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Hardware Hacking Technology

Makers of MAKE 133

Posted by Zonk from the fiddly-bits dept.
BoredStiff writes "An NPR show called The Connection inteviewed The Makers of MAKE. They discussed who's behind MAKE magazine, and why they think there are a lot of people out there with an interest in re-inventing with the gadgets that run our daily lives. MAKE magazine is a deliberate throw-back to the how-to science manuals of an earlier era -- back when technology wasn't so cheap people did more 'do it yourself.'"
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Makers of MAKE More

Makers of MAKE

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  • Good magazine so far... (Score:4, Informative)

    by dafragsta ( 577711 ) on Thursday June 16, 2005 @08:37AM (#12831764)
    I've got my first two issues and at the very least, they are interesting. They straddle the line between pure MacGyver-ness and the kinds of things you'd find in 2600 magazine.
  • Saturday night I'd like to MAKE my girl, but right now I cannot make ends meet.

    It's great to have a magazine dedicated to the people who want to build their own stuff. I remember carving my first spoon. Out of a bigger spoon.

    The problem is that you end up with all these little toy gadgets and nowhere to put them. I wish there was a magazine that explained how to build something that could be used to store those gadgets.

    • Re:Pick your Poison (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      They do, it's called "Finer Cabinetry and Amputations!" it's part of the mediocrity in execution series of books. You can Build some storage and get to know your medical professionals all in one fell swoop. After you have the storage space, you can then turn that old 286 with the sound card into an analog control system for automaing the opening and closing of your new cabinets since those new hooks are a pain in the butt when turning knobs.

      Oooh, and a mouse based wired remote control for the old TV in
    • $ cd girl
      $ ./configure

      checking for car... yes
      checking for scheduling availability... yes
      checking if living with mother... no
      checking for cash... no

      **ERROR cash >2.01 not found. REQUIRED.

      $ make
      make: *** No targets specified and no makefile found. Stop.

      Hrmm...

      • Re:Pick your Poison (Score:5, Funny)

        by Dogtanian ( 588974 ) on Thursday June 16, 2005 @10:25AM (#12832523) Homepage
        The solution is to make cash.so.2.0.1 a softlink to cash.so.0.0.1; this fools the installation into thinking you have greater 'cash' than you actually do.

        You'll run into compatibility problems when you start invoking the more advanced 'relationship' or 'marriage' functionality; the program will complain vociferously, but let's face it; most of us just want to play around with 'girl' for an evening or two, and then try something else. "cash.so.0.0.1" does fine, so long as you can pretend it's "cash.so.2.0.1".
      • $ make love
        make: *** No rule to make target `love'. Stop.
    • Much as I love 'em, Poison quotes rarely work. Unless, of course, you are trying to convince god to let you into Heaven so you can persuade martian scientists to help you build robot versions of yourselves to defeat you evil other selves.... ;o) RikF
    • Woodsmith runs articles of that type. You'll learn how to make nicely inlaid, beveled, quality, furniture with tools that will only take up twice the space of your existing computer + gadget collection. Of course, they have articles on how to build cabinets to store the tools and wood as well.
    • Recalls the Steven Wright joke: "You can't have everything; where would you put it?"

  • Get a subscription to MAKE... (Score:5, Informative)

    by eggoeater ( 704775 ) on Thursday June 16, 2005 @08:40AM (#12831784) Journal
    It's an awesome mag. The amount of detail on how to build a project is fantastic, and there's lots of small projects in addition to the two or three large projects. The editors don't mince words about telling you how to hack stuff either. The latest copy had instructions to remove macrovision on certain DVD players.
    • I agree that it is a great magazine. Unless you have amazon cash to burn, the cheapest way to get it is direct [pubservice.com]. Use coupon code M5ZXML to get 5 issues for the price of 4 (~$35).

      If you want back issues, amazon is your best bet (you can sometimes find them on half or ebay, but most people hang on to them. Issue 1 [amazon.com] and Issue 2 [amazon.com] are available. If you do want to use them for a subscription, subscription, [amazon.com] you can get 4 issues for $35 and $5 off a future amazon order.

