“Making It” is my go-to guide for finding out how you manufacture different objects. It is an illustrated guide to manufacturing methods, complete with images of the process in action, the finished goods, a description of the variety of goods you can make with this method, as well as related techniques. If you have any interest at all in making things, this book should have a slot on your bookshelf.

Zero to Maker by David Lang is a book does exactly what it says on the tin. It’s a guide to how to find out how to learn (just enough) to make (just about) anything.  I wanted this book so much I helped fund it on Kickstarter.

And now, as we have a copy at Post Tenebras Lab as well, one of the members has been making the OpenROV from this book, which we tested in a swimming pool in Carouge.

Jeremy Rifkin has a style of writing that annoys a lot of people, if you read the comments online.  I found the Zero Marginal Cost Society to be a valuable contribution to the debate that is taking place about capitalism.  Logically, capitalism will always find the lowest cost option, but with open source that cost should be approaching zero.  So what happens if everything takes the lowest possible cost?  What does society look like?  How does it function?

This is not a howto guide that takes us to the economics of “Star Trek The Next Generation” but it helps move the debate on, and should be required reading for anyone involved in the sharing economy.