Writing By Actual Engineers(!) At Engineerblogs

I've been wondering for a while why there are so many scientists blogging about science but not many engineers blogging about engineering.

Now, as an engineer myself, I can say that it's taken me a long while to get up the nerve to try blogging about engineering. Mainly because...well, engineering has this kind of...not sacredness, exactly, but there's something about it that makes me feel like I'm somehow profaning something if I write with the intent to inform and instead end up misinforming due to not phrasing something right or what-have-you.

I don't get that feeling at all when posting subjective rants (those being subjective and all), and certainly not when posting countless photos of my preternaturally adorable cats or putting up random rambly robot cartoons. Writing about electromagnetic compatibility, though, is about as tough as it is rewarding. Which is to say, very much both. Though I totally want to do a post on tinfoil hats next when I revisit that subject, and that should be fun.

But I digress. Mainly what I wanted to note here was that I've recently found (I forget how, but the process definitely involved Google) an entire cadre of engineering bloggers! And wouldn't you know it...they've got a site called Engineer Blogs. The content of which is, well, exactly what you'd think it should be by the title. Some of my favorite posts so far include:

- S Stands For Smith -- a neat summary of Smith charts (which are cool round graphy things used in transmission line calculations).


- Visual Inspection -- a "funny because it's true" account of the value of remembering to look at obvious physical reality when trying to diagnose an electronics problem.


- Prototype Vs. Simulation -- yes, simulations can be useful, but they are NOT, and never will be, a substitute for Actually Building Stuff.


- You Are A Controller -- Cool, concise comparison of human and machine feedback mechanisms.

So yes! Hopefully the good folks at Engineerblogs.org keep on doing what they're doing. I am certainly enjoying and learning from it, at any rate.