      All of the amazon links have a short video

    • I'v had my MAKE subscription since they launched. Definately a cool mag.

      mind if I borrow that sig? (it worked at least once)

  • But (Score:4, Funny)

    by Timesprout ( 579035 ) on Thursday June 16, 2005 @08:41AM (#12831788)
    Do the makers of MAKE really make MAKE or is it the content that will make MAKE? Enquiring minds want to make, I mean know.
  • This is the first time I'm hearing of either The Connection or MAKE. It's a bit unfortunate that there isn't a readable text there. I do have to question how an internet-based magazine expects to survive these days when the tinkerers are more likely to be on the internet anyway.

  • url to the mag (Score:5, Informative)

    by Racer X ( 140445 ) on Thursday June 16, 2005 @08:43AM (#12831799)



    http://www.oreillynet.com/oreilly/make/ [oreillynet.com]


  • I like "make."

    I never could figure out how to use "imake". Too complicated. And remember the language Prolog that Borland tried to push!? It was really "make" in disguise.

    "make" is really what's behind all the software we use. If it weren't for "make", there would be no new Linux builds.

    • You beat me to it. When I read the headline I thought it be interesting to find out what the makers of make were doing today.

      --
      grof domru poct oft hadram
  • You mean the one that's popular at Oregon State University and the University of South Carolina?

    Yeah, I saw a copy of one at Hooters.

  • It may be a throwback (Score:5, Interesting)

    by LetterJ ( 3524 ) <j@wynia.org> on Thursday June 16, 2005 @08:48AM (#12831838) Homepage
    It may be a throwback, but the issues so far have still had a heavy bias toward the whole casemod/ipod/gaming end of the "making stuff" spectrum despite the fact that there are TONS of other topics that still embody the DIY attitude, many of which are actually the same ones that were part of the earlier era of DIY. A lot of those have never gone away. Heck, the whole hippie/commune/energy conservation crowd has been doing-it-themselves for a long time, building practically everything they need.

    As I've been digging to find resources for my new site (listed in my sig), I've been thrilled to discover just how many projects are out there fully-documented in arenas I've never messed in myself.

    Last night, I made a batch of plastic in my kitchen to put a USB memory key back together. I found the recipe for casein plastic online, didn't have to leave the house because all of the ingredients were already there and I had never even heard of casein plastic until I stumbled across it for site research.

    Projects like that, the little laser tripwire kit I found that can be combined with mirrors to give you the security grid shown in every bad heist movie, etc. are all over the place.

    Fortunately, it looks like, via their blog and more recent web content (like their contest to start a dead car in the middle of nowhere) that their topics may become more diverse.

    • Re:It may be a throwback (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      ... the whole hippie/commune/energy conservation crowd has been doing-it-themselves for a long time...


      Don't forget the whole Slashdot crowd has been doing-it-themselves for a long time as well! Maybe someday when we can get some chicks we won't have to take matters into our own hands.
    • I've you're more interested in just making interesting stuff, Nuts and Volts http://www.nutsvolts.com/ [nutsvolts.com] is jammed with great projects. It comes out monthly and covers a wide range of projects. Some hacking but more of a focus on building stuff.
    • Throwback may be a very good way to describe it. 20 years ago, it was erector sets and breadboards. Making a LCD digit count from 0 to 9 was fairly impressive.


      Now, the amount of old electronics that can be reused instead of trashed is amazing...LCD panels, mp3 player, interfaces between computers and motors and sensors, video and wireless transmissions. All for mostly dirt cheap. Tinkerers can always stay ahead of corporate development, and it's way more fun.

      Danny

    • the issues so far have still had a heavy bias toward the whole casemod/ipod/gaming end

      They're only on the second issue. I have the first one and the feature story was about making a camera rig to hang from a kite. And the second most detailed story, as I recall, was the camera stabilizer that was featured on slashdot many months ago.

