TIDES-010: Ten (10) Engineering Related Posts for Learning

Hello All - Welcome!

This newsletter is read by more than 181,000 followers! Thanks a lot for all your support. The idea for a newsletter started about three+ months ago. So far, the support and response have been great.

As the name says, the idea is to focus on the five topics that make up the acronym. Please reach out with your recommendations for the inclusion of suitable posts in this newsletter.

This week, we shall cover ten resources/inputs related to general engineering content. We shall get have content on success stories in the next post.

Hope you enjoy the article and always stay updated!

Thanks and best wishes

Kalilur Rahman

First - let us see some of the outstanding civil engineering projects undertaken ever. There are many to choose from but some of these projects standout taller and bigger than the others.

Take for example following list of structures constructed over the last few millenia

• The Giant Pyramids of Egypt
• The Great wall of China
• Panama Canal
• The Brooklyn Bridge
• The Forth Bridge
• The English Channel Tunnel
• The Segovia Aqueduct of Spain
• The Hoover Dam
• The Three Gorges Dam
• The Golden Gate Bridge
• The CN Tower
• The Burj Al Khalifa
• The Taj Mahal
• Ang Kor Vat, Tanjore Brahadeeswara Temple and other innumerous , outstanding architectural structures and religious places of worship, temples, mosques and churches around the world - especially in Asia and India

All of these structures have one thing in common - great engineering skills leveraging the available technology, knowledge and craftsmanship at various points of time in history. Every engineering feat pushed the boundary further and helped humanity achieve more with less.

Note: There are numerous architectural and civil engineering wonders to name and only a few were named here and not particular order or reason can be given for the list as I have typed in whatever that came to my mind with a recency effect.

More of these can be read through the following sources.

i. Visual Capitalist Infographic Image Link

ii. Visual Capitalist Article Link

iii. Eley Metrology Link -> The World’s Greatest Ever Engineering Projects | Eley Metrology

iv. Popular Mechanics Link -> The World's 30 Most Impressive Megaprojects (popularmechanics.com)

Second - let us how some of the important engineering patents that helped change the world. Following article from Popular Mechanics is a wonderful read that covers how the following 15 patents have changed the world for the better. Some of these patents have made a huge impact already and some are in the process of making a change.

1. MagLev - Magnetic Levitation
2. iPhone
3. Motorized Exoskeleton
4. Quadcopter Drone
5. 3D Printer
6. Bionic Eye
7. Global Positioning System
8. CRISPR Gene Editing
9. Brain Implant
10. Graphene
11. BlueTooth
12. Self-Driving Car
13. Solar Panel
14. (3G) Third Generation Wireless Mobile Telecommunications
15. Virtual Reality

The article is available at the following link. 15 Famous Patents That Changed the World | Patent Examples (popularmechanics.com)

Third - Engineering Human Genetics in the form Gene editing after the huge success of Human Genome project and playing a new form of creator is a highly debated topic and an eye-brow raising one in the minds of many.

Ever since the first cloned sheep of in the world "as on July 5, 1996 -?Dolly the sheep—originally code named as "6LL3" and named after the singer Dolly Parton —at the Roslin Institute in Scotland. Dolly - the first mammal to have been successfully cloned from an adult cell - was cloned by Keith Campbell, Ian Wilmut and colleagues at the Roslin Institute in the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, in partnership with the biotechnology company PPL Therapeutics" - there were so many debates about human playing the role of God/Creator and the ethical concerns have become a norm - just like the ethics for AI.

However, the benefits forecasted (if implemented successfully without any misuse), can help humans achieve many things - such as prolonged lifespan and potentially removing some of the crippling diseases and improving the human productivity and efficiency - as claimed.

Following article from MIT Technology Review covers an article about the first scientist who used Genetic Engineering to produce CRISPR gene edited children in the world - in China.

Fourth - Computer Network Engineering was turned around with the invention of the Ethernet by David Boggs along with Robert Metcalfe - at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center

David Boggs has won many awards including IEEE Computer Society Technical Achievement Award (1988), ACM Fellow, AAAS Fellow. He was also a pioneer of "Internet Broadcasting" which was his Ph.D thesis at Stanford. Internet Broadcasting led the development of "IP Multicasting" that is used extensively in the world today.

