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 is An Engineer So Brutally Honest But Still Can’t Read A Schedule?
For a marketing person, introducing a potential customer to an engineer is the stuff nightmares are made from. Engineers can be brutally honest about technology. Note I said technology. We're perfectly capable of lying. Ask us about schedule, percent complete, does...
Cooped Up With An Engineer For A While? Maybe This Will Help.
In these times of uncertainty and outright panic, it seems almost irresponsible to publish a post on living with an engineer. I certainly can’t argue the logic behind that line of thinking. On the other hand, the prospect of being cooped up with an engineer for an...
The Eternal Conflict Between Human Behavior And Engineering Logic
The 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...
Time Travel As Viewed By Einstein. A Simplified Discussion
Time travel, I don’t know of any other concept so used and misused in Science Fiction. Although judging from Avengers Endgame, a lot of writers have problems with the concept. Still, despite the inherent paradoxes, from the time I was first introduced to the concept,...
Companies Not Reading Your Complaints? You’re Probably Dealing With A Chatbot
Ever write to a company about a problem and their response made it obvious they weren't reading your message? No, it's not your spouse moonlighting as customer support. Odds are, you've just encountered a chatbot. Chatbots have been around as long as I've been...
Closing Out 2019 In Bits And Pieces
I admit it. Sometimes very logical conclusions completely escape me. I started Opinionbypen because I realized I was too isolated. At the time it never occurred to me that nobody cared. In order to people to take time out of their life and read my blog, they have to...
Random Posts
Failure To Communicate, The Evolution of A Bad DesignWhen I write about engineers, I naturally try to show us in the best light possible. Still, there’s no arguing that some of the things you cope with as a consumer of the products we design would have been avoided if a blind monkey were the designer. Why does this happen? I call it a failure […]
Customer Retention, A Forgotten Concept Or Counting On Our LazinessI just finished deleting Opinionbypen. No, not this version of my blog obviously. I’m talking about the version hosted at GoDaddy. This year when my renewal rolled around, GoDaddy rewarded my tenure with a rate increase. Having been with then for five years, they could have rewarded my customer loyalty with a discount. Instead they […]
Shouting Is A Poor Form Of CommunicationA few nights ago I was playing Tera with a friend who wanted to try it out. He was on a trial account and while he could receive messages from me he could not send them to me. This lead to a mildly frustrating 30 minutes involving phone texting and emotes. I understand the reasons […]
Random Posts
Communication, Google and a Nexus 7Communications has always been an important issue for me. Over my career, I’ve had to fix more problems caused by poor communications than anything else. These problems can be caused by someone assuming that their audience is in possession of more information than their actions suggest or by not responding to the question. If I […]
A Sense Of Community, We Need To Thank Those People!I’d like to take a moment to give a shout out to all the people willing to take the time and effort to share their knowledge. Think about the last time you were trying to rewire your old washing machine to incorporate a microwave dryer. The first place you turned was the Internet. While it’s […]
ControlsI want you to try an experiment. Pick a remote control that you use frequently and tell me what each switch does. Odds are that you can’t. I would even guess that you only use a few of them. As an engineer I love choices. The more controls you give me the better. As a […]
Random Posts
What’s The Infinity Mirror Aspect Of The Internet And Why Is It Bad?When you put two mirrors face to face you see thousands of identical images. That’s an infinity mirror. You frequently see them in fun houses. How could that relate to the some of the darker aspects of the Internet? First, I need a really strong parable. Several decades ago, while spending the summer with my […]
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 […]
The Pleasure of Finding Things Out by Richard Feynman, Too Enjoyable?The Pleasure of Finding Things Out by Richard Feynman was an unexpected treat. You would expect a collection of lectures from a Nobel Winning particle physicist to be dry, containing lots of math and another incomprehensible discussion on why they believe certain subatomic particles to exist. That was certainly not the case. Please understand, I’m […]
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
It’s July 4 But Some British Influence Might HelpToday is the Fourth of July, a date celebrated by all Americans as the day we declared independence from England. Fireworks, backyard barbecues and massive sales are the highlights of this day. In making that declaration we said we were separating from the British Empire. I don’t want to turn …
Problem Solving And The EngineerLast night my wife did a very cruel thing to me. I don’t think it was malicious but it did destroy the rest of my evening. What was it that my wife did to me? All she did was show me a fairly simple mathematical problem that had been given …
An Attempt To Make Sense Of The Rules Of WritingOver the last 3 months I’ve been trying to improve the content of my blog, both the pictures I use to illustrate my articles and the quality of my writing. As I expected, Poser has helped me to improve my pictures. I’m starting to understand the shortcuts and tricks that …
What To Buy for the Engineer in Your Life?Every year around this time my wife agonizes on what to get me for Christmas. This year I decided to help her by writing what to buy for the engineer in your life. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not hard to shop for but my wife and I live in …
In Defense Of My Junk Box: Married to An EngineerJust about every electrical or mechanical engineer I know has some kind of junk box—a treasure trove of parts accumulated over the years, all saved with the hope they might come in handy someday. My own junk box started at a very early age. Too young to work a part-time …