Electronewbie Begins

Hello everyone.

In this first post I'd like to tell you who I am, what content I want to offer to you in this blog and why, but first a redirect for accidental polish readers ;)

Jeśli przypadkiem trafiłeś/aś tutaj a wolisz polską wersję językową, zapraszam na: Elektronowy - Nowy w Elektronice

W zamierzeniu ma mieć tą samą zawartość przeznaczoną dla osób nie znających dobrze angielskiego.

What the Faraday is this all about?!
Electronics, computers are really fascinating and so is all that stuff that develops now so quickly. More and more complicated devices that fill our world so much, that they become normal part of our reality: our personal assistants, our external memories, our learning helps, our additional limbs often capable of reaching things we couldn't with our natural appendages and many other things that just make us much better at anything we want and try to do.

For me this exciting world of electronics, robotics and cybernetics is actually a future we all will probably be participating in together.
That's why I decided to learn electronics - do it myself. Especially that being a medical student, soon finishing studies to become a medical doctor, I have my own ideas about where medical cybernetics development might go (and already is going) and for sure I want to be in it.
I guess many people with creative minds will want to learn basics of electronics and physics behind this all and learn it all just like me.
Moreover, as the world gets more and more computerized, we use more electronics and soon almost everyone in very varying fields and trades could need to know at least basics of electronics, knowing electronic elements, proper soldering and desoldering techniques, knowing how to repair that thingamajig that just broke while you need it most.
By learning it now, we get a headstart over all those people who soon will realize that they should have started looking in this direction earlier.

And having headstart in life always means at least more comfort and at best money - possibly in big quantities.

That's why I decided to write this blog - to help you immerse yourself in this extraordinary, complicated and arcane, often even dangerous (as we play with electricity) world, but at same time - having so much potential, to increase our capabilities to unimaginable levels if we only spend time to learn how to use it and develop our own ideas - which I'm sure everyone of you already has in mind - into real projects and possibly in future implementations.

Just imagine not long ago spaceships - the ones used to land on moon and many other used computers of the power that now your washing machine or microwave may have. Not even speaking of computers we have now on our desks, or the monsters scientists use in their labs.

All electronics worlds' geniuses like Steve Jobs or Bill Gates to name only two most known computers gurus had to learn from ground up. They too had to learn basics of electronics, of programming, of many other things. They spent months and years on learning it all. But where did they get thanks to that initial effort? And both of them said that all the time they had fun - it never was really a chore.
And this is our aim too - to have fun and to learn things that will bring us up, and who knows - maybe to the top one day?

Just repeat with me in your mind words of Muhammad Ali:
"I'll show you how great I am!"

And do it with me ;)

Who will find this blog useful?
- Everyone who wants to learn basics of electronics.
- Everyone who wants to learn physical principles of electronics.
- Everyone who wants to learn basics of cybernetics and robotics.
- All the girls who will have crush on me after reading my posts ;)
- Everyone who wants to learn how to repair their electronics.
- Everyone who wants to earn money because of not spending it on repairs.
- Everyone who wants to build an army of robots to take over the world.

There are probably countless other possibilities, ideas that you could make come true with knowing electronics. A lot of hacks allowing you to make your life easier and make girls/guys love you because you're so awesome.
Well, I guess girls don't need knowledge of electronics to make guys love them, but still - 'nerd' girls who know their way around electronics, computers and all that stuff are just purely awesome. So if you're one of them, go back to the fourth point! ;)

I probably from time to time will do some reviews of equipment elements and other items which could be of interest for you, or simply ones which I got for myself and think that they fit theme of this blog too.

Who am I?

I'm Til Shaedlaer. Well, that's not my RL name, but it's a nick that I use everywhere in internet and it grew onto me so strong that I respond to 'Til' more often than to my real first name as most of my friends use this nick.

I'm from Poland, but in age of computers and internet I don't plan on enclosing myself inside those national borders, so I am making two language versions of this blog - polish (hence the redirect above for polish readers) and english.
I'm medical student, soon finishing the studies to become a medical doctor, but this one direction never satisfied my mind as I always had a lot of interests, computers and technology being some of them, but not limited to those.

What it's all about?
I started getting into world of electronics a few weeks ago. I always liked physics, so I have some theoretical base for it, but didn't know a lot about electronics, resistors, capacitors, coils, transistors, integrated circuits and such. I always wanted to explore world of electronics so started reading up a few months ago already, but didn't really have time to actually start something.
Or at least so I was telling myself.

Many people told me that I do have a gift for explaining things to others. I also am a good, fast learner. So this blog is a project aimed both at my own benefit of motivating myself to get better at it (I'll appreciate all constructive criticism and feedback so that I and everyone reading can get better at it).

And for your benefit of possibly learning something new - especially if you are a beginner, and hopefully as this project goes on I'll be able to offer more advanced knowledge too ;)
In time we'll be able to get to much higher levels, not just basic electronic components and physics laws tutorials and explanations, but also possibly robotics, cybernetics and other ics theory and practical projects.

So, stop telling yourself that you don't have time to start up, get some basic tools (which I'll describe in one of later posts), read a bit up to know what are you doing.
Read my post (which will be next) about general safety in electrics/electronics so that you don't kill yourself. If you don't read and do kill yourself, don't run back to me crying, I'm not responsible for you jumping over it, and I'll call it natural selection ;P

Now, go to read more.
And do it with me ;)