A letter attempting an inheritance fraud

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Most fraud communications I get are via email. Instead, I was surprised to receive the following one about my getting over five million dollars via old-fashioned snail-mail:

 

REF: LP2200/2021

Date: October 13, 2021

 

Dear Richard Garber,

 

My name is Mr. Lee Pappas; I am an attorney and named partner at Lee Pappas Law Office LLP. It may surprise you to receive this letter from me, since there has been no previous correspondence between us. There is an unclaimed “Permanent Life Insurance Policy” held by our deceased client.

 

Meanwhile, I was wondering if you got a chance to review my previous letter sent to you concerning unclaimed “Permanent Life Insurance Policy” held by our deceased client/policy holder Dr. Charles Garber whom I was his legal counsel and administrator but passed away ten (10) years ago of cardiac arrest, and I believed you may be related or may not. The insurance policy is an unclaimed “Transferable-On-Death” (TOD) savings monetary deposit insurance with one of the prime global insurer. I am contacting you following the cause of my search and unsuccessful effort to locate the deceased living relatives, and hence you bear the same last name and stands a better chance to partner with me towards the claiming of the estate savings monetary deposit of the sum of eleven million five hundred and fifty thousand one hundred U.S. Dollars ($11,550,100.00).

 

Therefore I ask for your consent to be in partnership with me for the claim of this policy benefit; in view of the fact that you share the same name and nationality with the deceased. If you permit me to add your name to the policy, all proceeds will be processed on your behalf. I wish to point out that I want 10% of this money to be shared among charitable organizations of your choice, while the remaining 90% will be shared between us (45/45). Which means each of us will get over five million dollars. Contact me by email let me share more information with you.

 

This is 100% risk free. I do have all necessary documentation to expedite the process in a highly professional/legal and confidential manner. I will provide all the relevant documents to substantiate your claim as the beneficiary. This claim requires a high level of confidentiality and it may take less than thirty (30) business days, from the date of receipt of your consent.

For more information, contact me through my private email LEEPAPPASOFFICE @ GMAIL.COM cc copy my office email LP @ LEEPAPPASLAWOFFICE .COM

 

Your earliest response to this matter would be highly appreciated.

 

Best regards,

 

Lee Pappas

E-mail: LP @ LEEPAPPASLAWOFFICE .COM

Private Email: LEEPAPPASOFFICE @ GMAIL.COM 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Images of the actual letter and its envelope are shown above. Etobicoke is a suburb of Toronto. The envelope has no return address, and is postmarked Atlanta Metro on 23 Nov 2021 – which is over forty days and forty nights (an entire Noah’s Flood) later than the October 13, 2021 date inside. The last sentence of the letter says my earliest response would be appreciated, so why wasn’t it sent more rapidly from Canada?  

 

The first paragraph says there has been no previous correspondence between us, but the second papagraph refers to a previous letter. It asks me to send my email to a Gmail address in addition to the one shown on the firm’s web site.  

 

There are some subtle grammar errors, like ‘one of the prime global insurer.’ An article at ProbateADVANCE titled Avoiding Inheritance Scams notes that spotting those errors weeds me out from replying. The writer is looking for someone clueless.

 

The letter just is a variation on one described in a business column written by David Lazarus and published on February 18, 2020 by the Los Angeles Times titled Great News! A relative you never heard of left you $10 million! It has the same 45-45-10 distribution for the loot.

 

There is an earlier article by John F. Wasik at Forbes on February 19, 2017 titled Scam Alert: Anatomy of an inheritance fraud letter.

 

Trump is the known loser from the 2020 election

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I agree with the opening sentence of a statement by Donald Trump on November 23, 2021:

 

“Saving America starts with saving the GOP from RINOs, sellouts, and known losers.”

