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
Engineers From Technicians, A Perspective
In electronics you have two classes of knowledge experts, Engineers and Technicians. I'm ignoring the programmers for the moment because they only complicate this discussion. The distinction between the two classes can become very blurred but Engineers are expected...
Dragon Naturally Speaking , a User’s Review
This post is going to represent an experiment. I've recently acquired Dragon naturally speaking . For some reason every time I start writing I think how much better it would be if I could dictate rather than type. I've actually bought Dragon speaking naturally three...
Bell, Book and iPad
When it comes to understanding women I often feel that my engineering background is a handicap. My entire career has been based on evaluating data, solving problems and looking beyond the obvious to find a root cause. All of which seems to be completely useless when...
Communication, Google and a Nexus 7
Communications has always been an important issue for me. Over my career, I've had to fix more problems caused by poor communications than anything else. These problems can be caused by someone assuming that their audience is in possession of more information than...
Toolbars, Software Trojans or Actual Benefit?
Every year people spend millions of dollars on software that prevents other people from installing undesired programs on their computer. We're constantly reminded that's it far better to pay for software rather than download a pirated copy and risk installing a whole...
Website Data For My Udacity Statistics Course
A few weeks ago I did a post, "Probability, Statistics and Udacity". Udacity read the post, tweeted it and posted a link on their site. The increase in traffic to my site was astounding. This provided a whole new audience and a great opportunity to study the...
Random Posts
Hubris, An Engineering Malady?Hubris, excessive pride or self-confidence. Last year I barely understood what it meant, today I recognize it for the deadly threat it is. Speaking as an engineer, we all know how fun it is to impress our non-engineering friends and family with our near mystical understanding of all things mechanical and electrical. To be sure, […]
Betrayal at Neverwinter Mod 6(If you’re not into MMORPGs, Neverwinter mod 6 in particular, do yourself a favor and skip this.) You say you want me to help you kill a dragon? Times must be worse than I thought when you have to scour taverns to get a group together. Still, like myself, I know that lots of the […]
A Plea For An End To Tiny Instruction ManualsOne 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 able to read the tiny instruction manuals […]
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 […]
News Reporters Or News Fabricators?News Reporters Or News Fabricators? by –Zee– The “takedown” in McKinney Texas of a young lady by a police officer at a party held in a private neighborhood pool was vulgar, perhaps unnecessary, but it belonged to McKinney, not the world. The […]
Why Did Amazon Kill Amazon Explore? It Was Becoming Great.Why did Amazon kill Amazon explore? Let me start this rant by admitting I am an Amazon fan. I love the large selection of merchandise and the quick delivery. I’m a member of Prime and I frequently use their credit card. Still, they do enough boneheaded things that I sometimes wonder if they are running […]
Random Posts
A Look Back at Some of My Favorite PostsEach post I write is a snapshot in time. Sometimes I go back to correct them or add a little more information but I’ve learned that I always need to continue looking forward. Rewriting my old posts, as much as they might need it, doesn’t give me time to write new posts. I added the […]
Half Full or Half Empty, An Engineer’s ViewpointMy wife will confirm that living with an engineer is different. It’s not just that we tend to be socially inept or even standoffish. We see the world differently and until you spend time with one of us you can’t comprehend how differently. All my life I’ve listened to people describe personalities as, “a glass half […]
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 […]
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
Bryce 7, A Virtual World BuilderBefore I get too deep into this post I should mention that Bryce is also the name on my wife’s agility companion. He’s a handsome dog but this post is not about him. Spend any time looking at 3D models on the Internet and you will come across the names …
My Theory On Why Time Seems To Be Moving FasterMore and more often I hear people commenting on how fast the years seem to go by. Conventional wisdom seems to be that the older we get the faster time appears to fly. The theory sounds good, especially with a sprinkling of mathematics to lend credibility to the theory. At …
Imagination, It Allows Us To See The ImpossibleI did this post after creating a scene in Poser showing my wife’s fondness for old cemeteries. I’ve never understood her fascination with them but her imagination allows her to reflect on these people’s lives and their contributions to society. My imagination only covers us leaving the cemetery. Before I …
2023, I’m Very Glad To See It End2023 is now firmly in my rear view mirror and I have zero feelings of nostalgia. It was tough losing two of our beloved dogs to cancer. Sundae had been a part of our family for 14 years, leaving a significant void, and even though Hilde was with us for …
Passwords, We Have Way Too ManyPasswords, 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 10 characters, must …