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
Why Do I Care If My Random Number Generator Isn’t Random
I’m always amazed at how little interest people take in probability and random numbers. Is that RAND function in Excel really random? Is it possible to synchronize two random number generators and predict numbers? What is a weak random number generator and why would...
Negative Reviews, They Don’t Always Represent Bad Product
If, like me, you read a lot of reviews before making a purchase you wonder why a lot of big name companies are sending out shoddy merchandise. Sure it looks like the majority of people are completely satisfied with the product but there’s always a few dead on arrival...
It’s Absolutely Impossible For Us To Stop Being An Engineer
We all do it. When we're reading a book or watching a movie containing elements of our expertise and the story does something so ridiculous that we find it impossible to enjoy the story. Even worse we find ourselves sharing our disgust with anyone willing to listen....
Upgrading To The Prusa MK3S From the Prusa MK2 , Is It Worth It?
It’s Saturday night as I listen to my new Prusa MK3S and wonder how I can justify my purchase of a third 3D printer to my wife. After two years, my Prusa MK2 was getting a bit long in the tooth. My prints were no longer a thing of beauty. Where I used to have smooth...
Married To An Engineer: We See Problems Differently
Several years ago, there was a study on the differences in the way dogs and wolves interacted with people. Now I'm not going to insult your intelligence by comparing engineers to wolves but the study did reveal an intriguing similarity. Like wolves, Engineers see...
Wonder Why Society Is Failing? Blame It On The Internet
Wonder why society is failing? I blame it on the Internet. Don't get me wrong, I love the Internet but I also believe it's responsible for causing us to become a very mean-spirited society. Until now, we’ve always had some amount of personal risk for displaying bad...
Random Posts
The Art Of Communication, Let Your Audience Dictate How You Say ItThere are times when my wife is so frustrated from trying to talk to me that she wonders if I’m an idiot savant with the emphasis on idiot. Why? Communication. Exchanging concepts between two people is difficult. Throw an engineer into the mix and it’s almost impossible. If you know an engineer, you already know […]
How To Identify An EngineerHow do you identify an engineer? My wife and I have frequent discussions about engineers being a unique class of people. She feels that communication with me is difficult because I think differently than most people. I feel that communication with me is far simpler than with other people as long as you follow the […]
What I Learned From Udacity About LinkedIn Getting HackedThe only thing keeping me from doing my victory dance at the moment is the presence of my wife in the living room. Like many of the people in my profession I’m a member of LinkedIn, so I was very concerned when I heard LinkedIn had been hacked. Then why the urge to do a […]
Random Posts
How The FCC Wants To Improve Rural InternetI caught on to Santa Claus fairly early in life. It’s unfortunate then that it took me so long to realize that, despite their strongly spoken rhetoric, my government really doesn’t care about helping me. Sometimes this truth is so evident that I question my intelligence in ever believing their intentions were good. Avoiding the […]
3D Artwork Using Poser and Daz3DYou’ve read my post on Poser Debut or maybe you’ve enjoyed a few of the pictures I’ve created and wondered just how hard can this be. I’m not going to make this a tutorial but I will take you through a few of the scenes to let you see just what is involved in making […]
One Year In The Making, A Blogging QuestOne year in the making…that’s how long this post has taken me. Exactly one year ago I started this blog with my first post, Beginning, embarking on this quest. Since then I’ve written 95 posts on a variety of topics. In response to those posts, Opinionbypen.com has had over 6500 page views and over 10,000 […]
Random Posts
Bots Invading Your Blog? Don’t Feel AloneI’m really tired of all the net parasites that visit my website on a daily basis. You might know them as bots or webcrawlers but somehow parasites fits. I’ve mentioned before that the number of bots my site receives far exceeds the number of visitors. On a typical day my site receives about 10 visitors […]
Ever Think of Your Engineer as a Super Hero? The Evidence is There.I’m going to assume you’re reading this because you’re trying to make sense of the engineer in your life. I’ve written several posts on understanding engineers but maybe you’re looking for new insights. Ever think of your engineer as a super hero? There’s more evidence than you might suspect. Let me try to describe your […]
Where I Admit I Made A Mistake About CongressSpend enough time doing anything and sooner or later you’ll make a mistake. Some mistakes are unavoidable. You might say those are the cost of making decisions and although some of us never do, we’re expected to learn from our mistakes. In electronics it’s almost a given that your first prototype will have problems. That’s […]
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
Why Do I Care If My Random Number Generator Isn’t RandomI’m always amazed at how little interest people take in probability and random numbers. Is that RAND function in Excel really random? Is it possible to synchronize two random number generators and predict numbers? What is a weak random number generator and why would you want one? There’s an entire …
Why Isn’t There An American Micro Bit?I don’t know if you’ve seen this headline, “Every 11-year-old in Britain is getting a free minicomputer,” or what you thought when you did but I found it amazing that this was being done in Britain. The Micro Bit giveaway is a program sponsored by the BBC in a joint …
Hubris, An Engineering Malady?Hubris, excessive pride or self-confidence. Last year I barely understood what it meant, today I recognize it for the deadly threat it is. Speaking as an engineer, we all know how fun it is to impress our non-engineering friends and family with our near mystical understanding of all things mechanical …
Passwords, We Have Way Too ManyPasswords, it seems like everyplace you go on the Internet someone is asking for your password. It’s not bad enough that everybody and their brother wants you to set up an account with another password, they all have different rules for your password. Must be at least 10 characters, must …
Lifetime Updates and Lifetime Warranties, Scam Or Real Value?When I was comparing back up software, Acronis, Paragon and Aomei, the licensing terms were very different. Paragon provided updates until they released another major update. Acronis would update you for that year’s version. Unlike the others, for an extra $30 Aomei would give me lifetime updates. In order to …
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