These two innovative engineering feats will make Dr. Boggs remembered for ever.

A couple of articles to know more about this innovator given below.

Fifth - there are so many engineering and technological feats and lists forecasted across the Internet. A good 19 breakthrough technologies for 2022 forecasted by MIT Tech Review include the following (spanning across Engineering, Technology, Bio Tech and Medicine)

1. End of Passwords
2. COVID and Virus Variant Tracking
3. A Long Lasting Grid Battery
4. AI for protein folding
5. Malaria Vaccine
6. Proof of Stake - Energy efficient cryptocurrency validation
7. A COVID Pill
8. Practical Fusion Reactors - limitless, carbon free, safe power generators
9. Synthetic Data for AI - to avoid messy, privacy avoidance, misinformation and biases,
10. Carbon Removal Factory

The article link is as follows

What is your favorite from the 10 above?

Sixth - Programmers doing menial tasks or simple computer programming may be replaced soon.

With the advent of GitHub CoPilot and similar constructs from technology giants, the case for Computer Aided Software Engineering (CASE) has made giant leaps over the last two decades and removes the need for the usage of hobby programmers and lesser skilled programmers. The new tools can help do most of the work in an automated fashion and the skilled business technologists (not programmers) can use the tools to achieve the goals. DeepMind's latest article is along these lines. While this is still a long way to go before it hits mainstream, it is another tool to make human skills to be used in more powerful and effective areas while removing wastage in mundane and repetitive tasks.

An article from the Verge

Seventh - A simple bug in a powerful tool/app can lead to a lot of harm in an unbeknownst manner

A bug in Facebook (from Meta) has caused increased views of harmful content for nearly half an year. Think what social engineering and content engineering specialists can do with such tools to propagate misinformation or gain their malafide objectives.

Article from the Verge below

Eighth - One of the most famous hackers of the world - Susan Headley or also known as Suzy Thunder, Susan Thunder was a pioneer in the concept of Social Engineering and a well known first generation hacker

She along with Kevin Mitnick (a.k.a Condor) and Lewis De Payne (a.k.a Roscoe) were able to conduct successful hacks of telephony systems.

This article is a long read and gives insight into this famous hacker who is leading a quiet life in the mid-west US.

Ninth - A group of 35 Machines that helped change the world.

ARPANET IMP, Curiosity Rover, Cotton Gin, Galileo's Telescope, Heinkel HeS 3 Jet Engine, Model T Ford Car, V-2 Rocket, ENIAC, Large Hadron Collider, DC-3, Hubble Telescope, Wheel & Axle, CAT Scanner, Gutenberg's Printing Press, Bessemer Converter, Rocket Locomotive Engine, Crane, Wind Turbines, Air Conditioner, Roman Aqueducts, Mechanical Clock, Drones, Elevators, Wright Brother Flyer, Quantum Computers are some of these machines that has changed human lives over the past two+ millennia. Homo Sapiens have become the most powerful and advanced species on the earth with the use of intellect and productive use of many of these inventions.

Link to the article - Greatest Inventions of All Time | 35 Machines That Changed the World (popularmechanics.com)

Finally - Tenth - How can we use engineering innovation for better health?

Peloton was a run away success over the last few years and it gained a lot of momentum during the pandemic as it became a tool-de-choice of many constrained by the agility restrictions in open spaces or health oriented constraints.

Now they are taking the engineering innovation to the next level by scanning the body for tracking the movements to guide the workouts and movements for better outcomes.

What do you think about this? Article link is - https://www.wired.com/story/peloton-guide-body-tracking/

There are tons of resources available. I have shared my curated list and prioritization of the content I have come across over the past few years for your perusal. I hope you find them useful and apply them in your lifelong learning!

I hope you enjoyed this as much as I did writing it. I am all ears to hear from you. Caring is sharing. Feel free to like, share or comment on what you think! Please tag me if you forward this for relevance.

Credits:?The header and most of the images are designed using Canva. All other linked quotes and images are available freely on the Public Internet. Respective trademarks owned by corresponding firms. Quotes are freely available on the Internet. Opinions highlighted are from a personal experience standpoint and in no way reflect the views of my current or past employers or clients.

#WhatInspiresMe #TIDES #KRPoints #inspiration #motivation #data #statistics #bigdata #programming #learning #engineering #machines #wonders