From the Doghouse
A look at dogs having fun
Poser Gallery
My gallery of pictures I’ve created in Poser
My Science Fiction and Fantasy stories
Stories I’ve written
Nature by Carol
A look at the less technical side of life
Driving Change With Comments – Force Multipliers
I had barely hit "send" on my last post when Zee, ever the critic, called me on it. I mean, she's penned a gallery of fire-breathing missives about shoddy products, clueless congressmen, and writers who wouldn't recognize a plot if it slapped them in the face. What...
Driving Change With Comments, You Should Do It
Grab any product you know like the back of your hand and check out its comments. Ditch the fake, fluffy ones—they’re as real as a three-dollar bill! Personally, I get a good laugh out of reading those one-star dramatics. Oh, and we’re ignoring the folks who say,...
Intelligent Garden Spiders? It’s Not Even Halloween
Let me make it clear, I don’t like spiders. It’s not like I run away screaming when I see one. I’ve been forced to share the bathroom with a wolf spider and we both survived but neither of us enjoyed that experience either. On the other side of the spectrum, my wife...
Musings On The Effectivity Of Lessons Learned Databases
People frequently suggest use of a Lessons Learned database as a best practice. Many companies have invested large amounts of time and money in creating those databases. Both the exceptional projects, where nothing goes wrong, and the plagued-ridden projects that...
Sundae, The Life And Times Of A Dedicated Companion
I’ve been fortunate enough to spend the last 14 years under very close supervision. If I tried to stay up too late, I was gently reminded it was past my bed time. Her displeasure was clear if I tried to snack too often. I was never allowed to sit at my desk too long...
Common Designs, Industrial Spies Or Technology, A Perspective
Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone, or did he? The truth isn’t nearly as clear as we’ve been taught. In fact, in America, it was a dead heat to the patent office. The telephone isn’t the only invention with murky origins. Consider wireless, the light bulb,...
Random Posts
Baby Knowledge, An Important Concept In Being UnderstoodWhen we moved out to our ranch, my wife had to impress on me that horses were not merely big dogs that we could ride. Wagging their tail does not indicate pleasure at seeing you. Rolling on the ground doesn’t always mean their back itches and yawning certainly doesn’t mean they had a late night. […]
501(c)(4), Which Part Is The IRS Violating?It was with surprise and horror that I, along with 20 million other Americans, first learned that the IRS was targeting specific groups for their in-depth investigations into tax exempt status. How did they possibly believe such a travesty would go undetected? I’ve only got one question, why is the IRS granting tax exempt status […]
Musings On Why Organizations Fail and How You Can Prevent ItJust after Easter, a friend told me about attending the last meeting of a club he had helped start almost 42 years ago. Their downfall was caused by a simple problem, nobody wanted to serve as officers. I suspect there were other factors too but considering the state of our government, we can certainly see […]
Random Posts
Food ScoutIn almost every war movie I’ve watched there’s one guy that seems to be able to scrounge anything. In the corporate engineering world we all scrounge for parts but the talent we really admire is the food scout. It’s no secret that engineers are strongly food motivated. I don’t know what the connection is but […]- Musings On Why Organizations Fail and How You Can Prevent ItJust after Easter, a friend told me about attending the last meeting of a club he had helped start almost 42 years ago. Their downfall was caused by a simple problem, nobody wanted to serve as officers. I suspect there were other factors too but considering the state of our government, we can certainly see […]
Windows 10, Microsoft Doesn’t Get ItHave you ever been listening to someone and thought to yourself, “they just don’t get it.” No, I wasn’t talking about our politicians. Although given their actions over the last few year, it’s obvious that they don’t get it either. Instead I was talking about some of our leading industries and the decisions they made. […]
Random Posts
The Eternal Conflict Between Human Behavior And Engineering LogicThe popularity of my Married to an Engineer posts tells me that most of you have difficulty understanding how engineers think. As an engineer, I can tell you that difficulty is mutual. We try to design based on rational human beings and the truth is most of you are anything but rational. Okay that’s a […]
Data Mining For Personality CluesI find understanding people every bit as difficult as trying to crack an encrypted file. I spend a lot more time at trying to understand people because I believe communication requires mutual understanding. While taking Udacity’s Cryptography course I learned about the use of side channels to help in decrypting messages. A side channel was […]
Too Good For Your Career?When you design a game you have two classes of gamers that you have to consider, those that are content doing the same thing over and over to get a high score and those that want new challenges, new levels, and new areas to explore. If people don’t find what they want in your game, […]
From the Doghouse -It’s all about them
A look at dogs having fun!
Short Stories
With posts like these, ever wonder what kind of fiction I would write?
Random Posts
Windows 8While it seems like a year ago, it was only a few months ago that one of the primary initiators for this blog happened. Microsoft released the Windows 8 beta. With the exception of Vista, I’ve always tried to use the latest version of Windows. When Microsoft released the Windows …- Musings On Why Organizations Fail and How You Can Prevent ItJust after Easter, a friend told me about attending the last meeting of a club he had helped start almost 42 years ago. Their downfall was caused by a simple problem, nobody wanted to serve as officers. I suspect there were other factors too but considering the state of our …
Becoming BorgI’m assuming that you have a basic knowledge of the Borg. No need to fear though. If your knowledge of the Borg is lacking, please read this article from Wikipedia and come back: wikipedia.org/wiki/Borg. You know who the Borg are now. You probably are thinking that I’m going to point …
Risk Reward Analysis And How to Influence Your Engineer’s DecisionEvery decision an engineer makes goes through a risk reward analysis, each and every one. It’s not a complicated process, it doesn’t involve calculus but it’s not always obvious. Let me give you an example. Recently my two year old Samsung dryer decided to stop working. Power would come on …
An Engineer’s PerspectiveI admit it, I went into engineering because I enjoy solving problems. When I look at something I think about the design techniques employed and the ways to use it in practice. I think about possible improvements, design trade-offs and always enjoy seeing new technology. If you see me staring …
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