Society’s feeling about engineers and scientists is as cyclical as a sine wave. Sometimes our abiity to recite PI to 30 digits is respected, sometimes the government tries to shut us up (Indina PI Bill).

In 2009, the engineer is in voque again.  I mean, is there a better show on TV right now than “Big Bang Theory”?  And what is the best movie?  Star Trek of course (I hope the pendulum doesn’t start swinging back later this year when people figure out we also created Skynet).

You see others tapping into this too. Texas Instruments has some nice videos reminding us to “Thank an Engineer”. Here is one on life without an MP3 player:

And I do the the “V-Dub in the House” comercials from Volkswagen:

I’ll even give a shout out to one of my company’s competitors:

Funny stuff.

A lot of communities exists not only because of common interest but because its members can help each other out.  You might keep an eye on each other’s house in your neighborhood.  You might work together to support a school.

I like how technology has brought us to the point where we can form communities that are not location based.  I’m involveded with automotive, Second Life, CAD and professional communities on-line. Many of these people I have never met but the sense of community is just the same.

Sometimes these virtual and real life communities overlap. SWGeek is one of my friends in one of my CAD communities. He is involved with Orangewood Children’s Foundation.  It is an interesting story and you can read more about it on his blog post, “Design for the Future” .

So if you have a few bucks or some space on your own blog or just want to retweet his link above, here’s a place for you to do a good deed for the day. You certainly got to like a place that produces guys like Alex.