      My point is that neither of these are computer-centric at all. They're the kind of traditional DIY projects that geeks of all sorts can sink their teeth into. I think the

  • Scientific American's Amateur Scientist (Score:4, Informative)

    by G4from128k ( 686170 ) on Thursday June 16, 2005 @08:53AM (#12831867)
    Scientific American's Amateur Scientist [amasci.com] has always had interesting things to make. The older columns (from before the age of lawsuits) featured more exciting things such a a 6-foot homemade rocket, atom smasher, and 20 W CO2 laser.
  • Two AIXoids:
    - Know how they call 'root' in OS/400 lab?
    - How?
    - ROOT!

  • my inlaws (Score:4, Funny)

    by udderly ( 890305 ) on Thursday June 16, 2005 @08:58AM (#12831905)
    The inherent DIY-ness of the 'Makers of MAKE' reminds me of my in-laws. With them (in-laws), they have a genetic predisposition which makes them have to do every task themselves, no matter how ridiculously hard and non-cost-efficient.

    When he sliced open his leg, my brother-in-law was totally incensed because Walgreen's didn't sell a home suture kit (you think that I'm kidding, but I'm not). I was really scared when my wife decided that she need Lasik eye surgery and began looking at lasers on ebay and googling 'home eye surgery how to.'
    • Wow! That's awesome. If I weren't already married I'd be asking if your wife has a sister.

      My wife and her family are big DIYers, as is mine, but these people sound like DIY gods.
    • BTW: Any fabric store has darning needles and silk thread, but super glue is a lot quicker and easier.
    • Do not look into laser with remaining good eye!!

    • Re:my inlaws (Score:5, Insightful)

      by OglinTatas ( 710589 ) on Thursday June 16, 2005 @11:23AM (#12832957)
      You may be joking about the home suture, but In my younger days, I had successfully sealed a few slices and gashes with superglue or regular sports tape. No major vessels were compromised, so it wasn't all that spectacular. But in fact, surgeons use a version of superglue for their non-suture sutures. It is available to the home user under the brands dermabond or liquid bandage.

      I used to be a DIY type, making homebrew beer, DIY beer coolers, DIY fish "pond" (in my dorm room) with DIY biological filter, etc. Several years after college if finally occured to me that what I made was invariably more expensive, less effective/efficient, bigger and just plain uglier than the commercially produced equivalents. And so I quit. (I still subscribed to MAKE when it was first published)

      I think the point of DIY is being creative in solving problems, to be inventive, to have a sense of accomplishment when something is made. "I did that" instead of "I bought that." It is something that any DIYer can appreciate himself, even if no one around him does.

      On a distantly related note, I fear there may be a decline in ingenuity in general, as mass produced fare is so cheap and so readily available that few people feel the urge to fiddle, to improve anything, since they can just go out and buy something else.

      I'm currently mulling over a project to convert an optical mouse into a DIY (right) foot operated computer pointer with (left) foot operated pedals instead of buttons. I know there are commercial products that do this ($130-$200+) but they aren't _exactly_ what I envision.
      • I used to be a DIY type, making homebrew beer, DIY beer coolers, DIY fish "pond" (in my dorm room) with DIY biological filter, etc. Several years after college if finally occured to me that what I made was invariably more expensive, less effective/efficient, bigger and just plain uglier than the commercially produced equivalents. And so I quit. (I still subscribed to MAKE when it was first published)

        I'm just the opposite. I used to always assume that I couldn't make things, and that people who did were s
        • Heh. I've got a pile of "Kit Plane" magazines too.

          My first big financial investment will be a condo though. Ah well.
        • People who make their own stuff have confidence and control.

          Yes. You hesitate for fear of making a problem worse, but with time and experience, you reach a point where you find that you're more than capable of fixing any mistakes you make. Once you're operating beyond that point, the fears and risks evaporate, you can do anything (almost). Any problems you create, you can fix, so you don't need to worry any more, you can create on making/changing/fixing.

          What's REALLY cool, is seeing a surgeon or a vetri
      • The basic rule of DIY for me is, when I want an object, I only build it if I can't buy it. For some reason - "obscenely expensive", "not exactly what I want", etc.

