One of the nice things about sci.electronics.design is that it's widely redistributed by archive sites, some of which you can also use for posting, which is good since they made such a hash of the new Google Groups one.
Some examples:
electronics-related
It's really better to use a proper newsreader such as Thunderbird or Forte Agent. You can get a free Usenet account from Eternal September, and cheap ones from Supernews or astraweb.
SED has been around for a long time. Archives going back to 1993 are available from Archive.org, and have a lot, a lot of good stuff. (Plus the usual allotment of Usenet flame wars and so on.)