classes, one in "Business Arithmetic" and the other in "Remedial Arithmetic". Each class was one hour long and they were in quick succession in the course of the day, one right after the other.

There were no discipline problems because the students were all mature adults. There was no lesson planning problem because Mom had prepared everything in advance. All I had to do was take the attendance, follow her lesson plan directions and grade the homeworks in the evening. I didn't have to write any exams or administer them or grade them or do anything else that teachers have to do on their own time, for hours and hours on end, unpaid. Oh yes, I had it easy!

Perils of Intuition - John Dunn, Consultant, Ambertec, P.E., P.C.

Follow the instructions immediately below. Do as instructed.

Point to the upper case letters in the words below: 

 

Now point to the green letters in the words below. 

Wanted: One Neophyte - John Dunn, Consultant, Ambertec, P.E., P.C.

From a recent e-mail seeking a power supply engineer: 

Is NIST Getting Better? - John Dunn, Consultant, Ambertec, P.E., P.C.

Remember the old saw that "Practice makes perfect."?  

I wonder if these two frames from http://www.time.gov/timezone.cgi?Eastern/d/-5/java  are any kind of evidence of that: 

Oh, what a difference seven years makes. Maybe by the year 2018, we'll see an accuracy measured in milliseconds

Medical Misdeeds - John Dunn, Consultant, Ambertec, P.E., P.C.

At this writing on November 7, 2011, a conviction of Dr. Conrad Murray has just been rendered in the death of Michael Jackson.

Sadly, the death of Michael Jackson seems likely to me to be not the only case of its kind, only the most high profile one, so please consider the following.

I was listening to a radio interview program one morning in which there was this man, in my view, this horrifying medical fraudster, being interviewed by a sympathetic radio host. The interviewee was claiming to be a medical doctor with a specialty in "prostrate cancer".

Ghoti - John Dunn, Consultant, Ambertec, P.E., P.C.

My son once bemoaned how difficult he found it was to spell words properly. I had to sympathasize with him. After all, the words "soap" and "hope" could have been "sope" and "hoap".

Theodor Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss, once addressed this issue with a cartoon of a hoodlum with an apparent head cold pushing a plowshare through a massive bowl of cookie dough with the caption "The tough coughs as he ploughs the dough."  with all of those "...ough" words having different pronunciations.