        Then, sometimes you are not interested in owning the object as much as in actually owning the experience of having built the object.
      • and just plain uglier than the commercially produced equivalents

        I have a different view - most commerical stuff is crap, and I can do better. Either it's crap because it's cheap and badly designed, or, (more likely) it's crap because modern mass-production technology is very limited in what it can do. Seriously, surprisingly limited. That's why so much crap is hand-made in cheap-labour countries - because for so many things, hand-made is the ONLY way that's possible to make it.

        Now, flip that around.

        Noth

  • Some other DIY/tinkering stuff (Score:5, Informative)

    by Mille Mots ( 865955 ) on Thursday June 16, 2005 @08:59AM (#12831909)
    I can't listen to the interview (at work), but I think I get the idea behind MAKE (a DIY project magazine that makes use of broken, obsolete, or unused gadgets around the house, eh?). It sounds like a great addition to my collection of Nuts & Volts magazine [nutsvolts.com], QST [arrl.org], and Circuit Cellar [circellar.com].

    Other great DIY 'tinkering' sites I like are AX84.com [ax84.com], 18watt.com [18watt.com], and Byonics [byonics.com].

    I'd post a link to my site with pictures/notes on my own hand-built tube amp project or my mini-GPS/APRS project (not yet out of planning), but I'm afraid of the /.-ing I'd take. :)

  • Great mag for hobbyists (Score:3, Interesting)

    by FerretFrottage ( 714136 ) on Thursday June 16, 2005 @09:00AM (#12831915)
    If you've ever built a Heathkit something or another, or a old analog signal cable descrammbler from radio shack parts (or for the newer generation, if you've ever modded your xbox I guess), you owe it to yourself to check out the Make magazine. It has lots of great projects and it proves to my wife that I am not a crazy as some other people.

  • I prefer... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Fallingcow ( 213461 ) on Thursday June 16, 2005 @09:07AM (#12831970) Homepage
    ./configure magazine.

  • And now a word from our content provider. (Score:3, Funny)

    by Willeh ( 768540 ) <rwillem@xs4all.nl> on Thursday June 16, 2005 @09:09AM (#12831987)
    In other news, the makers of MAKE magazine sue the makers of the popular command "make", forcing hunders of thousands of l{u,i}n{i,u}x users to type "eckyeckyeckySHAZAM" instead. Man pages proved to be inconclusive and no help to confused sysadmins.

  • make(1) (Score:2, Funny)

    by xbytor ( 215790 )
    I thought everybody knew that Stu Feldman wrote make(1)?

    Oh, wait...

  • Techie, but lots of areas (Score:4, Interesting)

    by airship ( 242862 ) on Thursday June 16, 2005 @09:28AM (#12832086) Homepage
    I've written two articles for MAKE so far, one on hacking the C64 DTV game joystick, and one on setting up a dual-boot XP/Linux system using an installable single-CD Linux distro. So both of my articles have been 'standard' techie stuff. But there have been articles on a guy who set up a monorail in his backyard, a guy who modded his SUV to look like an 'official' vehicle so he could park anywhere, and other fun and semi-dangerous stuff. So it's covering a lot of ground.

    As a former computer magazine editor myself, I kind of wondered about the viability of a dead-tree magazine for hackers in the age of the URL myself, especially one that costs fifteen bucks an issue. But MAKE has been very well-received, and they're supporting it with an active daily blog. I've enjoyed both issues so far, and am eagerly anticipating the next. It probably helps that it's from the O'Reilly book people, who really grok hackers, since they come from the same gene pool. Plus their production values are incredible. Full color on every page, high-quality paper, etc. Copies of MAKE will be around at least as long as those old National Geographics in your grandfather's attic.

    • Heh cool...

      I've only done one mod for my DTV... after the batteries going dead deep into the dungeon of the sword of fargoal, I added a coax jack for a wall wart. It was one with a bypass pin so I can leave the batteries in and it won't try to charge them.

