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
Want To Be A Great Writer? You Need Great Characters
Why this topic? Why now? Perhaps an explanation is in order. Recently I had to send a white paper I had written several years ago to a colleague having similar problems. Prior to sending it, I took the time to read it and almost spent the rest of the day rewriting it....
Why All The Negative Political Ads? Are Politicians Afraid Of A Position?
I just finished exercising my political rights by voting against all the candidates so far from my own political views that I had no choice but to vote for their opposition. Looking back on my experience, I realize every vote I made was for the lessor evil. I did my...
How To Get A Solar Powered Potting Table. Married To An Engineer
I’m not going to say I was manipulated into my solar powered potting table but looking back at it, the signs were there. Shortly before our anniversary, my Wife started showing me potting tables made by other men for their wives. The thing was, none of these tables...
Prusa MK3S, Built In Self Destruct Or Swiss Cheese Theory of Failure
I’m writing to warn all the Prusa MK3S owners about a built in self destruct mechanism in your printer. Avoiding it is easy, not avoiding it cost me over $100 and took my printer down for over a week. It all started when I started seeing bare copper traces on my heat...
Do Electronics Have Feelings? How Can You Doubt It?
This morning as I left the shower, I heard my wife barking out orders to Alexa in a very forceful tone. Although Alexa has become an essential fixture in our life when she becomes confused, we tend raise our volume and enunciate very clearly. Almost like we were...
A Look At Class Action Suits Using the Google+ Settlement
When my sister asked me to write a post on class action suits, I greeted it with all the enthusiasm shown to managers showing up at the last minute asking for a white paper, before close of business. Never mind that the need has been languishing on their desk for the...
Random Posts
Married To An Engineer, Sometimes You Have To Call The ProfessionalsSometimes you have to call the professionals. In a story, you have time to develop all your characters. You let the reader discover how they look, how they react and their motivations. Good writers do it seamlessly. Too bad I’m not that good (yet), so, I’m taking the easy route. This story has three characters […]
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 […]
The Up Mini 3D Printer RevisitedThe 3D printer testing this week by Make magazine inspired me to do this follow-up post on my Up Mini 3D printer. I’ll answer the most obvious question first. Then again, maybe not, I still have no rational reason for why I bought the printer but I can enthusiastically say I have no regrets about […]
Random Posts
How To Take Part In A DDoS Attack Without Even TryingThis last Friday was a busy day for many of us. For my part, I was flying back to Texas after a brief business trip but if the numbers are to be believed, many of you were taking part in a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack that affected much of the Internet. Oh, I know […]
Bounce Rate, What It Means To Your Favorite SiteIn America we’re taught to tell someone something nice before we criticize them. I’ve never understood if this is supposed to soften the blow or if it’s a tool to boost their ego before it gets completely crushed. I’ve also been told by a few other cultures I work with that this is an American […]
Shelby, The Reason I Have Australian ShepherdsGiven a number of choices, each having equal weight, I tend to use minor factors to decide rather than make a totally random choice. In this case a post on Shelby won out because she looks really good in the previous post with my wife. Shelby was and still is our first Australian Shepherd. She […]
Random Posts
Why I’m Proud of My WifeMost of my regular readers are probably tired of me talking about Udacity and I promise you that they only play a small part in this post. My wife has watched me spending a lot of my time studying my coursework and doing homework. She’s certainly seen how frustrated I’ve been at times. So when […]
Creeping Elegance, the Design of a RemoteI’m going to introduce a term that might be new to you, creeping elegance. It’s probably been the cause of more project failures than poor engineering. If you’re an engineer or a programmer you already know it way too well but just in case you’re not, let me give you an example. It has a […]
A Followup to Amazon Polly and My Solar FountainI live in Texas because I enjoy the hot summers, mild winters and the food. Well, also because my wife has told me she’s not moving out of Texas. What I really dread is springtime when my allergies kick into overtime and I feel like a druggie looking for my next Claritin fix. The majority […]
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
An Easter Cactus FlowerNo matter how I considered it, I couldn’t come up with an appropriate post for Easter. To me, Easter announces the presence of spring and spending time with family. More than anything else it’s a time for relaxation. It was my cactus that gave me the inspiration for today’s post. …
Staying In Touch With Old Friends Is HardWebster defines friend as a person you like and enjoy being with. I couldn’t come up with a better definition on my own but this seems like describing a pasture full of bluebonnets as a bunch of flowers in a field. It’s correct but totally misses the point. For example, …
A SEO Enhanced ResumePeople tell us not to judge a book by the cover but we’ve all passed up good books because of poor cover art. If you think about it, your resume serves much the same function as a book cover and let’s face it, compared to our counterparts in marketing, most …
Gamification, Another Management Fad?I like my job, I really do. In order to ensure I continue to like my job I avoid a lot of topics that I would like to write about because my management might not see my point. This is one of those topics. One of the stronger engineering traits …
How to Argue With an Engineer and Feel Like You WonIf there is an engineer in your life you probably know just how frustrating an argument can be. Even when you have conclusively proved your case and maybe even gotten them to agree with you, you have a feeling that they only agreed with you to shut you up. You …
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