IEEE Consultants' Network of Long Island

Foolin' Nobody - John Dunn, Consultant, Ambertec, P.E., P.C.

Seen at a local King Kullen supermarket:

Those pigeons weren't fooled. They knew the difference between a real predator and an impostor. Maybe this should take away some of the panache of the term "bird brain".

On the other hand, my father in-law used to put a rubber snake in the middle of his vegetable garden and each day, he would change the snake's position in hopes that birds wouldn't figure out the ruse.

He brought in some good crops so I guess that worked

Gerrymandering and Covid - John Dunn, Consultant, Ambertec, P.E., P.C.

Please consider the word "gerrymander".

At the URL:   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrymandering,  we find the following excerpts:

Some years ago, one of my sons went on an RPG (role playing game) outing to and from which I drove him and several of his friends there and back again. On the way back on Sunday morning, it was early and everyone was hungry so I treated everyone to breakfast at an en route diner. In the course of conversation, politics came up and I mentioned that one issue was the practice of gerrymandering and its effect on election outcomes.

One of the friends replied "There's no such word." and when I reiterated the above information the response remained "There's no such word."

Here was someone who was utterly certain of incorrect information and who was impervious to the assimilation of anything else. It was a case of rock solid, absolute, complete and total denial.

I decided to not press the matter, but suggested staying alert because eventually the word would turn up in the news, one way or the other. The response was: "No it won't."

I was prompted to remember this exchange in the course of a more recent discussion and that recovered memory reminded me of the rock solid, absolute, complete and total denials I have more recently heard regarding covid protective vaccinations.

Where vaccinations have been widely given, many lives have been saved. Where vaccinations have not been widely given, many lives have been lost. These facts do not change based on who chooses to believe them or to disbelieve them.

These objective facts are independent of subjective perceptions.

Adventitious Roots - John Dunn, Consultant, Ambertec, P.E., P.C.

Just over ten years ago, I posted an essay about so-called arborists and garden services messing up the planting of new trees.

Please see and carefully read: Root Flare

All of this time, there was this one word of which I knew, but which I could not exactly recall that is descriptive of the tree root trouble that arises from improper treatment of a tree's root flare. After all these years, I found it. The work is "adventitious" as in adventitious roots which you do NOT want to have developing.

Please now see the following Google search result for the search term " adventitious roots":   Adventitious Roots

Even today, I still see newly planted trees with soil mounded up over the root flare. That improper practice causes roots to develop from tree tissue that is supposed to be above the soil line and which is NOT supposed to yield roots.

It is astonishing that such arboreal malpractice is so tenaciously commonplace. If you own property with trees or if you have plans for new trees, please don't fall prey to this.

Please don't let your trees fall prey to this.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Note: The word "adventitious" is not a part of everyday language, but it may be easier to remember that word if we notice that the first six letters are a-d-v-e-n-t and that one synonym of the word "advent" is the word "origin". The unwanted roots will have their developmental origin or advent in response to improper mounding of soil and burial of the root flare.

Faucet Aerator - John Dunn, Consultant, Ambertec, P.E., P.C.

Our kitchen faucet's spigot screen, its aerator, recently broke down and gave me a brief but unexpected shower. I went to a local hardware store and bought a replacement which has an output structure which, as it turned out, has an effect that I don't like.

Six blue plastic spokes cause water to flow in six thin and separate streams at low faucet settings. The faucet has to be opened quite wide to achieve a single water stream.

I went looking for an aerator that would operate as the prior aerator had operated and came across one which had a small paper note visible within the packaging.

It read:

This device is without the plastic spokes, but is this thing really supposed to be acceptable for dispensing tap water for one to ingest?

Coffee or tea, anyone?

I didn't buy it.

Comments?

Campaign Advertising - John Dunn, Consultant, Ambertec, P.E., P.C.

We have lately been inundated with campaign materials mailed to our home. Very large cards from many different candidates seeking election to various positions have very often been of the nature seen in the following two examples from two candidates for one particular office:

These two ads weren't chosen with any agenda. They just happened to have been printed at the same physical width.

Both of these ads are intended to frighten the recipient into voting a particular way. The use of fear as a motivator was addressed some time ago in the essay "Photo-Fakery and Hatemongering" which can be seen at: 

http://licn.typepad.com/my_weblog/2012/06/photo-fakery-and-hatemongering-john-dunn-consultant-ambertec-pe-pc.html

Using the same motivator as the openly malicious misanthrope (my opinion) who committed what I called hatemongering so many years ago, the apparent goal in common is more than just to instill fear.

The apparent goal is to control, to control you, to control me, to control everyone and I deeply resent those efforts to do so.

In the upcoming election, please think matters through with care and then be sure to cast your vote.

Colin Powell and Spock's Father - John Dunn, Consultant, Ambertec, P.E., P.C.

It has been put forth by anti-vaccination people that Colin Powell's death from covid happened in spite of his having been fully vaccinated. That assertion is utter nonsense.

