NationMaster - Encyclopedia: Do it yourself

Do It Yourself, often referred to by the acronym "DIY," is a term used by various communities that focus on people creating things for themselves without the aid of paid professionals. Many DIY subcultures explicitly critique consumer culture, which emphasizes that the solution to our needs is to purchase things, and instead encourage people to take technologies into their own hands. Image File history File links Gnome-globe. ... DIY Network is a channel owned by Scripps Howard which focuses on do it yourself projects at home. ... Ian Dury (May 12, 1942 - March 27, 2000) was a rock and roll singer, songwriter, and bandleader. ... Do It Yourself is a 1979 album by Ian Dury & The Blockheads. ... The Seahorses were an English band, best known as the post-Stone Roses project of guitarist John Squire. ... Do it Yourself is the debut album by short-lived British band The Seahorses, the group formed by ex-Stone Roses guitarist John Squire. ...

The actual activity of DIY goes back through the ages--since the beginning of time, people have used their own abilities and available tools and technologies to take care of their own needs, make their own clothing, and so on.

The phrase Do It Yourself along with its acronym fell into common usage in the 1950s in reference to various jobs that people could do in and around their houses without the help of professionals. A very active community of people continues to use the term DIY to refer to fabricating or repairing things for home needs, on one's own rather than purchasing them or paying for professional repair. In other words, home improvement done by the householder without the aid of paid professionals. Look up fabrication in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Repair and Maintenance is fixing any sort of mechanical or electrical device should it get out of order or broken (repair) as well as performing the routine actions which keep the device in working order (maintenance) or prevent trouble from arising (preventive maintenance). ... Home Improvement was an American television sitcom starring actor/comedian Tim Allen, loosely based on his stand-up comedy routine. ...

In recent years, the term DIY has taken on a broader meaning that covers a wide range of skillsets. Today,for example, DIY is associated with the international alternative and punk music scenes. Members of these subcultures strive to blur the lines between creator and consumer by constructing a social network that ties users and makers close together. Alternative rock (also called alternative music[1] or simply alternative) is a genre of rock music that emerged in the 1980s and became widely popular in the 1990s. ... Punk rock is an anti-establishment music movement beginning around 1976 (although precursors can be found several years earlier), exemplified and popularised by The Ramones, the Sex Pistols, The Clash and The Damned. ...

There are various communities of media-makers that consider themselves DIY, for example the indymedia network, pirate radio stations, and the zine community. The Independent Media Center, also called Indymedia or the IMC, is a loose network of amateur or alternative media organizations and journalists who organize into decentralized collectives, normally around geographic locations. ... The term pirate radio lacks a specific universal interpretation. ... A zineâ€”an abbreviation of the word fanzine, and originating from the word magazineâ€”is most commonly a small circulation, non-commercial publication of original or appropriated texts and images. ...

Home Improvement DIY in North America

The home improvement DIY scene we know today is actually a re-introduction (often to city and suburb dwellers) of the old pattern of personal involvement in home or apartment upkeep, or the making of clothing, or maintaining of cars, computers, websites, or any material aspect of living. Image File history File linksMetadata HomeDepotStorefront. ... Image File history File linksMetadata HomeDepotStorefront. ...

A comment by philosopher Alan Watts (from the "Houseboat Summit" panel discussion in a 1967 edition of the San Francisco Oracle) reflected a growing sentiment of the times: "Our educational system, in its entirety, does nothing to give us any kind of material competence. In other words, we don't learn how to cook, how to make clothes, how to build houses, how to make love, or to do any of the absolutely fundamental things of life. The whole education that we get for our children in school is entirely in terms of abstractions. It trains you to be an insurance salesman or a bureaucrat, or some kind of cerebral character." From The Essential Alan Watts Alan Wilson Watts (January 6, 1915 â€“ November 16, 1973) was a philosopher, writer, speaker, and expert in comparative religion. ... The Oracle of the City of San Francisco, also known as the San Francisco Oracle, was an underground newspaper published in the late 1960s. ...

In response to this sort of insight, in the 1970s, DIY spread through the North American population of college- and recent-college-graduate age groups. In part, this movement involved simply the renovation of affordable, rundown older homes. But it also related to some extent to various projects expressing the social and environmental vision of the '60s and early '70s. The 1970s decade refers to the years from 1970 to 1979, inclusive. ...

A young American visionary named Stewart Brand, working with friends and family, and initially using the most basic of typesetting and page-layout tools, created issue number one of The Whole Earth Catalog in late 1968. It was subtitled : Access to Tools. Stewart Brand speaking September 5, 2004 Stewart Brand (born December 14, 1938 in Rockford, Illinois) is an author, editor, and creator of The Whole Earth Catalog and CoEvolution Quarterly. ... The Whole Earth Catalog was a sizeable catalog published twice a year from 1968 to 1972, and occasionally thereafter, until 1998. ...

