Mister Jalopy, a professional amateur and shade tree mechanic, wrote a wonderful essay about Maker Faire, which took place in San Mateo last May. (There's another Maker Faire in Austin this weekend).
At Maker Faire, you can have a dozen epiphanies in a Saturday. Then Sunday comes and you can have dozen more. Dedicated individuals of similarly clumsy talents come together and point out what went right and what went less-than-right with their projects. As a stark comparison to professional life, where mistakes are hidden, the amateurs just roll their eyes and laugh as they tell you where they got it all wrong. The hardiest of laughter is reserved for those situations where personal injury was narrowly avoided due to dumb luck.
Smug in your DIY ethos, you meet Phil Ross, see his jaw dropping sculptures of nature captured, and feel the ground turn to quicksand as you realize you lost the plot. Epiphany #1 of 12, or an hour into Maker Faire.
To do Phil a grave disservice, I will paraphrase a bit about the content of his sculptures. As seen above, there is a plant that is being kept alive by the benevolence of a machine. Not thriving, just surviving, as light and air are meted out in increments sufficient to sustain life but not so great as to allow the plant to flourish. The LEDs and aquarium bubbler are controlled by timers, so who is the evil overlord? The computer? The software? Phil?
