IEEE Consultants' Network of Long Island

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

I don’t consider myself in any sense to be a musician. That level of achievement goes way past my history or abilities. I did once sing in a chorale called The Armand Sodero Chorale here on Long Island and it was both an education and a treat at every rehearsal. I learned a few things about music per se, but I never achieved musician status.

Having grown up thru the 1950s and later though, I’ve noticed the almost complete disappearance of instrumentals in popular music. The stuff I hear for the most part these days is a real turn-off for me. Maybe I’ve reached the fogey part of life, but take a look at this list of instrumentals and their performers.

Crank them into YouTube and see what you think. I think you’re going enjoy yourself.

Afrikaan Beat	Bert Kaempfert
Apache	The Shadows, The Ventures
Classical Gas	Mason Williams
Green Onions	Booker T. and the M.G.'s
Java	Al Hirt
Love Is Blue	Paul Mauriat
Music Box Dancer	Frank Mills
Pipeline	The Chantays
Stranger On The Shore	Acker Bilk
Telstar	The Tornados
That Happy Feeling	Bert Kaempfert
The Good, The Bad and The Ugly	Hugo Montenegro
Walk, Don't Run	The Ventures
Washington Square	The Village Stompers
Wipe Out	The Ventures

Fakery and Panic, Part 3 - John Dunn, Consultant, Ambertec, P.E., P.C.

You would think in this day and age (an admitted cliché), the following would be obvious but from stories I see in the news, for many people, the following is anything but.

You are a target. I am a target. Every single person on this planet is a target of verminous persons who want to take whatever assets you have by whatever means they can. The key traits that they hope to exploit in their intended victims are greed and panic.

In the greed area, this e-mail came to me one day. The sender wants my reaction to be “Three and a half million dollars??? For me??? Oh wow!!! I gotta see right now what I have to do to get that cash.”

By the way, did you notice the grammatical error? There’s a red flag for you!!

Also, look closely at the e-mail address in the “From” part of any incoming message. Bloopers like the following are often obvious. Then there are the typing errors in the message contents plus, here, the hope of inducing your panic with the phrase “account deactivation”.

 

Here’s another one with a bogus e-mail address and another intended panic trigger.

 

Here’s still another one that looks like the one above in that the “From” e-mail address is fake but do take note that this fake is made to resemble an address that might be for real. It isn’t.

In short, if you see anything come into your in-box that seems to provoke an emotional response or upset or which tries to induce you into any kind of immediate action lest you pay the price, DO NOT fall prey. You will be looking at the handiwork of someone who wants to harm you.

Just erase that incoming message and move on to better things.

By the way again, for Parts 1 and 2, please see:

https://licn.typepad.com/my_weblog/2023/05/fakery-and-panic-john-dunn-consultant-ambertec-pe-pc.html

https://licn.typepad.com/my_weblog/2023/05/fakery-and-panic-part-2-john-dunn-consultant-ambertec-pe-pc.html

Lottery Addiction - John Dunn, Consultant, Ambertec, P.E., P.C.

After graduating from college, my first engineering job was in New Hampshire where I was not aware of the New Hampshire state lottery system. At the time, I think it was unique in the nation. I was astonished to learn that it was the only funding source for the local school system and, again I think, for the state school systems.

In a few years, I moved back to my home state of New York where I settled down in Long Island. In 1970 if memory serves, the State of New York established a lottery system of its own. Funds that the state was supposed to acquire via the lottery were supposed to go toward supporting education. I had my doubts about that being so and those doubts were subsequently reinforced by later current events. However, that's is a different story.

What I noticed from time to time when I would go to the store was seeing how some people interacted with the lottery system. This man below was a case in point.

One day, this one particular man attracted my attention. I watched him as over and over and over he would go to the store counter, purchase a lottery ticket, take that ticket over to the side somewhere, read it, write something down and then repeat that cycle. I watched him repeating that cycle several times over which I found very disturbing.

I had read articles about compulsive gambling and my impression was that I was seeing a case of exactly that. The state was willingly victimizing vulnerable residents in order to commandeer their cash.

Decades later, the state is still doing it. I have stood for long periods of time behind and watching other customers purchasing a whole glittery and colorful constellation of different lottery tickets using utterly incomprehensible (to me) vocabulary with the store clerk.

In my own case, I have been a winner in every lottery since 1970 because I have NEVER made a lottery purchase and it is my full intention to NEVER do so.

Vanity Plates, Part 8 - John Dunn, Consultant, Ambertec, P.E., P.C.

A whole bunch more of these things.

 

Child Refusals - John Dunn, Consultant, Ambertec, P.E., P.C.

