I’VE GOTTEN GREEDY, I’VE GOTTEN LAZY, AND Everyone wants technology to work for them in hip-
I expect too much. I mostly blame TiVo for taking per, better, more logical ways. Laziness is actually a
me down this path. If TiVo can figure out what I like terrific motivator for coming up with creative solu-
to watch and let me rewind a scene to figure out tions: “How can I come up with a way to never have to
what that mumbling actor is saying, why can’t my clean my rain gutters again? Why, I could build a little
car stereo let me listen to a song from the begin- robot that shovels out the debris as it rolls along!”
ning if I jump into the car as it’s ending? Why can’t Makers on every continent, in every walk of life,
my special shampoo chemically enhance the roots and in every age bracket are creating — better yet,
of my hair and keep my, um, natural blonde high- making — the things they crave. A regular alarm
lights looking natural? clock doesn’t get Gauri Nanda out of bed, so she
The marvels of 21st century technology have makes one that crawls around the bedroom. Cold
made me look at my microwave, toaster, and yard fusion trumps retirement; neoprene gets a new life;
sprinkler with disdain. It’s a bagel, stupid, not a fro- that thermostat is fooled with just a nightlight and
zen waffle. I’m defrosting chicken, not fish. My kids some ingenuity!
are outside playing — don’t you even have a motion So now I’m casting aside my guilt and embracing
sensor, you dumb hydro-dumping apparatus? my laziness. I’m going to improve the quality of my
Way back in the 20th century, I resisted the life by making the technology I paid for work the
mind-rotting capabilities of programming my home way I want it to. Our Wi-Fi doesn’t work in the guest
phone to remember all my important numbers for cabin — it’s a little too far away from the house
me. But now I demand a speakerphone on my cell- and, as such, cannot be used as the home-office-
away-from-home that my husband craves. Recently,
“So now I’m casting aside I decided to jump into my technology and create
a Wi-Fi mesh network (see Volume 01, page 132).
my guilt and embracing This is going to be his Christmas present, and my
headfirst jump into the maker world. And I’m mak-
my laziness.” ing a blog for my sister so she can easily document
her trip across the country. It’s not cold fusion or
phone, remote access to the messages on my office printed circuit boards, but it’s a start.
phone, and one-button access to my answering I challenge you to look around and make your
machine when I’m sitting on the couch and too lazy world, or someone else’s world, a better, cooler,
to walk into the other room. easier place to be. It’s the time for gift-giving, and
I can’t believe I used to wait three days before get- it’s more fulfilling and a lot cheaper to make some-
ting to see the photos from my last vacation. And I thing, whether it’s as simple as a personalized
actually snail-mailed prints of the new house, kid, or photo album or as complicated as devising a way
car to each family member, instead of doing a mass to make the radar detector in the car talk to the gas
email pointing to my latest online photo album. pedal so speeding tickets are a thing of the past.
Yet all this leaves me wanting more, more, more. I’d love to hear about the things you make:
One day, while looking through the galleys of the editor@makezine.com. soon-to-be fourth volume of MAKE, it struck me
References:
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