Dan Silvers
Chris meyer on Sector67: 'It's like a garage.'
American ingenuity. Amateur inventors are eager to improve life for themselves and others. They experiment in home workshops, weld gadgets in garages and write computer code between classes. If a need is unmet, they figure, why wait around for somebody else to meet it?
Do-it-yourself-ism is thriving, and at no time has it been easier to perform technical work flying solo. The vast library of the Internet provides local access to plans and mentors, a worldwide think tank that's open 24-7. Websites like instructables.com and magazines like Make (makezine.com) let inventors explain to others how to duplicate their projects, from recipes to robots.
Many of these inventions and improvements are about finding ways to be more friendly to the Earth, by reducing reliance on fossil fuel and reusing what would otherwise be thrown away. And our region has produced its fair share.
It's unlikely any of these things will change the world. But the collective efforts of people like these just might.
