Chapter 9 - ‘The Rest’ #
English #
Unfortunately, for those that don’t speak English as a first language, the internet has developed in such a way that English is basically the go-to language online. (1)
I’m not going to pretend to be able to teach you English - especially not in a guide that claims to be about Engineering - but I do think communicating effectively is massively important, so I’d recommend watching some of these videos and reading these links which go over some of the nuance of communication:
And for some fun,
The importance of proper italicized word placement. pic.twitter.com/fQT5AuYn5W
— C.S. Ratliff (@cs_ratliff) August 5, 2021
Finance #
[TODO] because making and engineering are expensive, and you probably want to make money, and spend less money.
Music #
Music? In a chapter on Engineering? Well, yeah. Hear me out, music is a combination of math and signals.
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The Euclidean Algorithm Generates Traditional Musical Rhythms (Godfried Toussaint) (PDF)
As another example, the Euclidean Algorithm can be used to distribute drum hits to algorithmically make drum beats
As a really cool example, there’s also ORCΛ by 100 rabbits, which you can see in action in this video from EZBOT on YouTube:
If you get into Modular music systems, like eurorack, it’s really similar to programming too- as you connect modules as if they’re functions and operations- to make a complex musical system. Here’s an example of a Eurorack setup in action from Lightbath on YouTube:
Health #
Character owned by Vega, art by Talon Creations
World Studies #
[TODO] To help with tolerance and looking at things from new perspectives.
History #
[TODO] inspiration from history and remembering past mistakes
Art, Design, UI & UX #
I know what you’re thinking, “Vega, this guide is about engineering- why should I give a damn about art?”
Because you’ll still probably need to design enclosures, make easy to read documentation, and probably make a user interface or two, and bad design usually leads to both users not being interested in the first place and a poor user experience.
So, even if you’re not super into it, give the Design Chapters a quick skim and look at the parts that seem relevant to you, you’ll want to look at Section 4 - UI/UX for sure.
If you’d like a good laugh, check out this video from Tantacrul roasting the poor design of Sibelius, a popular program for music notation
There’s also this gallery of bad volume controls:
Okay, so, some context is necessary here. Historically, England sorta gave the whole "World Domination" thing a shot as colonialism and in the process spread English to, well, everywhere? This has also had the side effect of quite a few languages becoming [endangered](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_endangered_languages). So, you might want to balance in what languages you write online for the sake of preserving your culture. Regardless, the internet will still *expect* you to communicate in English in most places, and this will often be *enforced* by moderation only allowing languages that they can easily read- Often strictly English. For better or worse, English is becoming the world's universal language.