IEEE Consultants' Network of Long Island

Monkey Puzzle - John Dunn, Consultant, Ambertec, P.E., P.C.

Wandering in the Synoptic Garden at Planting Fields Arboretum, I came across something that really caught my eye. It was a tree called "Monkey Puzzle".

There is a description of this tree very much worth reading at:   Monkey Puzzle  

It looked like this: 

The triangular leaves of this plant are quite rigid and they are tipped with VERY sharp points, a fact for which I can personally vouch as I tried to gently test that with a finger tip, a process that I do NOT recommend that you repeat.

This plant's basic message to the idle passerby or foraging animal is LEAVE ME ALONE.

That arboretum has some of the most interesting things!

Windows 10 - John Dunn, Consultant, Ambertec, P.E., P.C.

I kept a medical appointment earlier this week. While I was in discussion with my doctor, he made mention to me about his office's computer system.

All of his work had been set up on computers that were running Windows 7, but he had decided to do an upgrade to Windows 10. After all, it was a free upgrade to the latest and greatest which had to be a good thing so he went ahead and did it. He then discovered to his dismay that his office's software applications didn't work anymore. He was especially fearful that his patients' records had been lost.

He called in his IT support company who eventually got everything working again, but he was explaining to me how the "free" upgrade had cost him "a fortune" in tech support fees.

His cautionary note to me, and my cautionary note to you, is to be very, very, very sure that whatever software packages you may be depending on with your present Windows installation are really compatible with Windows 10 if you want to do an upgrade.

How you make sure of that, I have no idea, but find a way! Don't make any unfortunate assumptions.

P.S.:  I am healthy.

A Surgical Recovery No-No - John Dunn, Consultant, Ambertec, P.E., P.C.

Back in 2013, I became extremely ill and received thoracic surgery which involved my stomach, my aorta and my heart. The surgery worked. It was completely successful and I have made a marvelous recovery. I am still here to love my grandchildren which is a fact about which I cannot overstate my joy.

While I was in the hospital however, on the first day following the operation, while I was confined to my hospital bed with my gut still freshly slit open, I started thinking about family matters that concerned a malicious relative who was (and still is) causing problems.

I tried to engage my wife in some discussion about how to best deal with those issues and "Don't worry about that. Just relax." came the reply to which I became utterly ENRAGED!!!

There were pressing situations that very much needed to be addressed that were weighing heavily on my mind, but instead of helping me out by engaging me in the discussion that I wanted to have, an additional roadblock was being placed in my path.

Was this somehow supposed to help me along my way to recovery? Rest assured that it did not. I was physically incapacitated, in quite a bit of post-surgical pain from which any intellectual diversion would have been very welcome and I was very, very angry. I knew that I would eventually need to deal with a whole variety of family and business matters about which I was still capable of thinking and reasoning and I wanted to be assisted, not squelched.

Part of my recovery was going be psychological as well as physical and so, having someone trying to put restraints on me other than for medical necessity was utterly unwelcome.

Basic lesson: Do not try to impose YOUR controls on someone who is already constrained by illness or injury and who wants to address something, perhaps with your assistance. Open your ears and open your mind to whatever the incapacitated individual is trying to express and help him or her facilitate resolutions. Do not become an obstructionist.

Take note of the old saw that "The road to hell is paved with good intentions."

P.S.:   Yes, I still love her.

Taking A Pill - John Dunn, Consultant, Ambertec, P.E., P.C.

One of life's little skills to be acquired is how to take a pill. It may be a vitamin pill or a medicinal pill, but learning how to swallow a pull is often a challenge encountered in the process of growing up. 

I was told when I was small that the right way to do this was to put the pill on the very back of my tongue and then to take a good swallow, a good drink, of water. The trouble for me was that I couldn't suppress a gagging reflex with the pill back there. Much to my mother's consternation, this method did NOT work for me.

I have the same problem with tongue depressors too. If a doctor needs to take a look down my throat, that is NOT a viable tool for the purpose. Because of that, I learned how to voluntarily open the back of my throat very wide. However, I digress.

I came up with two of my own, probably not original, pill taking methods.

In one method, I put the pill under my tongue and then take a good swig of water, allowing the pill to wash up from below and get swallowed along with the water. Success!!!

In the other method, I take some water and confine it with my tongue against the roof of my mouth. Then with the water thus trapped, I put the pill under my tongue, close my lips and allow the water to wash the pill up from below as I swallow. Success!!