      If you are quick, you can also pull out the wall wart and it will switch to batteries before the DTV resets, and you can take your game with you. I imagine a capacitor to hold up the voltage would make the transistion much easier, it would be more like
    • I kind of wondered about the viability of a dead-tree magazine for hackers in the age of the URL

      When you're hacking around with tools, tech-trash, and consumer products, instead of on a computer, it's usually necessary (or least highly desirable) to have your reference on paper, with you as you work.

      I have a computer monitor on my workbench, as well as a wireless tablet-pc, and yet even when working from URL reference material, I often find it's quicker and easier to print the material out - a sheet of

  • Seems another case of retro-mania (Score:3, Insightful)

    by suitepotato ( 863945 ) on Thursday June 16, 2005 @09:33AM (#12832117)
    Sort of. And probably a good one.

    I grew up reading do-it-yourself books, encyclopedias, magazines (especially Popular Science and Popular Mechanics of the 50s, 60s, and 70s saved by family). Casting aluminum myself was childs play given I went to school with kids who built calculators out of discrete components in elementary school. Do-it-yourself was just what we did. It wasn't different than catching carp yourself instead of pestering mom and dad to buy them for the tank, or sometimes pond you made with a shovel and hose.

    Looking this over, I'll probably eventually get around to subscribing. If only American schools of today put more emphasis on the basics that allow us to build more complicated technology. Wood shop, metal shop, auto, electronics, so many are now cut to nothing no matter the administration being right (the basics are reading, writing, math, history) or left (the basics are sociopolitics, emotions, and safety which precludes hands-on anything). People should know how to build the machines they use in case they ever do need to make them.

    Maybe I'll buy a couple subscriptions for my local schools.

  • subscription (Score:2, Interesting)

    by faldore ( 221970 )
    LAME!! As soon as I read this article, I tried to subscribe to Make Magazine, but they're charging SALES TAX!! I have never and will never pay sales tax on a magazine subscription!

    Bad move!
    • Yeah, how dare a national publisher follow the law! I too only subscribe to magazines that openly flaunt our country's tax code. Fuck 'em all!

      • Re:subscription (Score:2, Informative)

        by faldore ( 221970 )
        It's not "the law" that magazine subscriptions are subject to the recipient's local sales tax. Mail order companies only have to charge sales tax if they have a physical presence in the recipient's state. Apparently O'Reilly has a physical presence in Washington, which sucks for me.
      • There is no National law that dictates sales tax.
  • But who makes the makers?

  • When I was a little boy... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by TomorrowPlusX ( 571956 ) on Thursday June 16, 2005 @09:50AM (#12832250)
    When I was about 8 or 10, my father ( a machinist, and DIY type, though of a mechanical nature, not techy ) bought me four volumes of _The Boy Mechanic_ -- a *beautiful* set of books by Popular Mechanics, from the 1920's.

    These books had *everything* from simple things like making your own arc-lamp to radios, to steam engines, to stirling-cycle engines, to lightweight gasoline airplane engines ( for free flight ) to chassis for a go-kart, to simple transmissions, to making your own lathe, and so on. Plus, a *lot* of pyrotechnics. A LOT of pyrotechnics.

    All gorgeously illustrated in the clean slightly-post-art-nouveau style of the 20's, with little boys and teenagers doing things that would get you arrested today.

    What broke my heart were paragraphs that would say "Just go to your local chemist's and buy 12 pounds of insert-highly-toxic-explosive-compound". I'd ask my dad and say, "where can I get insert-highly-toxic-explosive-compound". He'd say, "Son, we live in a pussy age where you'd get arrested for just asking about that stuff."

    I guess this is how we grow up today. Sterile, hairless wimps.

    • Re:When I was a little boy... (Score:5, Funny)

      by Dogtanian ( 588974 ) on Thursday June 16, 2005 @10:15AM (#12832447) Homepage
      I'd ask my dad and say, "where can I get insert-highly-toxic-explosive-compound". He'd say, "Son, we live in a pussy age where you'd get arrested for just asking about that stuff." I guess this is how we grow up today. Sterile, hairless wimps.