 

Of course, The Donald does not recognize that he is the obvious known loser from the 2020 election. Mr. Trump continues to claim otherwise, as in his statement on November 15, 2021:

 

“…By the way, as soon as the Crime of the Century happened on November 3rd, I knew the Election was Rigged and Stolen, and never changed my view on that one bit. I did not go soft on the ‘Real’ Big Lie, the Election Scam, and never will.”

 

The only thing ‘determinative’ from the election is the Electoral College results. In 2016 he won by 304 to 227, and then claimed a landslide. In 2020 he lost by 306 to 232 which also can be called a landslide. It is time for that loser to save the GOP by stepping aside, and instead just playing golf.

 

The Trump portrait was cropped from an image at Wikimedia Commons.

 

UPDATE November 30, 2021

 

I’ve had enough of Trump’s bad habit of giving everyone else nasty nicknames. Let’s give him another one. Now he’s the Loudmouth Unelected Candidate (LUC) from the 2020 election.  

 

 

 

Improving oratory skills of medical residents using an American Idol presentation competition

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Back in July 2018 there was a seven-page article by David A. Hill et al. in Cureus magazine titled Improving Oratory Skills: An “American Idol” Presentation Competition for Residents. They ran a competition between seven senior residents with four sessions. The first session was a five-minute discussion limited to five PowerPoint slides. The second was a six-minute presentation limited to six PowerPoint slides. The top four went on to the next round. The third was a seven-minute presentation limited to seven PowerPoint slides. The fourth and final presentation was for fifteen minutes limited to fifteen PowerPoint slides. Twenty-six audience members filled out a baseline survey before the competition began, and nineteen filled out a survey after the fourth presentation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Survey results for how well the presenters communicated are shown above in a bar chart. Before the competition only 4% were rated very effective; after the competition 22% were rated very effective. Before the competition 62% were rated effective; after the competition 73% were rated effective.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Survey results for whether the slides were understandable are shown above in a second bar chart. Before the competition only 8% were rated very understandable; after the competition 52% were rated very understandable. Before the competition 54% were rated quite understandable; after the competition 42% were rated quite understandable.

 

A cartoon of a medical presenter was adapted from this one at Wikimedia Commons.

 

 

Following silly orders - military training versus reality

 

Recently I was reading George E. P. Box’s memoir, An Accidental Statistician: The life and memories of George E. P. Box. When I got to a story on page 20, I burst out laughing because it reminded me of my Air Force basic training in 1972.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

During George’s first week in the British Army, at the beginning of World War II, he was told to check the company bulletin board every day for orders. When he did, he found his name listed as the ‘key man.’  He asked what that meant, and was told that some time during the evening the bugler would sound the ‘Buckshee Fire Call’ (the real fire call, followed by two Gs indicating it was just a drill). Then the key man was to run down to the company office, and answer his name. George was curious, so he asked what the key man would do in case of a real fire. Even the Sergeant Major could not tell him immediately. But the next day he was told the key was a spigot (wrench) for turning on the water supply valve (on a hydrant) for firefighting. Still, no one could point out the location for that key. Fortunately, there never was a real fire while George was the key man.       

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In July 1972 I went to Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio for basic training. Each flight was housed in a leftover World War II vintage dorm. There were rows of single beds with wooden footlockers at their feet, as shown above. Our footlockers had a prescribed display of items. As shown above, the top tray insert held items like a bar of soap, a toothbrush, toothpaste, a razor, and shaving cream. These all were regularly inspected by drill instructors. But they took what were intended as common-sense sanitary requirements to absurd levels (just demonstrating willingness to follow silly orders).

 

For example, a discrepancy could be written up if there was even a single hair on the displayed soap bar. My flight was composed of enlisted reservists, who averaged a couple years of college. We creatively complied with the letter of those regulations, which we regarded just as Mickey Mouse crap. The open soap bars on display stayed pristine - because they were never actually used. We were allowed to keep a wrapped-up spare bar of soap in the bottom of our footlocker. So, each day one of us would donate his spare, which was broken in half, used by two squads of eight men for the entire day, and then flushed down the toilet. An entire squad used a tube of toothpaste and a Trac II razor cartridge.     

