O'Reilly's New Magazine for DIY Tech Projects

sargon writes "O'Reilly will begin publishing a new magazine, 'Make,' in early 2005 which is aimed at the do-it-yourself crowd. To quote the home page: 'Make brings the do-it-yourself mindset to all the technology in your life. Make is loaded with exciting projects that help you make the most of your technology at home and away from home. This is a magazine that celebrates your right to tweak, hack, and bend any technology to your own will.' The first issue will focus on kite aerial photography." Any suggestions for what they should cover?

Comments

Also in the first magazine

[Anonymous Coward]

How to create your own DIY Tech Magazine.

Make

[Zorilla]

user@localhost>make o'reilly
No rule to make target 'o'reilly'. Stop.

Fuck. Not for me, I guess.

Re:Make

[ezzzD55J]

Actually your shell generally wouldn't parse that due to the single quote ;) however:

$ make "o'reilly" make: don't know how to make o'reilly. Stop

Re:Make

[darkonc]

user@localhost>make o'reilly
No rule to make target 'o'reilly'. Stop.

Lucky you: I just got a greater-than sign that wouldn't go away, no matter how many times I hit 'enter. . I had to enter the command again, then I got this:

[darkonc@me projects]$ make o'reilly
>
>
> make o'reilly
make: *** No rule to make target `oreilly

make oreilly'. Stop.

Archives

[VistaBoy]

So the archived copies of Make Magazine will be called Makefiles?

Re:Archives

[tunabomber]

No, but the subscription form will be called a ./configure

How about sombody's home

[MrScary]

....maybe Barbra Streisand?

In related news

[Anonymous Coward]

Hustler has been providing a magazine which is aimed at the do-it-yourself crowd for decades.

SCNR

Re:In related news

[advocate_one]

I'd always thought that it was the other way round... those do-it-yourselfers had been aiming at copies of Hustler mag...

Re:In related news

[DigitalHammer]

What's next, DIY babies?

Some suggestions...

[mikael]

...How to build your own personal reusable spacecraft using only an old washing up liquid bottle, some sellotape, a couple of lemons and a box of bicarbonate of soda.

If that proves too difficult, I'll settle for a flying car.

Re:Some suggestions...

[wertarbyte]

You mixed something up, that's a topic from MakeGyver Magazine.

Re:Some suggestions...

[wfberg]

Sellotape? You must mean "sticky backed plastic".... ;-)

Re:Some suggestions...

[fermion]

There is an old guy in Canada that can show you how to do this with duct tape!

Re:Some suggestions...

[Stuart Gibson]

Isn't that what John Carmack is up to at the minute?

Stuart

Re:Some suggestions...

[SimonInOz]

No no. Sticky back plastic is not Sellotape - it's called sticky tape, silly.

You don't seem to be remembering your Blue Peter properly!

[Note for the uninitiated. "Blue Peter" is (still!) program for children. Hosted on the BBC, it was forbidden to use any trade names. So "Contact" became sticky-back plastic, Sellotape became sticky tape, and so on. It's most famous line was "and here's one I prepared earlier" at which point the presenter (inevitably wearing a nice pullover) would produce a perfect version of .. well, whatever they were making from an old detergent bottle and two short lengths of string. See http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbbc/bluepeter/ ]

Re:Some suggestions...

[Zoxed]

> How to build your own personal reusable spacecraft
> using only an old washing up liquid bottle, some
> sellotape, a couple of lemons and a box of
> bicarbonate of soda.

Hell: they made one of those on Blue Peter 30 years ago :-)

(Sorry: UK joke for OFs),

Simon

This is a tough format.

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem here is its such a broad topic. People's interest diverge so far that it's really a much more suitable topic for a generalized search engine Google rather than a magazine format. While some people will tend to think that stuff in the kitchen is cool, others will think it should include coding. Others will want automotive and others will prefer architecture or explosives or metalwork or hide tanning or alternative energy. The Foxfire series tried to do something similar, but they also had a theme beyond just doing it yourself which was doing it the old fashioned way. That only appealed to a certain set. Coming at it from the opposite, doing it yourself and doing in the new way doesn't really seem to work as a theme.
I think the real question is, do we still need magazines?

