The world of writing about science/engineering/technology is too big for any of us to seriously worry about “competition” and one of the joys of my work is finding other blogs that are fun to read and stimulate discussion among their followers. It’s in this category I’d place Engineer Blogs, a site I recently came across and one that I would recommend to others to check out.
There is nothing fancy about EB, which is built on a standard WordPress template. Maybe I am just old school, but its simplicity is one of the things I enjoy about it: The posts are short and it’s easy to navigate around the site, find comments, categories, etc. Great noms de plumes, too, plus reverence for the duly honored slipstick.
I am uncertain about the history of EB. Its archives go back to January 2011 and the “About” statement says
This is a collection of some of the top engineering bloggers on the internet. Surprisingly, scientists seem to outnumber engineers, though we don’t think that will happen for long. Some posts link directly back to the author’s web page and some stay right here on EngineerBlogs.org. Either way, we promise you some of the best engineering-related content on the web.
A recent post, in which “Miss MSE” muses on the joy of materials science and engineering, gives a sense of the tone of EB
We don’t have the big name or numbers of electrical or mechanical engineering, or the glamour of aerospace, but materials engineering influences pretty much every other field of engineering. It’s kind of awesome like that.
Fundamentally, materials science is all about the relationships between structure, processing, properties, and performance. It also means that I tend to argue with How It’s Made when they attempt to explain why a certain process is used, or what a specific step does, especially when the topic is metallurgy. On the other hand, part of what makes the field so fascinating is that everything is made of something, and figuring out what would be necessary to make it is almost endlessly amusing.
What do you find most interesting or exciting about your engineering discipline?
Indeed, Miss MSE touches off a nice thread of responses.
Opinions and honesty seems to be freely offered. Some academics confess to canceling classes and some admit to being a little cynical about the MGI. Are there engineering celebrities (besides Gates, Jobs and Zuckerberg)?, another post asks. And, time is spent pondering one of the very, very dark mysteries of the universe: Why don’t engineers write?
Grab a cup of coffee, check EB out and maybe add it to your bookmarks.