 

Other aspects of basic were equally silly. Fatigue pants only were issued in waist sizes with an increment of four inches. When I arrived, my civilian pants had a 34-inch waist, so they instead gave me 32-inch ones. So, I lost ten pounds until I fit them – but also lost much of my resistance to disease. Eventually I got a serious upper respiratory infection. Then I lost a week lying around in a leftover flu ward and popping Tylenols like candy, until my temperature got back down to normal.

 

Images of a World War II dorm and footlocker came from Wikimedia Commons.

 

This Thanksgiving I’m thankful for books

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’m particularly thankful for the public library system that provides me with access to a huge variety of books. Sometimes I just browse the online catalog by subject, and order them via interlibrary loan. I look at subjects like Business Presentations, Decision Making, Information Visualization, Oral Communication, Problem Solving, Public Speaking, and Visual Communication.  

 

But when I pick them up at my local Lake Hazel branch of the Ada County Library, I also make sure to check their new book shelves. And occasionally I go downtown to the main Boise Public Library to look through their new book shelves.

 

Downtown is where I found the 2021 second edition of the very interesting Roadside Geology of Idaho book by Paul K. Link, Shawn Willsey, and Keegan Schmidt. One of the ‘new’ things described there is amazing. Lake Bonneville was the much larger predecessor of the Great Salt Lake. It was about the size of Lake Michigan – 300 miles long by 135 miles wide (and 1000 feet deep). About 17,500 years ago it overflowed in an epic flood. The level dropped 400 feet – mostly in a couple months, and what remained became the Great Salt Lake. A huge cascade of water down the Snake River tumbled huge boulders like bowling balls. It produced ‘melon gravel’ –piles of rounded rocks the size of watermelons. Later I bought a copy of that book to keep in my car.

 

My local Lake Hazel Branch is where I saw the 2021 book by T.D. Jakes titled Don’t Drop the Mic: the power of your words can change the world. When I checked the catalog, I was surprised to find it only was listed under two subjects: Communication – Religious aspects – Christianity and Conversation - Religious aspects – Christianity.

 

Under the subject of Problem Solving I found Dan Heath’s 2020 book Upstream: The quest to solve problems before they happen. I also blogged about that topic in a May 30, 2019 post titled A very worthwhile article on dealing with presentation distractions. Another post on December 20, 2019 is titled The joy of safety interlocks. A decade ago I did a pair of posts, one on February 8, 2011 titled Mistake-proofing your presentation outfit and another on February 18, 2011 titled More on mistake-proofing: lock out what you don’t want to happen.

 

The inspiration for this post is an article by Jesse Wisnewski at Forbes on November 23, 2021 titled Three things the books you read say about you and your work, which are:

 

They can show you who you’re going to become

They can reveal what you’re going to know

They can help make a path for your future

  

How many times (or for how long) should you rehearse your speech?

 

 

 

 

 

 

   

 

 

 

 

One recent answer is in an article by Carmine Gallo at Inc. on November 18, 2019 titled Why you should practice your presentation 10 times before taking stage. Another longer answer is in a blog post by Scott Schwertly on April 21, 2021 titled My thoughts on presentation practice and rehearsal routines where he said:

 

“On that note, you should practice using what I like to call the Plus 10 Rule. I’ve explained this in earlier posts but I’ll highlight it here again. The Plus 10 Rule implies that you should practice a presentation the number of minutes of your talk plus ten. For instance, if you are going to give a 20-minute talk on a subject you would take 20 and add 10. Therefore, you should practice that presentation 30 times.”

 

On August 27, 2018 I blogged about Chasing the perfect presentation – TED Talks and the World Championship of Public Speaking. In that post I mentioned that Carmine Gallo stated Jill Bolte-Taylor had practiced her 2008 My Stroke of Insight TED Talk 200 times.

 

The more times you practice, the higher the quality, and the closer you asymptotically approach perfection, as is shown above.  

