Is it an aspie need to tinker with and modify things?

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I constantly find myself customizing things, kludging things together, taking things apart, and just messing around with things that "normal" people would leave alone. Other people have a hard time understanding it, but to me, nothing is ever "good enough" until I apply my own touches to it. It can be frustrating sometimes, because my customizations will sometimes cause problems that wouldn't arise in the first place if I didn't bother with them, and people criticize me for this, but I just like having things tailored to my liking, even if it's not what was originally intended.

I absolutely can't stand things that can't be customized in some way. When I have to play by someone else's rules, and do things the way everyone else does them, it infuriates me.

Is anyone else here like this?

I am kind of the same way. I like using professional stuff and customizing things to my taste. I am always taking things apart and trying to figure how it works. At least I know to put it back together after I am done.

Yeah, that's an Aspie thing. I've read more than once that it's pretty common for Aspies to have a habit of dismantling electronics & other machines just to figure out how they work, repair them, modify them, reverse or reengineer them etc.

It's not exactly my thing with vary many things at all as there's very little I've ever taken apart/modded vs. those who habitually do it. But yeah, it's a bit of a stereotypical Aspie thing.

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No for supporting trump. Because doing so is deplorable.

I only ever used to play video games that allowed for customisation... To the point of it being a deal-breaker if there was no user-editable content. When I first got teh Intarwubs (around 9-10 years old,) I very quickly found out about customised tracks and trucks for Monster Truck Madness. At some point I managed to download the incredibly hefty 100meg track editor and proceeded to make ludicrously large jumps, etc etc.
After that came Quakeworld, and the mod community had me completely hooked. I spent a long time in the Klik & Play/Click and Create community, not releasing too much but my midi music was featured in a few games.

I've always taken stuff apart, but it never goes back together again When I was younger I destroyed a lot of computers by fiddling around with the insides, playing with the BIOS setting etc
At about 11 I broke a computer so well that a technician came to the conclusion that there had been a critical malfunction of some sort.

Even in adulthood I'm adamant on building my digital visual art from the ground up in vvvv and insist on programming my own synth patches from scratch rather than using presets. My entire creative life has centred around experimentation and refinement as opposed to theoretical knowledge. When it becomes appropriate, I learn a bit of theory and continue on. Manuals are for the weak

If something is not broken and doesn't have a feature that pisses me off I will usually just let it be.

But if something "must be fixed" for any reason I can't stop but try to fix it till I decide it is good enough.

For example:
- The light on my speakers was messing with my sensitive eyes in the dark so now it is covered by a transparent, rubber bubble. I can still see it but it is now scattered, not a spot light so it doesn't dazzle me anymore.
- I found a comfortable shoes but they were black+white. I hate white, I love red. So I took a permanent red marker and dyed the shoes. Now they are red+black.
- I got a computer chair for free from my parents friend. The chair is comfortable but white, I hate white. So I wrapped the white part using a red blanket. Now it's red.
- My computer was making funny sounds and my desk was vibrating. I realized the device is rattling against the rack it is on. So I put a piece of carpet under the computer. Vibrating and sounds stopped.
- My telescope(it's old and broken) had trouble with tube balance when it was pointing on something high on the sky. Now I have a bag attached to it's end where I put items of different weight to keep it balanced.

Stuffs like that.

I also liked to take stuffs apart and put them together since I was a kid. And fortunately I was always pretty good with fixing what I have broken. LOL
But I don't do it anymore, at least not too often.

I like to tinker with things, but I can also get really aggravated with it. If something works okay and isn't broken I will usually just leave it alone.

I am good at fixing things though, when it comes to minor carpentry work and things of that nature. I save all kinds of spare parts and hardware and scraps of wood for that purpose (stuff that other people would just throw away). For example, when my cheval mirror stand fell apart and couldn't be glued back together anymore, I used a couple of odd pieces of hardware I had been saving to mount the mirror to the wall.

I'm not really big on modding things. I basically just like to recycle stuff and MacGyver things whenever possible. Rather than trashing something that is broken, I will try to fix it.