Make Magazine - Freedom to Innovate

When I was a kid,  I was a tinkerer.   Wiring my bedroom with speakers and lights, trips to Radio Shack for pilot lights and toggle switches; later a Ham Radio License (KA1CTX) and building shortwave transmitters, VHF transceivers, and assorted other electronic gizzmos, refitting my '73 GrandAm with a Holley 4-barrel and headers.  I recall my high school years (serious geek, before the word 'geek' was coined), having to explain to a high-school girlfriend what 'soldering' means.

The spirit of making it yourself  seemed long dead...until I noticed the new Make magazine. I happened upon a broadcast on Boston's WBUR, of the excellent On Point, which  featured Dale Dougherty, who happened to be my first editor on a professional writing gig (WebTechniques Magazine, 1998, media linked here) talking about his new project.  In this era of record companies telling you how you can listen and movie studios telling you how and where you can watch...the spirit of tinkering and making it yourself is still alive in Make Magazine.  Make is the journal of innovation, the literary embodiement of the spirit of do-it-yourself, modify-if-you-will, freedom-to-tinker that made America great.