 

Getting confused by homophones: queue and cue

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Homophones are words that are pronounced the same but differ in meaning and also in spelling. The second meaning in the Merriam-Webster dictionary for queue (noun) is:

 

“A waiting line especially of persons or vehicles”

 

And the very different second meaning in the Merriam-Webster dictionary for cue (noun) is:

 

“A feature indicating the nature of something perceived.”

 

But an article by John Livingston in the Gem State Patriot News for November 19, 2021 titled Cue Mismatch confused them. The second sentence in his fourth paragraph says:

 

“Our balance is affected by both visual cues and auditory queues and when they misalign it causes us to be dizzy and sick.”

 

And the fourth sentence in that paragraph says:

 

“But the long and short of it is that when the queues don’t match up we get sick.”

 

By definition, a queue lines up. But then his sixth paragraph begins with:  

 

“I think people in our country are getting queues that don’t line up.”

 

Back on September 11, 2020 I blogged about Editing tips for speechwriters and other writers, and mentioned previous examples where Dr. Livingston had botched spelling.

 

The image of a relief waiting line came from here at the Library of Congress. 

 

 

 

An informal mentor who cast a long shadow

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some people who are not our formal mentors nevertheless cast a long shadow over us. For me, one was Dr. Richard V. Lynch, Jr. I met him in June of 1972, when he did my enlistment flight physical for the Air Force Reserve (to become a medic in an air evac squadron). He listened to my heart with a stethoscope and frowned. Then he told me I had an extremely minor murmur, which might even go away as I got older. It wouldn’t prevent me from being on flying status though. Most would not have noticed it, but he was a professor at the West Virginia University medical school.  

 

In a blog post on August 26, 2011 titled Selection bias I discussed another encounter with Dr. Lynch. I was working as a medic in the Air Force Reserve clinic at the Greater Pittsburgh Airport. We did routine flight physicals, each of which included a 12-lead electrocardiogram (EKG). A special die was used to trim 3” samples from those 12 strip charts. Then each set was mounted on a self-adhesive form. Lt. Col. Lynch was our clinic commander. Each afternoon he would eagerly pounce on that stack of EKG forms and go through them with a fine-tooth comb. Dr. Lynch even replotted them as vectorcardiograms. He had realized that if a specialist doesn’t do something about it, he mainly will see referrals where another physician first looked at the patient, ran an EKG, and noticed there was something very wrong. His diagnostic skills gradually will deteriorate. He knew the way to avoid that problem was by looking at a sample of healthy people every month. Those flight physicals were his reality check for staying sharp.

 

Then there was the case of the freaked-out Army Guardsman on a summer Sunday morning. He and a buddy had been out on maneuvers in the woods of South-Central Pennsylvania. They were sleeping in a pup tent. Long before dawn he was startled awake by a raccoon crawling on top of his sleeping bag. He was afraid that the overly curious ‘coon was rabid, he’d been bitten, would get rabies, and would die. His buddy grabbed a jeep and drove them both to the closest military medical facility, which was us. They were already waiting in the parking lot when we opened for sick call at 8:00 AM.

 

Dr. Lynch respectfully listened to his story, and then calmly told him to remove his shirt and undershirt. Then he carefully and meticulously examined the panicked guardsman’s face, chest and arms. Dr. Lynch told him that he didn’t see any puncture marks from bites, or even any scratches. His reassuring manner gradually calmed down that very agitated guardsman.

 

The next year they promoted Dr. Lynch to a full Colonel. It forced him to retire, since the clinic commander position only called for a Major.

 

Richard V. Lynch, Jr. got his MD degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1943. He was an Army captain for two years, and took advanced medical training until June of 1949. Then he practiced internal medicine in Clarksburg, West Virginia for two decades. He also served two four-year terms on the city council. He served as president of the West Virginia Diabetes Association, the West Virginia Heart Association, the West Virginia Tuberculosis and Heath Association, and the West Virginia State Medical Association. Then he became a professor at the West Virginia University medical school in Morgantown, and chief of their hospital’s outpatient department. He eventually retired, and died in 1997 at age 78.   

