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Make stuff!
From the Wall Street Journal:
From hacker spaces to profitable businesses, tinkering is experiencing a renaissance. WSJ's Andy Jordan explores some of the "stuff" people are making with new devices that encourage hacking and creativity.
And one of the posters from Geek Feminism was interviewed about open hardware.
I don't think this is a particularly new trend - it kind of feels to me like an increased interest in DIY of all sorts has been one of the hallmarks of this decade, and it's dovetailed nicely with the rise of blogging and social networking and user-generated video, etc. to bring people together in the shared pursuit of hobbies that are not remotely new (crafting, cooking, tinkering, home improvement). It does feel like the idea of hardware hacking has become a lot more accessible since the advent of the Arduino and things like Lego Mindstorms, both dating from ~2005/2006, which is also when Make started up.
Personally, I find all this stuff tremendously cool. I may not ever reprogram expensive pieces of electronic machinery to play the Super Mario Brothers theme music, but it warms my heart to know that somebody else out there has done it. Same goes for making a TARDIS cake that's bigger on the inside. I love reading through the Make blog just because it makes me think about all the things that are possible, how much power we have to create and to shape the world around us. And how easy it is nowadays to learn *how* to make a TARDIS cake or a knitted Dalek or a Cylon pumpkin or an Arduino thingy that checks your email or greets your visitors. How awesome is the world sometimes? Pretty awesome.
From hacker spaces to profitable businesses, tinkering is experiencing a renaissance. WSJ's Andy Jordan explores some of the "stuff" people are making with new devices that encourage hacking and creativity.
And one of the posters from Geek Feminism was interviewed about open hardware.
I don't think this is a particularly new trend - it kind of feels to me like an increased interest in DIY of all sorts has been one of the hallmarks of this decade, and it's dovetailed nicely with the rise of blogging and social networking and user-generated video, etc. to bring people together in the shared pursuit of hobbies that are not remotely new (crafting, cooking, tinkering, home improvement). It does feel like the idea of hardware hacking has become a lot more accessible since the advent of the Arduino and things like Lego Mindstorms, both dating from ~2005/2006, which is also when Make started up.
Personally, I find all this stuff tremendously cool. I may not ever reprogram expensive pieces of electronic machinery to play the Super Mario Brothers theme music, but it warms my heart to know that somebody else out there has done it. Same goes for making a TARDIS cake that's bigger on the inside. I love reading through the Make blog just because it makes me think about all the things that are possible, how much power we have to create and to shape the world around us. And how easy it is nowadays to learn *how* to make a TARDIS cake or a knitted Dalek or a Cylon pumpkin or an Arduino thingy that checks your email or greets your visitors. How awesome is the world sometimes? Pretty awesome.