{"id":1002,"date":"2023-09-09T17:02:16","date_gmt":"2023-09-09T17:02:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pheenek.com\/me\/?p=1002"},"modified":"2023-09-14T20:09:33","modified_gmt":"2023-09-14T20:09:33","slug":"the-engineering-we-deserve","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pheenek.com\/me\/2023\/09\/09\/the-engineering-we-deserve\/","title":{"rendered":"The Engineering we deserve!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">How long ago did you perhaps purchase that printer that prints only when given a nice firm spank on its backside? That long, huh? And yet it prints! All these years later, that damn printer is falling apart, you can no longer tell whether its original colour was white or cream, could it have been yellow? Because there\u2019s no way it was brown, right?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Who is an engineer? An engineer is a person who works in the background to make your life that much more convenient, with products that fit in so well into your life, you wonder how you ever survived before they were available or whether they even exist.<br><br>As an engineer myself, I\u2019ve interacted with very many engineering products and have a fair understanding as to how many of them come to be. From the realisation that an initial problem exists, to designing a solution, to implementing the solution and maintenance to make sure it sees a full life. I guess you could say in such a way engineering products are like human lives. And the best of them survive decades or even better, centuries. Structures constructed more than a hundred years ago, technologies that were so ground-breaking they power our modern world. And what many don\u2019t realise is that some of these technologies have existed for very long and they continue to thrive and continue to impact our lives more than we know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A particular engineering aspect that probably doesn\u2019t get as much attention as it deserves is the engineering of software. And in particular the software that just exists in the background, and of which very many are oblivious. Enter embedded software and firmware (which I may use interchangeably). The base to all our complex computing systems. Perhaps you\u2019ve heard of your computer BIOS or bootloader that one time you had an issue with your laptop? Yeah! That\u2019s the one, that\u2019s the firmware! Have you ever wondered how a WiFi router is able to do what it does? Or perhaps you have a set-top box that enables you to view TV channels, or the TV itself that can even connect to WiFI now, and by the weird magic press of a button, you can change channels without having to get out of your seat. Have you perhaps wondered how a printer is able to make marks on a piece of paper? Marks that you understand as language? Surely it can\u2019t be that it has learnt how to read!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Working unnoticed, as fairies in our magical world of computing, is embedded firmware. It\u2019s the software that runs everything we run. If perhaps you\u2019ve never encountered this as a curiosity, now you know! All these devices and many more are running on embedded software working directly with the so-called transistor (the building blocks of computer hardware) to power the technologies that in-turn power our lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For a long time, these devices had no way to update the firmware running. Let me put that into perspective for you. In some corner of the world, in a regular-looking house with the regular-looking front-door, on the regular-looking street, in a random town whose name you struggle to remember; deep in the heart of that town, an embedded software engineer makes it his life\u2019s purpose that the technology you so rely on, shall never fail you! What does this mean? How long ago did you perhaps purchase that printer that prints only when given a nice firm spank on its backside? That long, huh? And yet it prints! All these years later, that damn printer is falling apart, you can no longer tell whether its original colour was white or cream, could it have been yellow? Because there\u2019s no way it was brown, right? And yet it prints! Our regular-looking engineer wrote the program that still runs on that printer to this day! Imagine that!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I dare propose the idea that this level of engineering is owed, if not a right, to each and every consumer in every single part of the world. The engineering that perseveres! Products that serve you, and continue to serve you reliably years into the future, and products that continue to serve you today as they did those many years ago when they had that fresh new-computer scent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The nearsightedness of many tech-based companies would lead you to believe that this is not possible, or that it\u2019s not a viable business strategy. As a counter-argument, I offer the fact that there are always new and fresh ways in which engineering can make our lives easier. There\u2019s always that next engineering milestone to which we can strive. And the sooner we can refocus our attention and our efforts to working towards these new frontiers. Even as we strive to make our ventures into tech as profitable as we can, let\u2019s not put any less attention into making sure that our tech lives on and toils for us giving back to its users several times as much.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Sometimes I sit and wonder what limitless engineering could achieve. Engineering whose only purpose, the only reason that it exists is pushing the limits of what\u2019s possible, most especially in the consumer market. Engineering that will continuously grow closer to being indistinguishable from magic. Not only is it such a wonder to have it perform wonders (miracles might be a bit of a stretch) but it lives on to inform future generations on the origin of all the ideas that may seem somewhat obvious to them, but are ground-breaking in the times that we currently live in. Engineering that survives and grows and mutates with the generations. Through the passing of knowledge from one generation to the next.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How long ago did you perhaps purchase that printer that prints only when given a nice firm spank on its backside? That long, huh? And yet it prints! All these years later, that damn printer is falling apart, you can no longer tell whether its original colour was white or cream, could it have been [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1011,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"both-sidebars","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"scs-style","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":60,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":20,"ocean_sidebar":"0","ocean_second_sidebar":"0","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"0","ocean_custom_header_template":"0","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"0","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"0","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"0","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"off","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1002","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-engineering","category-random-thoughts","entry","has-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pheenek.com\/me\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1002","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pheenek.com\/me\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pheenek.com\/me\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pheenek.com\/me\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pheenek.com\/me\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1002"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/pheenek.com\/me\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1002\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1017,"href":"https:\/\/pheenek.com\/me\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1002\/revisions\/1017"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pheenek.com\/me\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1011"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pheenek.com\/me\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pheenek.com\/me\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pheenek.com\/me\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}