 

The image came from a trailer for the Hitchcock movie The Wrong Man at Wikimedia Commons.

 

Is crwth a real word? Yes!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Today’s Pearls Before Swine comic strip informed us that:

 

“ ’Crwth’ is a valid Scrabble word.”

 

I assumed Stephan Pastis must be kidding, but then I looked it up. Yes, it indeed is in the Merriam-Webster dictionary, and there also is a Wikipedia page. As shown above in a drawing, it is a stringed instrument. The absence of vowels is due to its Welsh origin.

 

A superficial Pathways project: Introduction to Toastmasters Mentoring

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Level 2 of the Pathways educational program from Toastmasters International has a mandatory project titled Introduction to Toastmasters Mentoring, which can be downloaded here. It discusses the roles of the mentor and protégé, that mentoring can be virtual, and the differences between mentoring and coaching. But it is rather superficial, implying (as shown above) that the process just involves a more experienced mentor and an inexperienced protégé (aka mentee).

 

The mentor gets a Mentor Assignment Notice (Item 1163C, 11/2018) which you can find here.

 

Toastmaster magazine has lots of useful articles about mentoring, which add additional useful information not in that introductory Pathways project. For example, since over two decades ago there also has been a variation known as reverse mentoring. Back in May 2014 John Cadley had quipped that:

 

“If you’ve ever had to ask a 6-year-old how to work your smartphone, you’ve been reverse mentored.”

 

Here is a list of authors and titles for 21 magazine articles from the last decade (and one from Leadership Central). For those posted at the magazine web site I have included a link. Others can be viewed by downloading the .pdf file for an issue and looking at the listed page numbers.   

 

Karen Ince, September 2021: Page 11 - The advantages of an atypical mentorship

 

Jennifer Blanck, February 2021: Pages 14 and 15 - The value of virtual connections

 

Stanley Aruyaru, October 2020: Pages 20 and 21 - Mentorship in Toastmasters and Medicine

 

Deepak Menon, November 2019: Page 2 - Magical Mentoring

 

(Not identified), April 2019 at Leadership Central - Happy mentoring!

 

Dana LaMon, April 2018: Pages 20 and 21 - The meaning of good mentoring

 

Bill Brown, February 2018: Page 15 - Finding the Ideal Mentor

 

Mitch Mirkin, September 2017: Pages 12 and 13 - UCLA Mentor Steve Yu

 

Jennifer L. Blanck, December 2016: Page 29 - Online Mentoring

 

Jim Kokocki, December 2015: Page 2 - What does mentorship look like?

 

Alex Malley, May 2015: Page 14 - My top five tips for the budding mentor

 

Kristen Marble, May 2015: Page 15 - The two-way street of mentorship

 

Paul Sterman, September 2015: Page 28 - Mentoring Matters

 

Caren Neile, October 2014: Pages 26 and 27 - E.J. Burgay: A mentor to remember

 

Julie Bawden-Davis, May 2014: Pages 16 to 19 - Harness the power of mentoring

 

John Cadley, May 2014: Page 30 - Be a mentor!

 

Jennifer Przbylo and Nina Vasan, October 2013: Page 21 - How to be a great mentor

 

Jennifer L. Blanck, May 2013: Pages 16 to 19 - The many dimensions of mentoring

 

Aletta Rochat, May 2012: Pages 28 and 29 - Anyone can be a mentor

 

Bob Calandra, October 2011: Pages 14 and 15 - The benefits of mentoring

 

Maureen Zappala, July 2011: Pages 16 to 18 - Intergenerational collaboration

 

Bob Armstrong, January 2011: Pages 14, 15, 23 - The joy of mentoring

 

There also is a collection of Meet My Mentor articles here.

