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 Study In Communication As Demonstrated by Sadie
As 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...
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 money. They...
Trust In The Digital Age, Has The Definition Changed?
I want to ask you the question. If Target announced that it was having a 50% off sale today and you could only use your credit card but they assured you that you could not get hacked, would you do it? My guess is no. Simply speaking, they have lost your trust in their...
Terms and Conditions, a Caution
Every once in a while I read something that screams for a post. That’s the case with this news story, http://www.cnn.com/2013/12/02/tech/couple-fined-for-negative-review/. I’m not going to repeat all the details but it describes a couple who placed and order for a...
Synergy And A New Beginning
Synergy is a great word that’s become a victim of its own sexiness. A few years ago it seemed to be an unwritten rule that this word must be used in corporate mission statements everywhere. I sure you’ve seen statements like "Utilizing the synergy of our multiple...
Suggestions On Writing Readable Product Reviews
It’s Christmas time! Then again, by the time you read this, Christmas will probably be over for the year. Fortunately for you this post only has a slight relationship to Christmas. Every year as Christmas draws near my wife asks for something related to her gardening....
Random Posts
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 that’s still no excuse. She […]
In Search of an EditorI’m afraid that my mental picture of a newspaper editor is largely limited to movie characters. Perry White and J. Jonah Jameson are two that come to mind. I also assumed that they had something to do with the big picture for a newspaper but I never gave it much thought. When it came to […]
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 subatomic particles to exist. That was certainly not the case. Please understand, I’m […]
Random Posts
Why Does the Net Neutrality Fight Look Like A 1970’s Wrestling Script?It’s times like this that I feel fortunate to only have ten loyal readers. You see, much to my eternal embarrassment, I used to spend my Sunday mornings watching wrestling. That was a long time ago and I was fairly sure it was fake staged but the constant battle of good versus evil always seemed […]
Sequestration, Escrow and Congressional Cuts, An IdeaThink about this. You’ve known for a while that your company was having some issues. Your company seems to be slipping in its market position and recently the board of directors can’t seem to agree on anything. Your manager calls you into his office to tell you that the board of directors can’t agree on […]
Google Wallet, PO Boxes and No Nexus 7I promise this will be my last word on the subject but looking at the traffic to my website I’m not the only person not getting a Nexus 7 tablet today at my PO Box because Google Wallet cancelled their order. The issue is interesting because it shows a massive lack of communication between Google […]
Random Posts
French Culture, I’m Forced To Admit I Was WrongMy father returned from WW2 with pieces of shrapnel slowly working their way out of his body and a deep and abiding hatred of the French. I don’t know about you and your father, but mine never wanted to discuss the details. I never knew his reasons, but he passed his hatred of the French […]
Creating An Alexa Podcast For OpinionByPen Using Amazon PollyIn my previous post I took you on my journey to add Amazon’s speech synthesizer Polly to Opinionbypen. I have to admit I did this as an excuse to play with some of the emerging technologies offered by Amazon. Although there were a few minor obstacles along the way, Amazon has made adding speech to […]
Why Do I Need To Change My Passwords So Frequently?I was in a discussion about passwords a few days ago when somebody mentioned that it was a good idea to change your passwords frequently. That sounds good on the face of it but if you have a strong password should you change it frequently? It’s that frequent changing that causes us write them down […]
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
Looking For a Christmas Present? Try Audible.comMany years ago my Mother-in-Law introduced me to Audible.com. She did this indirectly by giving me a iPod Shuffle for Christmas. At the time, I considered the Shuffle part of her tireless campaign to pull me into the Apple mystique. I appreciated the thought but music is not a significant …
Apathy, How To Waste Your VoteOver the last few months I’ve had some very harsh words for our politicians in Washington. My Mother-in-law pointed out that the politicians really aren’t to blame for our current situation. They may be totally incompetent and dysfunctional but it’s not their fault they are in office. The only reason …
Making Decisions Based On Website DataIf there’s an engineer in your life, you know how utterly fascinated we are by data. We use data to make purchases, to troubleshoot and to make important decisions. In How to Argue with an Engineer, I told you how engineers use data to support our arguments. It should come as …
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 …
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 …