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
Passwords, We Have Way Too Many
Passwords, it seems like everyplace you go on the Internet someone is asking for your password. It’s not bad enough that everybody and their brother wants you to set up an account with another password, they all have different rules for your password. Must be at least...
The Great Courses, I Almost Missed Them
I have a long list of topics for blogs sitting in my Dropbox folder. I even have a few unfinished posts that would only take a short time to finish. The problem is that nothing appeals to me as a subject and I try to do at least one new post a week. Being completely...
Data Mining For Personality Clues
I 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...
What’s Your Opinion On MOOCs?
A good friend sent me this link because he knew that I often recommend Udacity courses, San Jose State suspends collaboration with online provider. The story tells how San Jose University is scaling back their partnership with Udacity because things were not going as...
Did The Ninjas Use Mental Telepathy?
Remain calm. Act normal and look around slowly to make sure no one is watching you. I don’t want to scare you but I may have stumbled on an ancient technique of the Ninjas. If I'm right, my hope is to spread it widely before I’m silenced. We've all had the sensation...
Sundae Thanks You
In Udacity’s Psychology course, the second lesson discusses the ethics of psychological experiments and how important it is to make sure everyone involved understands they are taking part in a test. I'm sure my readers understood my previous post was an experiment but...
Random Posts
The Plan, How My Wife Became a GamerIf you read my About section, you will see my comment about being the envy of Gamers everywhere by having a wife who games. This is very true. There’s nothing like having spent the last two hours painfully making your way to the boss mob, only to have your raid leader say, “Sorry, wife aggro” […]
Adjusting To Retirement After A Lifetime Of Employment, A JourneyFor all the fears I had about retirement, I wasn’t expecting the real problems. First, there was the insurance dilemma. It turns out that my wife was too young for Medicare, and there’s no such thing as a family plan that covers both of us. I ended up juggling two different agents with three different […]
A Sense Of Community, We Need To Thank Those People!I’d like to take a moment to give a shout out to all the people willing to take the time and effort to share their knowledge. Think about the last time you were trying to rewire your old washing machine to incorporate a microwave dryer. The first place you turned was the Internet. While it’s […]
Random Posts
How to Create a Mind by Ray Kurzweil, a Review of the AudiobookI bought How to Create a Mind by Ray Kurzweil because Audible put it on sale the same day I had an argument animated discussion with a co-worker about Artificial Intelligence. Knowing I was right, I bought the book to provide supporting material for my position. While the book did support my argument, just barely, my victory […]
The Solar Powered Chicken Coop Fan ProjectSummers in Texas are brutal, especially if you’re a chicken locked up in your coop every evening. Sure, it’s for their own protection but on those evenings with little or no breeze, it can get very stuffy. Adding an electric fan would help but running a 200 foot extension cord was out of the question. […]
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, […]
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 […]
Synergy And A New BeginningSynergy 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 sites we will increase profit and sales” or […]
Encryption and Hacking, A Government Granted Right?Did you heave a huge sigh of relief this year when your personal rights were reaffirmed? Twice in fact, once by the Library of Congress when they issued an opinion that hacking your vehicle’s software was legal and once by the UN when they declared encryption to be a basic personal right. Considering the mess that […]
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
Musings On The Effectivity Of Lessons Learned DatabasesPeople frequently suggest use of a Lessons Learned database as a best practice. Many companies have invested large amounts of time and money in creating those databases. Both the exceptional projects, where nothing goes wrong, and the plagued-ridden projects that quickly become fodder for our nightmares, provide ample lessons learned. …
Color, Fashion and an EngineerHave you ever considered what a wondrous thing it is to see color? In spring I get to enjoy the vivid green of my pasture, the bright red of the cardinals as they feast on the insects trying to eat my pasture, the mixed reds and yellows of my wife’s …
CajunJust to set the story straight, this is a blatant effort to placate my wife after my previous posts mentioning her. All kidding aside, I really do consider myself very fortunate to have the wife I do. Where I have a high technical affinity, my wife has an equally high …
VR Goggles, I Still Look Like A Geek When I Wear ThemI try to acknowledge my weaknesses and technology is certainly one of my major weaknesses. My house is full of early adopter junk that never made it past the early adopter stage. Fortunately, there’s also the occasional gem such as my 3D printer and my drone. These gems are the …
Time Travel As Viewed By Einstein. A Simplified DiscussionTime travel, I don’t know of any other concept so used and misused in Science Fiction. Although judging from Avengers Endgame, a lot of writers have problems with the concept. Still, despite the inherent paradoxes, from the time I was first introduced to the concept, I was fascinated by it. …