The Good Guys Won

Nice story on MIT's Gershenfeld on CNN Money. He's talking about how, in the not-so-distant future, you'll be able to make almost anything at home. Devices will be able to cut, fold, spindle, and mutilate raw materials to create what you design.

Of course, some of us saw this way back in the 80's, when we were in middle school, and we stumbled upon this strange hardback book (for older kids) by OMNI magazine. It was on the future... The ultimate dream, of course, is to transmute things. Take a lump of carbon, move the atoms around, and create a salad or something. But using lasers, plastic, and CAD tools is a little more realistic-- for now.

Personally, I really cannot wait. We plan to build our dream house next year, and I am already be inventing things for it. One things I'm really jazzed about is the opportunity to put a proper shop in there. Wood, metal, even plastic will find new life. So yeah, I'm excited about the DIY future. EZ-Bake HDTV? I'll take that, thanks!

Read the story about FabLabs, and I think you'll be inspired too. Now I want one in my town!

The only onion in the ointment? How long before it's almost impossible to DIY? I mean, will enough people really pursue this to make it viable? This is always a conundrum. It fascinates me how some people really just want to mindlessly consume. Never really aim to create something new in any way... Those folks won't be interested in this at all, will they? Look at how Heathkit fell, how so much of the DIY ethic I saw in the 70's fell away to shiny new goods in the 80's and 90's. I don't know that we'll ever return to those days, unless the economy tanks. In that case, I'll be glad for my Victory Garden.