The Hack-a-tude

Just working on something. Something, anything. And being utterly happy about it. It doesn't matter where your life is going, what age you are; you are a maker and you love it. That is being a hacker.

Perhaps I've been reading too much about the life of Nikola Tesla, or maybe have been wandering too much through DIY sites and Makezine challenges but I really find true beauty within bits and pieces everyday objects and what can be done with them. Transforming inanimate objects to interact with a person, give them life-like characteristics, its almost like magic. And being the one to see objects all around you with the potential they posses to change your life, it is hard not to feel like a magician.

A hacker does not need a problem to solve, problems which are perhaps not even thought about are solved on their own because of the curiosity of the hacker. What if I put this here and connected to that? How does that thing over there work? Wouldn't it be great if this could work like that as well? These are the questions that commonly pass through the mind of a hacker; the this-that are actual objects of course, and the process of thought can often be much much more complicated, however you get the idea. You get lost in doing stuff and the possibilities of what could be done. The results turn out to be very useful or even life changing every now and then. I'm not saying hacking cannot be done in a problem oriented manner, but that the nature of the hacker lies within the constant interaction of the mind with the environment.

Tesla in Colorado Spring Laboratory
(from http://www.teslasociety.com/nikolapic.jpg)

Just imagine Tesla thinking what if I add a resonant circuit to these coils? With the background he had he probably knew the answer, however that probably didn't stop him from being amused from the results of actually building a tesla coil. Being a hacker, you just have to make something, the theory isn't enough.

PS. I'm hoping to make a home-friendly version of the tesla coil, as soon as I can set up the proper grounding of course.