Re:This is a tough format.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the real question is, do we still need magazines?

Are you the guy I saw on Flight 2451 bringing his laptop into the shitter?

Re:This is a tough format.

[syukton]

Well, magazines have some stuff going for them that other mediums do not.

The weekly newspaper covers a broad range of topics, and these topics are easily diveded into sections. I do not see any reason to prevent the collection of various projects under an arbitrary set of "topics" in order to sequester the attention of those interested in, say, mechanical engineering, to only the brown-tabbed pages. Just because it's all bound up together doesn't mean that you can't divide it up.

But the question is: do you want to divide it up?

It depends on what you're making. I've always wanted to know how to get the iron out of iron ores. I could search it up on wikipedia, but what if I'm on a bus on my way across the country and don't have access to the handy-dandy wikipedia? It would be nice if it were in a magazine that I could fit in my backpack. But what use is knowing about smelting if you can't build your own smelter? Once you know how to refine iron and make steel (in your own smelter!), what use is it unless you're making things with these materials, from scratch? Sandcasting is a great way to make objects from molten metals; you could find yourself making all kinds of things. As an aside, possessing this kind of DIY know-how would make for much more interesting episodes of DIY-theme gameshows.

You need to make the information accessible, is the thing. The internet is great and all, but it's nothing for disseminating information like a magazine. For about 8 to 14 hours a day while the sun is up, you can read any book or magazine you like. The internet is down when my cable modem is out, when there's a hurricane, when I'm not at the computer. I can't pass my computer to the person next to me and say "read this article" without first presuming that they know how to use my computer. But with a magazine or a book, you hand it over, you point your finger on the place that they should begin reading, and whammo! Your information has been shared!

Mentioning hurricanes in my previous paragraph prompted this perfect example: There's nothing but junk all over the southeast right now. Knowing how to turn junk into things like nails and hammerheads and axe blades and so forth is fairly valuable knowledge in the midst of a terrible disaster, no?

just my $0.02.

Re:This is a tough format.

[HeyLaughingBoy]

Knowing how to turn junk into things like nails and hammerheads and axe blades and so forth is fairly valuable knowledge in the midst of a terrible disaster, no?

No, because it's still easier to go to the next county/state and find a hardware store ... and that is why I think the magazine will fail.

I just surfed over here from Nuts & Volts (interested parties can figure out the URL and hopefully avoid the /. effect without a link). N&V is a hardware hobbyist magazine that's beginner oriented. At the other end of the scale is Ciarcia's Circuit Cellar (of Byte mag fame). At one time or another I have subscribed to both and read many more. But they are just about the only hardware hobby magazines left. Why? The market is shrinking faster and faster. It is now so easy to get interesting things off the shelf cheaply that formerly were expensive or had to be custom built that there is little incentive for the average curious person to even become interested in building things.The barrier to entry has become so high that most won't bother when they can go write code instead.

Same reason Heathkit went out of business: the things they offered as kits became cheaper to buy complete and with warranty at the local Circuit City.

I like the concept of experimentation and building my own stuff -- that's why I have a basement full of electronics parts and tools, but I don't think this new magazine is going to last more than a year or so.

Re:This is a tough format.

[AJWM]

But they are just about the only hardware hobby magazines left. Why? The market is shrinking faster and faster.

So are the parts -- I pretty much gave up on DIY electronics when everything went to surface mount. I mean, when your PCB has rosin drops on it bigger than the components... ;-)

More seriously, it's like moving up a level of abstraction. Back in the real old days folks wound their own coils, made their own carbon mikes, and potted their own crystals. These days instead of inserting ICs into DIP sockets, it's reprogramming some embedded PC gadgets and networking them in some novel way.

Re:This is a tough format.

