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
The Opinionbypen 2016 Strategy
Please consider this post as a newsletter to my subscribers. Yes, I’ll make sure it has good SEO but that only gets me to the starting gate. There will also be that one lone fool that stumbles onto this post by accident but if experience is any guide, he will quickly...
Small Talk, How This Engineer Learned To Enjoy It
It should come as no surprise that I regard social get togethers as a form of state sanctioned torture. There’s multiple reasons but the main issue is small talk. There's no polite way to say how much I suck at small talk. At first mention of the train wreck to be of...
A SEO Enhanced Resume
People 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 engineers...
How To Talk With An Engineer
Last week when I described my current systems engineer position as being all about communications, I almost lost my wife to uncontrollable laughter. When she finally recovered, all she said, while still trying to catch her breath was, "how do you stay employed?" She...
Communication As Seen By An Engineer
Communication, the human race has been attempting it for thousands of years. Whither it’s art, music, writing, movies, even this website, it’s all a form of communication. With that much practice, you would think we’d be better at it. Honestly, I don’t know why we...
TNSTAAFL, Windows 10
TNSTAAFL, There’s No Such Thing As A Free Lunch. Microsoft’s continuing antics to coerce me, by hook, crook or outright trickery, into accepting their free upgrade to Windows 10 brought this phrase to mind. Microsoft is hardly a nonprofit organization and I doubt that...
Random Posts
Considering What E=mc2 Means To Science FictionIn a world where we have to struggle just to keep up with the latest in technology, it’s all too easy to take things for granted. For example, we’ve all seen Einstein’s equation, E=mc2. Most of us know the equation has something to do with mass, energy and the speed of light but it has […]
The UP! Mini 3D Printer, A ReviewI bought the UP! Mini 3D printer from Amazon for $599. I found the sale price too good to pass up. Having had it for almost 48 hours, I don’t have buyer’s remorse but I might do more looking if I had it to do over. While this post is a review of the UP! […]
Why Is ChatGBT So Angry? It’s Only A Reflection Of OurselvesThis week I’ve been subjected to an overwhelming amount of drivel on the ChatBot being developed by Microsoft and ChatGPT. I’m not surprised, today’s reporters think research is searching a key word on Twitter. Real reporters have all but disappeared. Still, some of the conversations attributed to the ChatBot are disturbing. Not because we have […]
Random Posts
How To Get A Solar Powered Potting Table. Married To An EngineerI’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 looked like they would last a season. […]
Interspecies Communication As Experienced By An EngineerI thoroughly enjoyed the first season of Star Trek: Enterprise because they spent much of the time grappling with communication issues. Universal translators, missing databases, peculiar methods of communication, and one memorable episode without a translator. I highlight this because finding similarities is one of my key problem-solving tools. When it comes to training a […]
Wilson Cellular Signal Booster, a ReviewI’ve been impressed by how well the Wilson Cellular Signal Booster does what it promises but there are a few caveats in using it. It doesn’t amplify your cell phone signal so much as it enables you to take advantage of a better signal if it’s available outside your house. If you don’t have a […]
Random Posts
Why Do I Care If My Random Number Generator Isn’t RandomI’m always amazed at how little interest people take in probability and random numbers. Is that RAND function in Excel really random? Is it possible to synchronize two random number generators and predict numbers? What is a weak random number generator and why would you want one? There’s an entire branch of mathematics devoted to […]
So Much Knowledge Lost Through RetirementI have a friend who has retired after many years as a mechanical designer. He was as good as most engineers when it came to mechanical design but he didn’t have the degree that would allow him to call himself an engineer. Certainly he recognized his limitations. If you asked him to do a stress […]
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 chastising her for not understanding us. Maybe […]
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
Using WordPress.com To Host Your BlogI used to work at a small electronics store that grew too fast and could not sustain itself when to economy took a turn for the worse. When the store finally closed, I was amazed by the ego of the owner as he started selling subscriptions to his newsletter, a …
Wordfence, Protection For Your WordPress SiteI first realized how much I appreciate Wordfence when WebHostingHub told me I had excessive activity on my server and I would have to disable Wordfence. That’s when I decided my relationship with WebhostingHub would be a short one. Wordfence is a free security plugin for WordPress sites. I’ve been …
Using 1040 Advertising As A Revenue Stream, Why Not?Every once in a while I have an idea that’s almost brilliant. Google has made most of its money through advertising. Why can’t the US government do the same? Every year the IRS gets an update on where we live, how much money we made, and how we spend our …
Professionalism, Why Is It Disappearing?I had no idea what was happening when I watched my first fencing tournament. The director was giving directions in French, the opponents would come together, lights came on the scoring box, the director would call halt and award a point. I did not yet have the background I needed …
Symbols Of Power, The Exclamation PointThey say symbols have power. My first response as an engineer is to deny that. Symbols don’t have any power, the power of a symbol is based only on our perception of the symbol. You could say symbols represent power. If we’ve never seen the symbol or don’t recognize it, …