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
If You Want To Become A Better Writer, First Become A Better Listener
Six years ago, when I started Opinionbypen, I had a goal to become a better writer. Somehow I assumed that the constant practice provided by weekly posts would miraculously improve my writing. That’s certainly not the first thing I’ve ever been wrong about. Think...
Dessert Selection, A Description of One Engineer’s Decision Process
My wife constantly tells me that nobody but an engineer thinks the way I do. I say she’s exaggerating but in an attempt to keep peace in the family I’ve agreed to a test. I'll write about an ordinary decision process and leave it up to my readers. The Decision In Fort...
An AI Assistant Comparison, Alexa, Google and Folgers?
Once they hit the market, it was a given that sooner or later I would acquire one of the AI assistants on the market. The only thing holding me back was bandwidth and cost. When Google dropped the price on their mini and Amazon dropped the price on their Dot. I was...
A Very Personal Look At The Engineering Decision Making Process
I've written a number of posts about how engineers think and make decisions, so I was stunned when my Wife questioned my decision making process and demanded details. My first response was to deny any malfeasance on my part but when I recovered my composure I realized...
A Plea For An End To Tiny Instruction Manuals
One of the movies being released this Christmas is Downsizing, a tale of people being shrunk to reduce their cost of living by reducing the resources needed to support them. It’s a sad commentary on our current state of affairs that my first thought was they would be...
Risk Reward Analysis And How to Influence Your Engineer’s Decision
Every decision an engineer makes goes through a risk reward analysis, each and every one. It's not a complicated process, it doesn't involve calculus but it's not always obvious. Let me give you an example. Recently my two year old Samsung dryer decided to stop...
Random Posts
Is Your Team Always Missing Deadlines? It Might Be You!Perhaps it’s my background in electronic design speaking, but I’ve always regarded time as sacrosanct. Consider this: when you’re designing a system that operates at 100 MHz, tolerating a signal that “usually” arrives on time is out of the question. Too late, or even a bit too early, and your entire system risks malfunction. Yes, […]
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 home owners association telling you […]
Agility and Your DogA long time ago we acquired a Chow because someone had abandoned her and her sister near our place as puppies. My wife found her whimpering in the barn, hiding from a storm we were having. We called her Inka because she was completely black, including her tongue. We had several other dogs at the […]
Random Posts
Ready For Your Hard Drive To Fail? Make Sure Your Backup WorksBackup software is a lot like an insurance policy. Until you have an accident you have no idea how good it is. Of course, if you race down the highway at 100 mph, trying to determine what your stockbroker meant when he texted you, “sell immediately,” you’ll probably find out it doesn’t matter how good […]
Cloud Encryption, Prudent or Paranoia?On a typical day I’ll use Dropbox three or four times. It provides an almost seamless method of sharing files between my smartphone, either of my tablets (iPad and Android) and my PC. I also use Dropbox to share pictures and files with my Wife and Mother-in-law. As far as a cloud application goes, it […]
Ego, It Doesn’t Improve Your Homelife EitherA very long time ago I was a manager of the small group of electronic designers. Like many engineering managers I had been a very good designer and I’d been promoted to the position of manager without knowing what it took to become a manager. The way I saw it, the best way to be […]
Random Posts
Data Mining For Personality CluesI find understanding people every bit as difficult as trying to crack an encrypted file. I spend a lot more time at trying to understand people because I believe communication requires mutual understanding. While taking Udacity’s Cryptography course I learned about the use of side channels to help in decrypting messages. A side channel was […]
Speed Reading, the Good and the BadI’ve always been proud of being a speed reader. With light fiction I can hit about 1000 words a minute. If I’m scanning a document for key words, I can push it far above that. It’s not a skill that I was taught, it just sort of developed. When I read I see the words […]
Know When to Say Goodby to Your AppliancesWhen I make a mistake I try to admit it. If I can turn it into something positive it helps reinforce this behavior. Writing this post is about as good as it gets for this one. From my wife’s point of view I have a very bad habit of maintaining our appliances well past their […]
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
Rest In Peace Kindle Write On, I Hardly Knew YouFrom the moment I learned about the existence of Kindle Write On, I felt this was a fantastic idea. Here was a place for aspiring writers to put their efforts under the eyes of a supportive community. Last February I opened an account, screwed up my courage and posted two of my stories …
Married To A Systems Engineer, Why Do Engineers Ask So Many QuestionsI really don’t think it’s fair for my wife to break into uncontrollable laughter every time I explain that as a systems engineer, most of my job involves facilitating communications. I understand why she starts laughing, despite speaking a common language, communication between the two of us is difficult but …
First Impressions and a Great SteakWe’ve all been told how important first impressions are. From dating to job interviews we’re lectured constantly that people will judge us based on their first impressions. If you’re like me, you also believe that people are rational beings and will easily overcome those first impressions once they get to …
A Study In Communication As Demonstrated by SadieAs I continue in my journey to improve my writing, I’m starting to see some of the key elements of communication. To tell you the truth, I’m amazed at how difficult it is to communicate with you. I know you don’t believe you’re difficult but let’s try an exercise in …
Companies Not Reading Your Complaints? You’re Probably Dealing With A ChatbotEver 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 interested in computers. My first encounter …