 

No one wanted to buy a stolen ten-foot-long inflatable colon in Kansas City

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Back on January 15, 2014 I blogged about An outrageous prop for a serious purpose – the giant inflatable colon. In October of 2018 there was a news story about one in Kansas City, which generated some useful publicity about colon cancer prevention.

 

On October 19, 2018 there was a brief AP story titled Giant inflatable colon stolen in Kansas. Then on October 22, 2018 at People there was a detailed article by Joelle Goldstein titled Giant inflatable colon worth $4000 stolen ahead of a cancer event in Kansas. It included both still photos and a 2-1/2-minute YouTube video explaining that prop.

 

On October 29, 2018 the Star Tribune (Minneapolis) had an article by Erin Adler titled Story of Edina nonprofit’s stolen inflatable colon has a happy ending. It mentioned the stolen inflatable had been found, and that it had been produced by Landmark Creations of Burnsville (15 miles south of Minneapolis), who so far had made 218 of them.

 

Two New York newspapers picked up the story on October 30th. At the New York Post there was an article by Nicole Darrah titled Stolen inflatable colon found in vacant home. And at the New York Times there was another article by Sarah Mervosh titled A giant inflatable intestine went missing. The stolen colon is back, but mystery remains. That day Forbes also had yet another article by Bruce Y. Yee titled That stolen giant colon was found: how things worked out in the end.

 

There is an article by Christine A Miguel et al in Preventive Medical Reports on December 20, 2020 titled Scripted tours through a giant inflatable colon: An innovative and effective educational tool in urban communities.

Most searched for Thanksgiving side dish in each state

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What are the most popular side dishes for Thanksgiving? An article by Kathy Morris at Zippia the career company on October 26, 2021 is titled The most popular Thanksgiving side in every state (spoiler: mashed potatoes are still the best). She showed a map for fifty states, with 25 most searched items (in November of 2020).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As shown above via a bar chart, mashed potatoes (9 states) were first, followed by rolls (4 states). If we include crescent rolls (NE), there are 5 states rather than four. Then there was a four-way tie for third place (3 states) between baked potato, collard greens, green beans, and stuffing.

 

For New York (NY) she lists Sweet potatoes with marshmallows. That reminded me of a statement by Peg Bracken in The I Hate to Cook Book:

 

“It’s nice to know that they’ve recently repealed the law that made marshmallows mandatory in every dish of baked sweet potatoes.”

 

The last two, Turkey gravy (MT) and White gravy (AR) really don’t belong. As was pointed out on November 4th at the Bob and Tom Show, they are not side dishes – they are just condiments.

 

 An image of a turkey is adapted from from a 1905 Puck magazine at the Library of Congress.  

 

Donald Trump is rich, but nowhere as rich as Jeff Bezos

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Every October Forbes magazine releases their list of the 400 wealthiest people – the Forbes 400. The Top Ten was shown by the National Review on October 5, 2021 in an article titled Forbes Richest Americans. I have shown the Top Twenty above in a bar chart. Jess Bezos was first, with $201 billion.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Where was Donald Trump on that list? Another article by Dan Alexander at Forbes on October 5, 2021 explains that instead Donald Trump falls of the Forbes 400 for first time in 25 years. The Donald only is worth $2.5 billion – short of the $2.9 billion needed to make the list. Oprah Winfrey is worth $2.6 billion, so she isn’t there either. (Jeff Bezos is worth over 80 times what The Donald is). How The Donald ranked in the previous years, from 1996 to 2020 is shown in a second graphic.

 

Back on October 4, 2016 I blogged about How to visualize a Trumpload of loss from The Donald’s 1995 income tax returns. For that post I imagined that sum via a stack of dollar bills about 62 miles high. For the current $2.5 billion, it’s a stack about 169.7 miles high. Compare that with the International Space Station, which orbits at a height of 250 miles.

