Now these guys have the coolest job...

It's a Tuesday night in Hamilton, Ontario, and I'm sitting with Myrcurial (aka James Arlen) talking about makers, hackers' activism and hyperlocal journalism. Myrcurial is an online security consultant, a dyed-in-the-wool hacker and the wise-old-man of think|haus, a hacker/maker workshop that's being constructed around us as we sit in an ex-autoparts outlet in the northend of town.

Myrcurial and think|haus are part of the maker movement in Canada. If the movement has a bible, it's Make Magazine -- a publication that extols the virtues of using circuits and a grab-bag of Home Depot parts to make a potato cannon, a self-watering garden or a microprocessor robot rat.

Makers love Mythbusters, McGyver, old copies of Popular Science and Popular Electronics, 8-bit computer graphics and the chance to crack open and breathe new life into consumer electronics. Their motto is: "If you can't open it, you don't own it." They have excellent skills.

"We like to bend gadgets and circuits to our will," Myrcurial says. "We aren't interested in what we're told something can do, or must do. We're interested in making it do what we want, extending its life, giving it new purpose."

Of makers, hackers and activists | rabble.ca

Technorati Tags: gadgets, computers, science,