The first Catalog and its successors used a broad definition of the term "tools." There were informational tools, such as books (often technical in nature), professional journals, courses, classes, and the like. And there were specialized, designed items, such as carpenter's and mason's tools, garden tools, welding equipment, chainsaws, fiberglass materials, etc. - even early personal computers. (The designer J. Baldwin acted as editor for the inclusion of these items, writing many of the reviews himself). Design, usually considered in the context of the applied arts, engineering, architecture, and other such creative endeavours, is used as both a noun and a verb. ... James Tennant Baldwin (whose books and articles have been published under the names J. Baldwin, Jay Baldwin, and James T. Baldwin) is an American industrial designer and writer born in 1934. ...

The Catalog's publication both emerged from and spurred the great wave of experimentalism, convention-breaking, and do-it-yourself attitude of the late 1960s. Often copied, the Catalog appealed to a wide cross-section of people in North America and had a broad influence. The 1960s decade refers to the years from January 1, 1960 to December 31, 1969, inclusive. ...

For decades, magazines such as Popular Mechanics and Mechanix Illustrated offered a way to keep current on useful information. DIY home improvement books began to flourish in the 1970s, first created as compendiums of magazine articles. One of the earliest extensive lines of DIY how-to books was created by Sunset Books, based upon articles derived from the pages of Sunset Magazine in California. Time-Life, Better Homes & Gardens, and other publishers soon followed suit. In the mid-1990s, DIY home-improvement content began to find its way onto the World Wide Web. HouseNet was the earliest bulletin-board style site where users could share information. HomeTips.com, established in early 1995, was among the first Web-based sites to deliver free extensive DIY home-improvement content created by expert authors to Internet users. Since the late 1990s, DIY has exploded on the Web through virtually thousands of sites. The adolescent Internet. ... Cover of April 1957 Mechanix Illustrated Mechanix Illustrated was an American magazine founded in the first half of the twentieth century to compete against the older Popular Science (magazine) and Popular Mechanics Billed as The How-To-Do Magazine, Mechanix Illustrated (MI) aimed to guide readers through various projects from...

In the 1970s, when home video (VCRs) came along, the potentials in demonstrating processes audio-visually were immediately grasped by DIY instructors. As with television programs, presentation could be dynamic and was not limited in the ways that still photos and written text might be. The video cassette recorder (or VCR, less popularly video tape recorder) is a type of video tape recorder that uses removable cassettes containing magnetic tape to record audio and video from a television broadcast so it can be played back later. ...

The DIY industry has grown markedly since the 1980s as DIY has become a popular weekend pastime for people wanting to improve their living conditions (and the value of their house) without the expense of paying someone to do it. There are many DIY stores to supply materials and tools. The 1980s refers to the years of 1980 to 1989. ... This article is about a tool used as a piece of equipment. ...

The acronym "DIY" is more commonly used in the United Kingdom whereas speakers of American English usually use the term "do-it-yourself".

and other work within and outside the home: For other senses of this word, see archetype (disambiguation). ... A plumber wrench for working on pipes and fittings Plumbing, from the Latin for lead (plumbum), is the skilled trade of working with pipes, tubing and plumbing fixtures for potable water systems and the drainage of waste. ... For the Grand Central Records albums, see Central Heating (Grand Central album) and Central Heating 2. ... Deck may mean: deck (ship), a floor or level of a ship a floor or level of other types of vehicles, most commonly seen in combination: double decker flight deck (aircraft) deck (building), an outdoor floor attached to a building deck (cards), a collection of cards, such playing cards or... The article on electrical energy is located elsewhere. ...

The term DIY or Do-It-Yourself is also used to describe: This article or section should include material from Spark gap A spark plug is an electrical device that fits into the cylinder head of some internal combustion engines and ignites compressed aerosol gasoline by means of an electric spark. ... Modding is a slang expression for the act of modifying a piece of hardware or software to perform a function not intended by someone with legal rights concerning that modification. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... DIY Audio means do it yourself audio. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... A boat is a craft or vessel designed to float on, and provide transport over, water. ... An Airbus A380, currently the worlds largest passenger airliner An aircraft is any vehicle or craft capable of atmospheric flight. ...

Although DIY tasks are typically within the range of people who can read and follow instructions, DIY is responsible for an increase in home injuries. Self-publishing is the publishing of books or other media by those who have written them. ... The term alternative comics is one of several labels applied to a range of comics that have appeared since about 1980, in the wake of the underground comix movement of the late 1960s and early 70s. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ...

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Home Improvement DIY in North America