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
A Review Of The Audible Books I Listened To In 2018
In years past, my first post of the New Year tends to be a retrospective of the previous year for Opinionbypen. These have included a look at the numbers of visitors, my favorite posts, what I did right over the year and even a look back at how well I met my goals for...
How Much Am I Saving By Turning Out All The Lights?
The start of a new year provides us with a time of reflection and resolutions. Today, with the end of the old year on the horizon, I find myself going from room to room turning out lights in an attempt to keep my electricity bill reasonable. I remember my father...
Why Does A Request For Advice So Often Result In An Argument?
If there's anything that can cause conflict between my wife and me, it's a misunderstanding of my role in life when she makes a request for advice. Hmm, I said that poorly, let me give an example. You're sitting at your computer, trying to understand why your 3D...
The Killing Frost, A Transition to Winter In My Garden
After six years, I finally persuaded my wife to write a post for OpinionbyPen. Well, that and the sadness she felt with the transition to winter killing so much of her garden. She’s writing under the nom de guerre of Big Tomato. Keeping the Brussel sprouts at bay, I...
Why Is It So Hard To Leave A Comment?
The majority of Website owners want you to leave comments. After all, the only reason their site exists is for you to visit. Comments show you took enough time reading the post to make your comment. So why is it so hard to leave a comment? Why do these websites want...
Windows 10 Versus Chromebook, What Does Intregity Have To Do With It?
I'm writing this on a Chromebook. Think of it more as an experiment rather than a review of Chromebook capabilities. Why? When my wife asked me what I wanted for Christmas, I saw it as an opportunity to upgrade my computer. A little research and I realized that in...
Random Posts
How Do I Know If an Engineer Loves MeAbout once a month I see a Google query from someone wanting to know how to tell if an engineer loves them. Google, for reasons best known to Google, directs them to my post How to Argue With an Engineer. I don’t know if this is always the same person but their answer is a […]
Married To An Engineer – Part 1I’ve written several posts about the risks of getting involved with an engineer but some of you have already decided to entwine your life with an engineer. My wife suggested I write this post, not as a warning, but as a guide to communicating with that engineer in your life. Nothing I’ve ever written would […]
Closing Out 2019 In Bits And PiecesI 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 get something in return. When I […]
Random Posts
The Importance Of Good Grammar, A Mathematic LookEvery once in a while I have to let my inner engineer interact with the real world. I apologize to you now but this post is the result of one of those times. About a year ago I wrote a post bemoaning the confusing rules of writing. It’s my nature to look at a system […]
Comments on Udacity vs. CollegesToday I got to read an interesting article by David Youngberg , “Why Online Education Won’t Replace College—Yet ” He gives five points to support his beliefs and even took CS101 from Udacity as research. I think he’s very right in his main assumption but he certainly picked five very poor points on which to […]
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
Why All The Hate For PO Boxes, Part TwoAlmost two years ago I preordered a Google Nexus tablet, only to have the order cancelled two weeks later because I had used a PO Box as my address. Needless to say I wasn’t happy. Being very frustrated and having limited options, I wrote Google Wallet, PO Boxes and No Nexus 7, and followed up […]
The Demise of the PC, Where I Blame EverbodyWriting this post took a lot longer than usual. It wasn’t all the additional research, the facts are staring us in the face. This post depressed me because it was so obvious. Building your own PC is about to go the way of the 70’s muscle cars, suddenly the entire industry is focused on tablets. […]
Married To An Engineer: When Does Repair Become Replace?“I know engineers better than that! They would never throw away a 3D printer that quit working without trying to repair it first.” These words were exclaimed by my wife as she watched a credit card commercial showing engineers trashing a malfunctioning printer and using a credit card to order a new printer. She was […]
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. …
Suppose You Built A Blog And No One CameImagine your disappointment, if after building an entertainment park, your only visitors were robots for Google Street View (no references to EuroDisney please). When I started this blog, I never imagined how hard it was to get readers to my website. I should have known, after all, I don’t spend …
Some Advice Before You Move To The CountryYou’re tired of your annoying neighbor that gets up at 6AM on a Saturday morning to mow his lawn. Or maybe it’s the neighbor that mows his grass once a month and seems to cultivate all those weeds that find their way to your yard. Or maybe you don’t like the …
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? …
Poser Debut, an Engineer’s ReviewI think Smith Micro has a real hit with Poser Debut. As a engineer I’ve always been impressed by an artist’s ability to convey a message using a minimum of information. If I want to represent a bird in a picture I immediately think of feathers, beak, eyes and wings. …