Tinkerer

Evolution is a tinkerer and not an engineer.

Part of why both books dragged on so long is that Mr. Talese, who once worked for The New York Times, is a perfectionist, an obsessive tinkerer and rewriter, and also a famously meticulous reporter and researcher who spurns devices like composite characters and faked identities.

Make magazine, which celebrates “your right to tweak, hack and bend any technology to your own will,” has joined with the New York Hall of Science to gather more than 500 of the craftiest inventors, artists, technology enthusiasts, tinkerers and hobbyists to share their expertise.