 

Jeff Bezos $201 billion is represented by a 13,641 mile-high stack of dollar bills. That’s only 61% of the 22,236 miles representing the orbit for a geosynchronous communications satellite.

 

A phishing email that was NOT from the National Westminster Bank

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Recently I received an email which claimed to be from the National Westminster Bank in London. As shown above, its incredible subject line was Instruction to Credit Your Account with the Sum of (US $10 Million). There is no NatWest logo, and it came from a Gmail address. Similar bogus emails have appeared previously.  

 

The Fake emails (fraud guide) web page from NatWest has the following headings:

Is the greeting personal?

Check the grammar and spelling.

Be wary of links in the email.

Do they push you to act quickly?

They will threaten your account.

Is there a prize?

 

The greeting is impersonal, and the prize is huge. Both the grammar and spelling are suspicious, and the Capitalization is Peculiar, as with the very first paragraph:

 

“In the fight against corruption in the Banking system and in pursuit to re-build a good relationship with the British Government and the foreigners by the British Prime Minister.”

 

Later it also says United Nation rather than United Nations. I didn’t reply. Instead I had a good laugh.

 

The world prefers a calm life to an exciting one

On May 28, 2019 I blogged about Is public speaking the number one fear in the world? In that post I pointed out that such claims referred to surveys of the U.S. – sometimes bogus ones.

 

I just saw an article at Gallup on September 30, 2021 by Steve Crabtree and Alden Lai titled The world prefers a calm life to an exciting life which really polled the world (116 countries) on a single question. (It could be an interesting speech topic). They found that across those 116 countries 72% preferred a calm life, 16% an exciting life, and 10% both. They reported that:

 

“The preference for a calm life is one of the most consistent findings from this new study. In 114 of the 116 countries and territories included in the 2020 research, the percentage of people who prefer a calm life outnumber those who prefer an exciting life by at least 15 percentage points -- and by more than 50 points in most countries. (The two exceptions were Georgia, where people were significantly more like to say they would prefer an exciting life to a calm life, and Vietnam, where there was no clear preference.)”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They provided a table for eleven regions of the world, which I have summarized above via a bar chart comparing percentages for calm and excited. For the U.S. and Canada 75% preferred a calm life while only 22% preferred an exciting life. In ten of eleven regions over 2/3 preferred a calm life.   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another bar chart adds the usually much smaller percentages for both.

 

 

Lumpers or splitters?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

People commonly classify things by looking at them in two different ways. They long have been characterized as lumpers and splitters (or sometimes hair-splitters). Lumpers focus on similarities and create fewer, larger categories; splitters focus on differences and create more, smaller categories.

 

A massive 64-page preprint article by Robert M. Hazen et al at American Minerologist on July 24, 2021 titled Lumping and splitting: Towards a classification of mineral natural kinds references such distinctions in biology, history, linguistics, philosophy psychiatry, and sociology.

 

Another article by Miles Kimball at Confessions of a Supply-Side Liberal on July 23, 2020 titled Lumpers vs. splitters: Economists as lumpers; Psychologists as splitters explained:

 

“In a broader sense, a ‘lumper’ is someone who tries to explain many phenomena as being in some deep sense similar and arising from similar forces. A ‘splitter’ who someone who emphasize how each different phenomenon is its own type of thing, different from other phenomena.

 

…. Having rubbed shoulders with psychologists as well as, of course, many economists, I think it is true that, psychologists tend to be splitters, while economists tend to be lumpers. Economists usually try their best to explain new phenomena with small modifications of old theories. Psychologists like to try to show that a new phenomenon they have identified is a new type of thing and are happy to develop a new theory for that new thing.”

 

On September 20, 2021 there is an xkcd comic by Randall Munroe titled Lumpers and splitters with the following dialogue:

 

Megan (lumper): Really, we’re both just categorization pedants.

Cueball (splitter): Ahh, so you’re a meta-lumper.

 

Images of a spade and hatchet were colored in from those from Pearson Scott Foresman at Wikimedia Commons.