The maker movement has reestablished a connection with hardware that I think many of us had lost as things were mass produced and we no longer had to adjust the tension of tapes or exchange disk platters.  Somehow plugging and unplugging a disk drive is not the same.  I now have a serious soldering iron in my study and have breezed my way through several kits.  Haven't lost my soldering talent but I do have to use serious magnification when I do solder!

One of the tools that never leaves my pocket is is a Leatherman Squirt.  It is very handy when building kits, in fact I usually use it instead of going to my kit to get needle nose pliers.  It also has other attributes for the aging hacker.  If your hands are a bit sore after decades of emacs chording, the multitude of tools really helps from opening packages to prying lids.  As Jerry Pournelle would say, another aging hacker mainstay, highly recommended.

A future post will explore the interaction of STEM, the Maker movement, arduinos, rasp pis sensors, cosm and big data.  Later!