These incidents were real. If you’ve had something similar happen, maybe there’s some comfort in knowing that you’re not alone.

Incident 1:

When my older son was only three years old, I and my wife and my son and my in-laws all went together to New Haven, CT to visit the Yale University Museum where there was an exhibit of Andrew Wyeth paintings. The exhibit was magnificent. Afterwards, we set out as a group to find a restaurant at which to have dinner. That experience was the exact opposite of magnificent.

Place after place that we went to refused service because we had a three year old child with us. At place after place we were simply told no and we were almost always told that our child was the reason why. Finally though, we came to a restaurant that did accept us. We had dinner there and everything went smoothly including with our son who was very well behaved.

However, at one of the restaurants that had refused us, there was this podium near the front door where a young woman was posted. She was one of the ones who had refused us but her refusal was a little bit different. In full view of several vacant tables, we were told that all of the tables and seating had been reserved by other customers who were expected to arrive at any moment. Thus there was no room for us.

As all of my family walked away and out the door, I paused and spoke to that young woman. I said:  “Young lady, when you lie to someone, you should try to make your voice have an inflection that does’t so obviously give away the fact that you’re a liar.”

Her face turned scarlet.

Incident 2:

Later that same year, my wife, my son and I were in Lake George, NY. Eventually, we sought a restaurant at which to have dinner. We stopped into a promising looking place but when they realized we had a small child with us, we were actually told that there would be an eleven hour wait to be seated.

Naturally we went elsewhere for dinner but now after thirty-nine years, that “eleven hour” restaurant is still in operation. Rest assured we never tried to go there again.

I don’t think they noticed.

LinkedIn Criminality? - John Dunn, Consultant, Ambertec, P.E., P.C.

The topic of customer abuse being committed by LinkedIn has been addressed before. Please see:

'https://licn.typepad.com/my_weblog/2023/07/oops-something-went-wrong-john-dunn-consultant-ambertec-pe-pc.html

'https://licn.typepad.com/my_weblog/2023/07/oops-something-went-wrong-part-2-john-dunn-consultant-ambertec-pe-pc.html

'https://licn.typepad.com/my_weblog/2023/07/oops-something-went-wrong-part-3-john-dunn-consultant-ambertec-pe-pc.html

'https://licn.typepad.com/my_weblog/2023/07/oops-something-went-wrong-part-4-john-dunn-consultant-ambertec-pe-pc.html

'https://licn.typepad.com/my_weblog/2023/08/oops-something-went-wrong-part-5-john-dunn-consultant-ambertec-pe-pc.html

'https://licn.typepad.com/my_weblog/2023/10/oops-something-went-wrong-part-6-john-dunn-consultant-ambertec-pe-pc.html

By October of 2023, the customer abuse that was then being committed by LinkedIn was corrected but now here in August of 2024, a new LinkedIn abuse has arisen as seen below.

LinkedIn newly states that there is now a “weekly limit for posting” which I have discovered to be twenty-four. As an active member of forty-nine LinkedIn groups, I can no longer fully post links to my technical essays on EDN at the following URL:

https://www.edn.com/category/blog/living-analog-blog/

In my view, LinkedIn’s surprise imposition of a new user restriction demonstrates not just a lack of business ethics but crosses into criminal behavior. During 2023, I made contact with The Better Business Bureau (BBB), with The Federal Trade Commission and with Consumer Affairs all of which led to nothing effective. The BBB did write that the LinkedIn offense of that time was being made a matter of BBB record, but that was all that they could offer.

I do plan to again voice my complaint to LinkedIn itself although to what avail remains to be seen. If you yourself have come across this, I would ask that you please do the same.

Unrecognized Myopia - John Dunn, Consultant, Ambertec, P.E., P.C.

I noticed a couple having lunch today at a nearby diner and with them was their young daughter, perhaps eight years old.

Mom and Dad were having a discussion together while their daughter was making a drawing. As the girl worked, I noticed that her face was right down close to the paper. Her nose couldn’t have been more than one inch up from the page which said to me that the girl was extremely near sighted and she was not wearing glasses.

In my own childhood, something similar happened. My mother would ask me what time it was on a clock that sat on top of a bookcase and in order to see the clock dial, I had to get right up close to the clock face or it was just a hazy blur. My mother deduced what was happening and I was taken to the eye doctor. When put on my first pair of glasses, I was astonished that I could actually see rows of bricks in the walls of apartment buildings a block away.

There are so many, many things to be watchful for in raising children yet one might easily overlook something.

Myopia, meaning nearsightedness, is one issue that is easily spotted.