After Tutorials 2025 11 12

The community: Tinkerers and Hackers

Working title: Tinkerers of the Future

The name of the community: TBD

Setting draft: Big tech and the MIC put out technologies which slowly trickle down to consumers.

Its obviously bad products, think Alexa espionage, HP printer ink subscription, Adobe the “creative” monopoly, Palantir the all seeing “all humans are stuipd” stone, Windows11 the computer to ewaste converter, Apple “you are holding it wrong” design, YouTube the “for safety of the children we have removed bad words” video platform.

Their unethical practices, be it design practices or treatment of humans, are questioned and criticised by the tinkerers while they analyse the faulty products.

Just some things tinkerers do:

Jailreaking vacuum robots

https://github.com/Hypfer/valetudo-dreameadapter

https://valetudo.cloud

This project criticises the cloud data based nature of vacuum robots and aims to offer a local private alternative.

Making and installing Android alternatives

A Linux distro for …EVERYTHING?!

Android dominates the non-Apple phone market, the Google-based software and its developing consortium form a monopoly.

Some individuals and resulting groups develop and distribute alternative OS’es to counteract their dominance.

Rabbithole starter for alternative operating systems for android phones:

https://www.handyhase.de/magazin/android-alternative/

PostmarketOS – a ligtweight alternative for extremely old hardware?

https://postmarketos.org

Reusing vapes

I Powered My House Using 500 Disposable vapes – YouTube

Criticising the vape industry situation and making something useful with the disposed vapes.

Rethinking Electronics and Politics

https://permacomputing.net

Under the Permacomputing umbrella ethos converges criticism against today’s electronics industry.

Metalab as a hackspace: https://metalab.at/rooms.html

At Metalab, a vastly diverse group of people have a space where they can tinker, talk, connect and follow their various interests and projects. What brings them together is the space offering tools and a space where they can do what they want to do. Many of the members also represent minorities often not visible in daily life, like people on the spectrum, visusally or auditorily impaired people, transgender and queers etc.. Metalab offers them a safe space with set rules for everyone so that everyone can feel welcome.

Open Source means knowledge for everyone

Open Source and freedom: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Source

https://web.archive.org/web/20170112232640/http://riseforth.com/pdf/seven_open_source_business_strategies.pdf

Related: Open Hardware:

OpenSauce, a makers event founded by a maker for makers: https://opensauce.com/overview/

What tinkerers could be doing in my futures scenario

Taking apart lost equipment

Scenario: Every now and then mil-tech is lost in the woods. Hackers find them and learn how they work and what the military is up to.

Taking matters into their own hands

Be it by bypassing ink chips on printers or distributing info and survival tips to the socially disadvantaged and outcast, they wish to regain control of the things close to them.

They are a diverse group of individuals from all places of society

I see Tinkerers as a more desirable holder of our future than where our future is headed right now (i.e. billionaires owning the future, big tech making proprietary products).

Because of their niche Tinkerers are a subculture not very visible or understandable to the average person.

And I think we should change that. I believe everyone should have the right to understand what is happening in the machines they own. I think everyone should have the right to own things, not lend a license to using it.