04 December 2007

Excessive Cubicle

I'm in favour of fun as much as the next clown, but the new book Eccentric Cubicle from O'Reilly seems to be forgetting a key aspect of the hacker world it aspires to engage with: economy - making less do more.

This book is a dream come true for you office-bound souls who are tech DIY enthusiasts, hobbyist engineers/designers, and Makers at heart. Imagine having your cubicle sport projects such as:

* A mechanical golfer
* Lucid dreaming induction device
* USB-powered bubble blower
* Fog machine
* A desktop guillotine

What are these but extremely wasteful uses of raw materials, and excessive burdens on the earth? A case of making more do less.
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2 comments:

  1. Anonymous9:33 pm

    I think you have missed a major theme of this book -- to reuse scrap materials whenever possible.

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  2. Glyn Moody9:36 pm

    Well, "missed" is perhaps not the right word, since I didn't allow my judgement to be clouded by actually reading the book: this is pure punditry...

    ReplyDelete