1)         Vaccination is not a 100% guarantee of anything. Nothing is ever a 100% guarantee of anything, only largely effective as anti-covid vaccinations have shown themselves to be. Your odds of staying alive through the pandemic are much better with vaccination than without.

2)         Colin Powell was of advanced age, eighty-four, and was also a cancer patient. His cancer was "multiple myeloma". That same cancer was also the cause of death for actor Mark Lenard who portrayed Sarek, Spock's father, in Star Trek.

Please see:     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Lenard

Breakthrough covid infections are known to be more likely in the elderly which Colin Powell was and more likely in the immunocompromised which Colin Powell also was.

Please don't fall prey to the fallacies of those who would dissuade you from those measures which will aid you in protecting yourself.

Food and Nutrition - John Dunn, Consultant, Ambertec, P.E., P.C.

My last night's dinner was sliced chicken, steamed broccoli and home fried potatoes.

That's nothing special but I have now and then met individuals who would in great earnest tell me that all of my dinner choices were wrong, that all kinds of terrible consequences are certain to arise if I don't change my ways and that they have very carefully researched the involved issues and want to share their hard won knowledge with me so that I will follow whatever regimen they have very wisely chosen for themselves.

The common threads I have noticed are:

1)         "I absolutely NEVER eat any (fill in the first blank)."

2)         "I will ONLY eat (fill in the second blank)."

3)         "Doctors don't know anything. You listen to ME."

One man I knew, now deceased, ate only grains and fruits. Where that idea came from I never knew, but he suffered severe health effects while verbally asserting his wellness.

Another man I once knew went on an all-meat diet and assured those around him that he felt ever so much better. I lost track of that fellow and never observed any outcome.

Food allergies and sensitivities are a separate issue. My father could not eat broccoli or kale. His symptoms from having either one will not be presented here, but he always reacted badly. I myself have similar effects from cauliflower and kale. Those three vegetables are closely related and I am just fine with broccoli so there is a good deal of mystery involved regarding causes and reasons, but he and I did eat a wide variety of other vegetables.  

Likes and dislikes are another separate issue. I don't eat sweet potato because I find the taste very much not to my liking. Why? Heaven only knows.

Consider human dentition. There are two "canine teeth" which are a trait of a carnivore, there are incisors up front for snipping off plant tissue and there are molars in the back which serve as grinders, both traits of an herbivore. In short, humans have it all because we are supposed to eat it all. We are omnivores where the word is loosely translated as "You name it, he'll eat it."

Here as in many venues, extremism is not a virtue. Please choose widely from available food items and do not pay attention to anyone who is anxious to reveal some self-discovered, crucial and critical information about what you should and should not eat.

Bon appétit!

Fire Pits - John Dunn, Consultant, Ambertec, P.E., P.C.

As if all of the smoke from multitudes of wood stoves isn't enough of a neighborhood scourge, this message appeared on a neighborhood bulletin board today:

 

 

This is a very real danger indeed.

Just recently I myself saw big flames from a fire pit lighting up the window of a neighbor's home and thought that there was a house fire. It turned out to be a false alarm, but that fire was huge!!

Please don't underestimate what could happen or what might happen.

Water Ripples - John Dunn, Consultant, Ambertec, P.E., P.C.

We were sitting at a park bench at Old Westbury Gardens in Westbury, NY when we noticed the water surface of a nearby pond changing its appearance from time to time depending on the absence or the presence of a light breeze.

Ripples were sometimes seen traveling across the water surface and sometimes not depending on the highly variable velocity of a gentle wind.

On a grander scale not too long ago, we noticed ripples on the surface of the Connetquot River passing by Bayard Cutting Arboretum in Great River, NY.

We'd seen days with river breezes of high vigor and other days with almost total calm, but not both on any given day. While sitting on a park bench on the river bank, winds would remain energetic or calm for the whole time and the river water would be correspondingly "choppy" as above or quite calm.

What struck me about these two observations is that when surface waves of the water were prominent and moved quite visibly in one direction or another, the water itself was either physically stationary or it was moving quite slowly in one direction or the other as evidenced by floating leaves, twigs and the like all seeming to stay put or at least not moving in the same direction as those waves. 

Despite a visual first-impression, water movement did not correspond to wave movement. With these wave movements, what you seemed to see was not what you would actually get.

First impressions can be convincing, but sometimes as above, they can turn out to be in error.

Caveat observer.

Broadcast Band and Short Wave Radio - John Dunn, Consultant, Ambertec, P.E., P.C.

Someone sent this e-mail after having taken a walk in Manhattan and having noticed something quite unusual in a store window display.

This old Philco radio, dating from the early 1950s would be my guess, receives standard AM broadcast band stations, but it also receives short wave radio signals.

There were AM/FM radios being sold when this radio was new such as shown below, but the short wave capability and the lack of FM reception make this Philco radio unique in my own experience.

Yes, I do know about the Zenith Trans-Oceanic radios.

There were lots of other curios of old electrical, electronic and other technology apparatus in store window displays along that street as well. It's as though some new kind of "radio row" has arisen without my awareness on West 16th Street.

Maybe I'll go take a look if the occasion arises.