IEEE Consultants' Network of Long Island

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

Take a look at this ashtray.

It is a relic to be sure, an advertisement from KLM Royal Dutch Airlines dating by my guess from some time in the 1950s. It is made of utterly clear and transparent glass and it weighs fourteen ounces, almost one pound. If it were to drop on your toe, it might actually inflict some harm.

I think it got into our house as one of the many incidental estate items from my late in-laws. My wife's uncle had been a corporate attorney who sometimes traveled overseas and who also smoked.

In those days, one cigarette company asked why doctors chose to smoke their particular brand, another wrote about cigarettes that would soothe one's "comfort zone" and so on. There was an elegance and panache associated with killing yourself in the use of their products.

Getting back to KLM, in those days, travel by air was something different than it is today and this souvenir ashtray is a reminder of that.

Back then, if you were going someplace by air, you were expected to dress nicely for the occasion. Gentlemen would be expected to wear a jacket and tie. Trans World Airlines (TWA) put out ads showing a glamorous woman standing on the tarmac in front of a Lockheed Constellation three-rudder airplane while surrounded by a set of elegantly matching luggage. Additionally, your loved ones could accompany you right up to the passenger gate for one last goodbye hug before you would board.

That was the world in which substantial artifacts like this ashtray were given out but it was NOT, as some would claim, a simpler world than we have today.

Back then, there was the "red scare" courtesy of Senator Joseph McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee, there was the "missile gap", there was the advent of the hydrogen bomb, there was the Suez Canal crisis, there was shelling of the islands of Quemoy and Matsu, there was Sputnik, there was the payola scandal, there was the "mad bomber" George Metesky and so on. In those days there was plenty of worrisome complexity and finding this ashtray brought it all back.

Still, for all of the c__p that has gone away and been replaced by new c__p, something of value has also been lost, something that has not been replaced.

Maybe it's time to pause and think about that for a little while.

The ITAR Barrier - John Dunn, Consultant, Ambertec, P.E., P.C.

I was contacted by a would-be client the other day who was seeking services which I thought lay right smack in the middle of my skill set. I had perhaps a ten minute discussion with their manager and things looked really good. Up to that point, anyway.

There needed to be a non-disclosure agreement, I was told, and so one was e-mailed to me. When it arrived, I found the following:

I have enlarged the above text that alarmed me.

Although I know of ITAR requirements and although I have had at least one client who was working to ITAR requirements, I have not myself been responsible for meeting ITAR requirements. I seem to recall seeing advertisements for ITAR instruction classes with tuitions running to multi-hundreds of dollars but I have never taken that instruction. Ergo, I had no way to know if the anti-malware utilities on my computer would satisfy ITAR requirements or not nor what other responsibilities I might incur.

I will not and cannot obligate myself to terms and conditions of which I have insufficient knowledge,

I declined the work.

Someone else might have said "No problem. I don't have any concern over this." and taken on the assignment, but that isn't my way. To me, this looked a potential booby trap whose possible adverse consequences were unacceptable.

Just sayin', y'know?