[salec]

I am OK with SMT parts (at least with low pin count, SO and PLCC, but alas, they are fading away, too!), but I hate to have to make PCB's for any weekend project I hack. Back in the world of xIP packages, having several 100 mils raster PCBs was (almost) all I needed. I hope someone will start producing next generation universal protoboards, or at least that some packaging standardization allowing pad-array protoPCBs, in the spirit of late '.1" raster' will occur. Right now, there is no spatial quanta, no universal step. Rant over.

As of the "DIY" topic, of course it is insane doing yourself anything you can buy cheaper, but hacking is not about building from ground up (unless it is something nonexistent at the time), it is about modifying that cheap ready made product, or using them as components of something else you are building. i.e. great DIY projects of the past were MP3 players, when there were no comercial ones.

A White-Hat-Hack-zine on paper, nice

[wertarbyte]

Most magazines here (in germany) claiming to be about hacking cover subject like "How to copy ANY CD!" or how to 'hack' your neighbour's WLAN, these magazines seem to aim at 13 year old wannabe-crackers who just discovered this secret hackertool "tracert" with which they can "track and locate" other computers on "T43 n37". I hope that this new magazine will present the term "hacking" in the right light. Well, it'll be hard to receive in germany I guess.

Re:A White-Hat-Hack-zine on paper, nice

[Jo_2521]

You forgot about c't. Though it has less DIY-projects than it did in the past it is still by far the best german computer magazine.

Last DIY I remember was the RFID-Detector a few issues ago.

Re:A White-Hat-Hack-zine on paper, nice

[wertarbyte]

You forgot about c't. Though it has less DIY-projects than it did in the past it is still by far the best german computer magazine.

Sure, I remember the charger modification for the palm 3 cradle. Sadly enough, even the tech level of c't is fading, but still superior to "CHIP" or "PC-Welt".

Re:X10 ads

[Zorilla]

Oh, this is print?

In other news, internet ad agencies that are fed up with popup blockers in the newest generation of web browsers are adopting technology originating from children's popout books in their new campaign for traditional magazine advertising.

DIY Tricorder

[Cpt_Kirks]

Using Pic and BasicX microcontrollers and various sensors (RF, Chem, Rad, etc.). Add a nice graphics LCD, and a SD memory slot. (All of this is available now)

My "Mark I" should be operational soon. Maybe I will do a write up for "Make"...

Re:DIY Tricorder

[Simonetta]

This is not exactly sardonic. The microcontroller performance/price ratio has risen greatly over the past few years. But it hasn't risen as fast as the cost of medical equipment.
It's not uncommon to have 100-to-1 ratios between the price of the electonic parts and sensors and the retail price of specialized medical equipment. It comes from an environment of predatory lawsuits and cost-is-no-object medical insurance coverage. Health care costs are rising insanely in the USA. The only way employers are dealing with it is by not offering medical insurance benefits to their employees, which is not dealing with the issue at all. The Republican/Democrat lawmakers are bought off by the HMOs and the drug companies, and will continue to only vote for legisation that directly benefit the HMOs and drug companies.

When people like you will need medical care in America in the future, the options will be to take a trip to another country and buy treatment at a much less cost than America, or use black-market treatments, medicines, and medical equipment that has not passed US FDA certification. DIY stuff.

Black market medical equipment will be one hot fast-growing market for electronic developers and technicians in the next twenty years, simply due to the tens of millions of people thrown off the health insurance rolls. It will be necessary to develop an illegal, but parallel, FDA to ensure that this black-market equipment is reasonablely safe and reliable.

Networks in medical electronic schematics, software, sensors, and parts will spring up in P2P formats. Like the P2P music file-sharers, they will be completely illegal. And, like the music sharers, they will be completely necessary and fill the vital social function of providing a market for industries that have painted themselves into a corner through their own greed and stupidity.

Re:DIY Tricorder

[Cpt_Kirks]

The display is a no-brainer. The BasicX can do straight serial out to the LCD.

Re:DIY Tricorder

[skaffen42]

Fuck, can't figure out if that was a very insightfull comment or if you have been reading too much William Gibson...