      No, the reason you grew up as a sterile, hairless wimp is because all those highly-toxic-explosive-compounds your father and grandfather played around with had horrible effects on their genes and reproductive systems.
      • Dogtanian [slashdot.org] wrote:

        I'd ask my dad and say, "where can I get insert-highly-toxic-explosive-compound". He'd say, "Son, we live in a pussy age where you'd get arrested for just asking about that stuff." I guess this is how we grow up today. Sterile, hairless wimps.

        No, the reason you grew up as a sterile, hairless wimp is because all those highly-toxic-explosive-compounds your father and grandfather played around with had horrible effects on their genes and reproductive systems.

        Funny, I thought that t

    • Re:When I was a little boy... (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      volume 1 is available for download, from ibiblio.
      http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/12655 [gutenberg.org]

      • You have made my day. I haven't read those books in ten years, and seeing it -- in OCR PDF no less -- has brought a tear to my eye. Some things shouldn't be forgotten.

        Plus, check out the editor's note:

        Another class of projects illustrate the caviler attitude toward environment and health in 1913. These projects involve items such as gunpowder, acetylene, hydrogen, lead, mercury, sulfuric acid, nitric acid, cadmium, potassium sulfate, potassium cyanide, potassium ferrocyanide, copper sulfate, and hy

    • Another problem that comes up is that these old books rely on some obsolete stuff. For example, I had a book when I was a kid that instructed me to get a hard rubber comb for a static electricity experiment.

      Hard rubber comb? I've never seen one, since plastic is used universally in cheap combs.

      Another one that gets me is instructions for building AM radios that tell you to buy a ferrite core AM tuner coil. You can't buy such a beast! At least not easily. Perhaps they were common in years past, but the onl
      • Once, I saw instructions on how to wind your own coil, but they called for a ferrite core. WTF? Where are you supposed to get a ferrite core with the right properties?

        I don't know a whole lot about ferrite cores, but what about this place: http://www.adamsmagnetic.com/cores.htm [adamsmagnetic.com]?

        • Case in point: you have to call to discuss your needs with the salesman. I suppose that you're going to have to know your properties ahead of time...

          And, they appear to sell to large customers, and in big lots. They do custom ferrite core design and manufacturing.

          Finally, I don't see a shopping cart on their website. What if I just want one? What if I'm 10 years old and all I want to do is build a radio during summer vacation?

          This is not the solution for an individual hobbyist who might be 10 years old,
    • There were FOUR VOLUMES?

      Awww, I only found one at a local GoodWill store. It had some "Schwartz" kid's name scribbled inside the front cover.

      Great book for the most part, but like many Popular Mechanics publications of its day, somewhat short on verification.

      For example, the "How to build a one-man glider" article had a wingspan too short for a 20-pound toddler and the illustration suggested a flight path which began from the edge of a cliff and proceded over a road and a railway.

      I'm guessing th

  • Free Issue Promo code (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    If you subscribe to O'Reilly's Make magazine, use promotional code M5ZXML to get a free bonus issue (5 for $35 instead of 4).
    • Ok, that just made the decision for me... I was on the verge of subscribing, or waiting until my birthday to find out that noone had gotten me a subscription. (I would tell someone I wanted it of course) But, a free issue I would not get with a birthday subscription.
    • The following code: G5R2DY

      Not only gets you a copy of the premier issue as a bonus, it's also a DISCOUNTED subscription of $29.95. [this is the only discount I've seen, the rest of the codes are just for a free issue]

      Enjoy!

  • Philip Torrone Rocks (Score:3, Interesting)

    by brickballs ( 839527 ) <brickballs@@@gmail...com> on Thursday June 16, 2005 @10:05AM (#12832377) Homepage

    I pay attention to what Philip Torrone is up to.

