The subversive idea of DIY

Didn't have time to link to this yesterday ... from Sunday's NY Times op-ed page: A New Magazine's Rebellious Credo: Void the Warranty! A look at Make magazine, a throwback idea about DIY and tinkering that's timely again.

Make is not just a clubhouse for guys with Skittle breath and abbreviated social skills. Beneath all the home-brewed gadgets and cool software tricks lies a sly and subversive agenda. Make, its makers will tell you, is part of a grass-roots rebellion against consumer technology that they say stifles ingenuity by discouraging end-user modification. To these restless minds, increasingly sophisticated consumer products have forced users into a kind of stupefied passivity, with nothing to do but replace batteries and update software, to point and click into a zone of blissed-out consumption. Marketers and programmers anticipate our every need with products that are essentially disposable, since there is no way to fix or adapt them when they break or become obsolete. In this world, to tinker - to open the case, to fiddle with wires and see what happens - is to rebel.