These two methods also work for taking more than one pill at the same time. Same techniques, same results.

My grandmother had to take pills of her own each day. She actually had to take quite a few of them. I think she used my second method to take as many as a dozen pills all at once and after having done so, she would look at me with a big, wide smile at my open jawed astonishment as if to say "See how I did that, Johnny?"

Yes, Grandma. I saw.

Double Yolks - John Dunn, Consultant, Ambertec, P.E., P.C.

Does lightning strike twice in the same place? Just ask the television guys in The Empire State Building about that. It can happen elsewhere too though.

Look at this:  

Twenty years ago, I look the picture on the left using a Polaroid film camera. This morning, I took the picture on the right. (Yes, both pictures depict the same frying pan.)

If this is going to keep happening every twenty years, see ya in 2035. 

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

The popular pastime of this holiday involves costumes and masks that seem to evoke some of the most grisly and horrifying images that warped imaginations can generate. I find myself deeply repulsed.

The grotesquely deformed images on the right are of imagined beings that were once sweet, innocent babies like my grandson on the left. 

Even in if it's only as figments of our imaginations, what kind of horrors were inflicted on those unlucky babies to induce such ruin? How much innocent pain, shock and crying are we to imagine took place?

Apart from Linus and The Great Pumpkin, apart from all of the cute Halloween cartoon characters that get trotted out each October, portrayals like these two that get brought out each Halloween are for me, too sick and too abhorrent to be borne without revulsion.

There may be 'trick' in all of this, but for me there can be no 'treat'.

Adobe Updater Question - John Dunn, Consultant, Ambertec, P.E., P.C.

A very long time ago, I started seeing this window come up on my desktop every time I restart my PC. I've tolerated it for lo these past several years, but I don't like seeing it.

It looks like a prompt for doing an Adobe update, but the two fields, "Adobe Updates" and "Description:" are both blank.

I can get rid of this window by clicking on "Remind Me Later" and nothing untoward seems to occur afterwards, but why is this happening and is there some way to get rid of it?

Turbulent Airflow Over Evaporator Rafts - Dick LaRosa

I had come to the conclusion that solar heated evaporator rafts would have to be located off the coast in order to humidify northern California where the wildfires have been extensive. This would take care of the coastal redwood forests, where the tallest trees depend on moisture absorbed by their bark to feed their foliage. It appears that all the sheltered locations on the coast have been preempted by established recreational and commercial interests. The evaporator rafts depend on black solar absorber surfaces floating just below the water surface so that a small volume of water is heated to a temperature high enough to enhance evaporation. We depend on wind coming from the west to carry the water vapor inland to where it is needed. The rafts must be located in calm water in order to be effective.

I first thought of breakwaters resting on the ocean floor or driven into it. This would require a gentle slope of the bottom, which I have not yet explored with Google Earth. But the tidal range is at least six feet and the breakwater cannot be watertight, so at low tide the rafts would be at least six feet below the top of the breakwater. Efficient evaporation requires smooth airflow over the rafts, ideally laminar flow, which cannot possibly be achieved. But picture the huge eddies tumbling over the bottom-supported breakwater, and you know that this is not a workable solution. What might work is a raft of logs floating upwind from the evaporators. I am hoping to find some design information or help from someone on the design of such a floating breakwater.

Thinking about turbulent airflow brings up another consideration. The absorber plates would be made of wood with wood cross pieces at each end. These cross pieces must stick up out of the water so that more water will be displaced if the plate tries to sink. We have to adjust the density of the wood, the thickness of the absorber and the cross pieces, and the weight of the hardware and stringer ropes so that we achieve the proper floating depth. It is essential that the cross pieces protrude above water far enough to avoid sinking if loaded with debris, or if some other problem occurs. These protrusions will cause turbulence and wind shadows if the air flows over them. Fortunately, they are aligned along the stringer ropes, so if the wind is parallel to the stringers they will not cause additional turbulence. This dictates how the rafts must be oriented, and also imposes a reduction in performance when the wind direction deviates from the design direction. It also discourages extra height of the cross pieces to provide assurance of flotation.

For the calculation of evaporation rate, I have been working with a formula proposed by Ernani Sartori in Solar Energy, Vol. 68, No. 1, pp. 77-89, 2000. I am still a long way from understanding how to adapt it to the present application, and hope to make progress soon.