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When some people shop at the Swedish flat pack furniture megastore they see more than the rest of us. They see potential. Objects can take on other lives, salad bowls can be speaker cases, table tops become guitars, and trunks morph into end table/litter boxes. Maybe doing what ever the hell you want to do with the stuff is easier than following the instructions. “I think there is a movement around looking at all the products that are available — this global stream of stuff — and realizing you can tinker with them and rebuild them,” the NY times quoted a man who made speakers from plastic red salad bowls and has, in the past, made audio devices from things like coffee cans. His odd creations “live in the zone of the hack.”  “It’s all about not accepting what’s presented for sale as it is,” Mr. Zbyszynski said, “about not just doing a ‘paint by numbers’ of your life.”
The hackers have lately gained a salonnière in Mei Mei Yap, a 37-year-old Malaysian copywriter who lives in Kuala Lumpur and works for an advertising agency there. Ms. Yap, who calls herself Jules, for the Ikea chair she loves, and who has no affiliation with the mammoth Swedish furniture maker that makes it, is not, she said by phone from her apartment, particularly handy, but with her year-old blog, ikeahacker.blogspot.com, she has created a forum for those who are very handy indeed. With a keen eye and an open heart, Ms. Yap has built an encyclopedia of hacks by trawling craft and design Web sites and by inviting personal submissions.
(nytimes)References: ikeahacker.blogspot, nytimes Filed In: |