    He started the engadget Podcast [engadget.com], hackaday [hackaday.com], and now MAKE [oreillynet.com].

    it seems like he's really good at getting cool stuff off the ground and then he leaves it to other people once its up and running

    http://flashenabled.com/ [flashenabled.com] is his site

  • why subscribe to the magazine when you can compile it yourself? ./configure
    make
    make magazine

    you need to get the binding right, or it'll fall apart! and don't link to mobile libraries!
  • Its _loaded_ with annoying ads, and aside from the 3-4 articles that actually tell you how to do something, the rest of the mag looks like reruns of content I've already seen on Wired News, Slashdot, etc -- in many cases stuff that is 6+ months old.

    The how-to articles are decent though. I just wish they would drop the rest of the crap and stick to the goods.
  • ...like many Ph.D.s, administrators, bureucrats, lawyers - you know, those people in charge of things that you get jobs, raises and stuff. Either envious or unappreciative, they find these things trivial, unless of course, it is *their* hobby like collecting old iron horse shoes or old bits of cloth, etc. High-performance computing people that pooh-pooh the embedded systems people, or the engineer that disdains micropower problems.

    I myself learned to design a radio receiver, weld, turn a spindle in wood or
  • I have to say when I saw the final product, I was rather disappointed. There was really a huge amount of filler ("how to blog! here is how to get your blog... sign on to a free blog service... don't forget passwords are case sensitive...") and what was interesting was duplicated on the web -- where the material belongs in the first place, IMO.

    Make could be really good if they went beyond just replicating the kind of stuff that appears -- for free -- on the web. So far, however, they just seem to be payin
    • Part of the problem is there is a limit to how much effort even a DIY'er is realisticly going to put forth to work on a project.

      MAKE is aimed at the sort that enjoy DIY but don't want to spend all day on the web looking for things to do and trying to weigh the appearent quality of the information they do find.

      I've seen numerous DIY sites online, hundreds of 'once off' DIY project sites, and the one constant all them have is their inconsistancy.

      MAKE takes the information and puts it together into a cohere

  • So far I'm not that impressed (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ecloud ( 3022 ) on Thursday June 16, 2005 @01:33PM (#12834373) Homepage Journal
    It's definitely a geekier magazine than most, but none of the stuff seems that unique. Many of the projects are stuff I already read about here on Slashdot or elsewhere on the net; many are oversimplified; many are not explained well enough. It was also funny that they had that article about yak-shaving, but the proposed solutions weren't that inspiring, and then the rest of the magazine is devoted to many ways of yak-shaving that they hoped would be as diverting as possible.

    Of course it tries to be many things to many people. There are so many varieties of geekery, so their coverage of any one variety is cursory. Maybe for the type of geeks that have never done anything outside the software area, it's something to get their feet wet.

    Popular Science sometimes finds some real, inspiring news that I didn't already read on the net. That is nice. I used to like Electronics Now back in the late 80's and early 90's; they had some really unique projects. EE Times is also an excellent industry news source, but I quit subscribing to the paper version now that it's 100% online and free. With Make, I hope that it just hasn't found its stride yet, not that it's going to be permanently just fluff.
  • Make magazine, the bane of wives everywhere that want their husbands to throw that old crap away! Just ask my wife about it... she can tell you.
  • I thought make was hardware-independent. heheh.
  • My brother got me a subscription for my birthday after hearing about it on NPR. There are so many bizarre uses of technology and clearly organized instructions for DIY goodness to boot. Everything from disposable camera aerial kite photography (using silly putty as the timer element!) to a DIY railgun with nothing but a few ball bearings, magnets, and a ruler as construction materials. The reaction produced with this bad boy happens so fast it can't be seen by the naked eye, and you can make it as long a
  • The post got me thinking about who would be the maker (creator) of "make", the program. Once again, Wikipedia comes to the rescue:

    Make was originally created by Dr. Stuart I. Feldman in 1977. Dr. Feldman was working at Bell Labs at the time. Since it is old, many derived tools have appeared that work better. Among these are BSD make, GNU make and A-A-P. In 2003 Dr. Feldman received (http://campus.acm.org/public/membernet/storypage. May.2004.cfm?story=4&CFID=23207696&CFTOKEN=2889574 4 [acm.org]) the ACM S

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"A mind is a terrible thing to have leaking out your ears." -- The League of Sadistic Telepaths

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