[sdiy] Death of DIY?

[Aaron Boyle]

A preference for DIY versus consumer instruments
doesn't indicate that a person is more imaginative, it
only indicates where their interests are. This stuff
is time consuming, and I know musicians who feel that
time is better spent playing their instruments than
building them. (Or maybe they just think I'm the
sucker who will work on their stuff for free? Who
knows?)

Aaron

--- greg montalbano <greg.montalbano at ucop.edu> wrote:
> Not another universe -- another country, and another
> culture.
> 
> Here in the US of A, we're all bred from birth by
> the corporations
> to be passive consumers;  if they do their job
> correctly, then we
> reach a stage where it wouldn't occur to us to even
> IMAGINE anything
> other than what they offer us.... they provide the
> products, they set
> the standards & fashions.
> This is what ELECTRONIC MUSICIAN bought into, when
> they became
> essentially a monthly corporate mouthpiece (don't
> think about anything
> except the products we offer you).
> Speaking of rants, I could pursue & detail this line
> of thought for roughly
> another twenty pages or so;  but that WOULD be OT.
> Suffice it to say, in the US we're encouraged NOT to
> be fascinated by the 
> way things work, or how to fix them ourselves, or
> how to create new things.
> 
> (and NO, this is not a "conspiracy theory";  there's
> no shrouded conspiracy --
> the corporations are quite up front about how money
> is their true god, how 
> MUCH of it they want to make, and what our place is
> in the greater scheme 
> of things.  Nothing hidden about it at all;  it's
> just sad that there's so 
> little resistance to it, and sad how anyone outside
> the standard consumer 
> mold is considered a "crank".)
> 
> ~GMM ,  cranky old fart
> At 11:25 PM 4/23/02 +0000, jbv.silences wrote:
> >Mmmmh... I'm not so sure...
> >
> >I too started DIYing in the late 70's as I was
> student (and had to work
> >at night and on week ends as a taxi driver to
> afford parts).
> >
> >But these days, here in France, there are at least
> 5 different monthly
> >mags
> >about electronics featuring dozens of DIY projects
> (yes, about 60 to 75%
> >of them are built around some uC but anyway), when
> there were only 2
> >or 3 (and of much lower quality in the early
> 80's)...
> >And the DIY fever seems to extend to robotics with
> 2 new mags...
> >I guess there must be an audience somewhere...
> >
> >On the other hand, I see our young trainees at
> work, still students, but
> >spending nights & week ends hacking old PC
> motherboards to build
> >their own FTP server and the like...
> >
> >Am I living in another universe or what ?
> >
> >JB
> 


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