A while ago, a new site popped up in my feed. That site was Practical Engineering. I didn’t know how it got into my feed until I started to write this post. When I checked, I discovered that I was getting it from Hacker News. In any event, it’s a site that most Irreal readers will probably love.
Each post looks at some aspect of our life that is impacted by engineering. For example, the latest one to pop up was about traffic signals. You wouldn’t think there’s a lot to know but it turns out that there are significant engineering problems to be solved to get cars from one place to another.
A previous, somewhat related post dealt with how railroad crossings work. Again, you wouldn’t think there’s much to the topic but it turns out that the problem is much more complex than you think. Or there’s the post that asks Are Beavers Actually Good at Dams? (Spoiler: yes)
The posts are actually transcripts of videos from Grady Hillhouse, a civil engineer. Each post includes the video so you can simply watch them if you prefer but it’s informative to use them both. I’ve watched/read several of them and found them all entertaining and informative. They opened my eyes to some of the complexities behind everyday phenomena.
Sadly, as far as I can see, the site doesn’t have an RSS feed so you have to depend on something thing Hacker News to inform you of new posts. There is an email list that will let you know when there are new videos but an RSS feed would be a definite improvement. Take a look at a couple of the posts if you haven’t seen them before.