A few years ago, I was about to go on a car trip. The hot/cold selector in my car was broken, and my mechanic had ordered the part, but didn't have time to put it in. I knew him pretty well, so I borrowed a screwdriver and took apart my dashboard. The broken part was 3 pieces of injection-molded plastic with a quarter sized circuit board in the middle. 20 minutes later, I had it installed, and went inside to pay for the part. "How much?" I asked. "A buck twenty-five," my mechanic responded. I happened to have exact change, so I pulled out a quarter and a dollar and laid it on the table. "That sounds about right, I said." "Uh-uh. One hundred twenty five." He was an honest guy, and showed me how much Acura had charged him for the part.

I look forward to the day when instead of car companies and other large manufacturers holding us hostage for pennies in injection molded plastic, it's standard practice for the mechanic to download and print out a part off the internet. I'm joining http://techshop.ws/ next month. I'm a software engineer, but I'm not afraid to get my hands dirty. Viva la industrial revolution!

Anyone know if there's anything like techshop.ws available in Boston?

The closest thing would be hackerspaces willoughby & baltic, or the new one called sprout. I know some other places with tools too. DM if you are interested.

for the hackers reading this, have you considered a "bits & atoms" based startup? If not, why not? I write a blog on this stuff and am curious what the tipping point will be to get 25-50% of YC startups looking at businesses with physical components.

I think hardware is inherently harder than software.

I had no idea the Aliph Jawbone was so lean in its processes and yet produce amazing stuff - "It’s the ultimate virtual manufacturing company: Aliph makes bits and its partners make atoms, and together they can take on Sony."