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
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...
Credibility, Amazon Lost It, Goodreads Failed. How Do I Choose My Next Book?
There's a big difference between consumer satisfaction and marketing. That difference is credibility and has become a major problem for me. Years ago books making it to the publisher had been carefully screened. After all, it was expensive to publish a book. This...
They Make It So Easy to Sign Up, Why Do They Make So Hard to Cancel?
Why is it so easy to sign up for a service and yet so hard to cancel that same service? The current trend in business lets you sign up with nothing more than a credit card and an internet connection but when time comes to end the relationship, they make it as...
Married To An Engineer – Change Is Inevidable, For You
As I wrote in Married to an Engineer Part 1, living with an engineer isn’t for everybody. Not only do you have to put up with someone you often suspect loves technology more than you but living with an engineer will change you in more ways than you ever anticipated. I...
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...
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...
Random Posts
A Discussion on the Writing of DocksideI’ll admit to a huge amount of pride in the stories I’ve written. Unfortunately very few of you have read my stories. That’s not your fault. I already know what I write doesn’t appeal to everyone. Before you protest, let me explain that the way my stories are published gives me the ability to see when […]
Why All the Hate For PO Boxes?Before you read too far, let me confess to you that I was in a very irritated frame of mind when I wrote this. After waiting two weeks for a word on the Nexus 7 I ordered from Google Wallet, I was notified yesterday that they cancelled my order because the address I gave them […]
I Need You To Stop Watching Me, An Engineer’s ConfessionJust because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean no one is watching you. There’s a lot of truth to that statement. All my life, people have been watching me. No, I don’t mean spies, foreign agents or even the NSA. Not that I’m dismissing the notion that they might be lurking about but my current concern is […]
Random Posts
Opinionbypen 2016 Goals in Review, How Well Did I Do?I force my wife to read the first draft of all my posts. I’ve found that this keeps me out of trouble with her and gives me some insight on how people will feel when they read it. I mention that because after reading this post she said I always seemed sad when summarizing my […]
Without Net Neutrality Expect Cable Television Content And ServiceNet neutrality is one of the things that keeps the Internet from becoming an echo of the vast cable television nothingness. If you were to take a survey of the most hated companies in the US, I’m willing to bet that the cable companies would top the list. Nobody likes their bundling, their tiered pricing […]
Style, What It Means To An EngineerIf you have an engineer within your close circle of friends, save yourself some trouble. Go to YouTube and watch “Dilbert – The Knack”. As the doctor is explaining young Dilbert’s condition he characterizes an engineer with two statements, “extreme intuition about all things mechanical and electrical” and “utter social ineptitude”. Yep, that pretty much […]
Random Posts
Reviewing My Blog MistakesMy nature causes me to review all my actions. This can be formally, as I do at work, or very informally, as when I review my actions of the day just before going to sleep. When I do these reviews, I try to be honest about my successes and failures. What did I do wrong? […]
A Late Mother’s Day Praise For Mother NatureIt’s amazing how fast time passes. This makes my fourth Mother’s Day post since I started Opinionbypen. Okay, last year was a political piece but I dedicated it to both my Mother and Mother-in-Law because of their strong interest in politics. Given how tough it is to have good SEO on politics, they were probably […]
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 as homework to a distant […]
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
The Way We Present Numbers Reveals A Lot About UsThe first time I saw Spock turn to Captain Kirk and say, “This plan only has a 5.377 percent probability of success,” I was hooked. Spock was able to use his massive intellect and compute the probability of the Enterprise surviving an encounter with the Romulans to three decimal places. …
Why Publishers Should Allow Me To Loan EbooksI’ve come across a dark cloud in my digital world, I can’t loan ebooks. It’s no secret that I’ve fully embraced the digital world. I have an Android smart phone, an iPad, a Kindle, a netbook and a few dozen other devices I used to use. My Kindle account is …
How to Create a Mind by Ray Kurzweil, a Review of the AudiobookI bought How to Create a Mind by Ray Kurzweil because Audible put it on sale the same day I had an argument animated discussion with a co-worker about Artificial Intelligence. Knowing I was right, I bought the book to provide supporting material for my position. While the book did support …
The American Compliment, It’s Destroying Our CredibilityI was given an interesting glimpse into our culture a few days ago. A visitor to our country pointed out that Americans always waste time telling you something good before they tell you how poor your design is. I wanted to rebut him right away but I couldn’t think of …
Space Heaters, They Need Lots of PowerIt’s winter again in Texas. Most of the time, unless you’re a farmer, that statement means very little to us but every once in a while it gets below freezing and we break out the space heaters. These little heaters are very useful in heating greenhouses, in heating parts of …