Unfortunately I suspect you might be right. I have considered medical tourism a couple of times, and actually know a couple who fly from Seattle to South Africa for any serious medical/dental work. Even with the cost of the flights, they still save money, have excellent medical care and get to have a vacation at the same time.

I guess this should also serve as a wakeup call for all the guys in the medical profession. It isn't just IT jobs that can be outsourced...

Re:DIY Tricorder

[david.given]

It will be necessary to develop an illegal, but parallel, FDA to ensure that this black-market equipment is reasonablely safe and reliable.

Actually, these already exist: other countries. Pretty much every country has its own equivalent of the FDA. While I probably wouldn't trust equipment that had only been certified by Tibet or Iran, I would trust equipment that had been certified by Canada, Europe, or Australia, say.

Plus, because it's now all completely legal, it's a hell of a lot easier to get hold of. You might have trouble getting it through US Customs' labynthine import laws unless you can persuade them that the equipment's not for medical use, but the vendors would be more than happy to sell it to you, if you had the money...

Re:DIY Tricorder

[baywulf]

I had long had plans for doing this too. Make my own tricorder gadget. What kind of sensors have to gotten? I already have the experience with microcontrollers but have to figure out the analog sensors better.

Re:DIY Tricorder

[Cpt_Kirks]

There are so many choices when it comes to sensors: RF detector, frequency counter, radiation detector, gas sensors, IR motion detector, meteorological sensors, GPS...

Re:DIY Tricorder

[Ohreally_factor]

Interesting.

There's been a lot of talk about tort reform some how being this cure for the problems of our healthcare system.

Instead, how about doing away with medical licensing? Or make such licensing optional? That would certainly bring down the cost of medical care! Imagine if your MD had to compete with faith healers, curanderos, practitioners of Chinese medicine? Why should only MDs be allowed to prescribe medicine?

If you're a true libertarian, you'll agree with me. Not necessarily, you skaffen, but anyone reading this who claims to be for a free market.

Re:DIY Tricorder

[Simonetta]

Well I'm a libertarian. How true I don't know since I'm also a 'yellow-dog' Democrat.

And yes I think that we should try doing away with medical licensing. The AMA will always license 'real' doctors, and most insurance companies will only cover them. Increasing the choices will help reduce the costs.

However there is a crisis in USA health care and crisis means trying new things. I believe that there should be no patents on prescription drugs beyond a brief period (maybe one or two years). I believe that all drugs should be legal to buy by any adult. The only exception should be antibiotics, since public health is endangered by the development of resistant stains of diseases that would result from widespread untrained use of antibiotics. But intoxicants? Sure, if you're over 18, buy legally anything. (16 for marijuana cause that's when I first tried it).

Interest High

[mefus]

I'm very interested in such a magazine, but disappointed that they almost inevitably are or become those "gadget" magazines spoken of in the description.

I think the advertisers in such a magazine often end up fighting the reader base and pulling the focus of "cheap and homemade".

Maybe there's a better chance this one will stay focused if O'Reilly is the publisher?

Re:Interest High

[Jeff Duntemann]

As I understand it, "mooks" fall somewhere between the book and magazine business model. (I'm curious where Borders will shelve them!) Print magazines are supported almost entirely by advertising revenue, and thus advertisers have almost literally the power of life and death over them. (I have edited several tech magazines in my career, and lordy, do I understand this or what?) Subscribers have been trained not to pay for print magazines by ridiculous "six free issues!" pitches, so in truth, subscriber revenue can't cover but a fraction of what the magazine costs.

My guess is that Make will come out twice a year and be much thicker than a typical print magazine. It will probably be a thinnish book, and may cost as much as $12 or $15.

As for advertisers, figure the people who sell the raw materials for tinkering: Radio Shack, mail order electronics parts houses, tech book publishers like Lindsay Books, and so on. The revenue from advertisers will bring the retail cover price down below what you'd expect for a tech book.

These are guesses on my part; I have no inside information. But if I were to go back into magazine publishing again, this is how I would do it.

I wish Tim the best of luck, and perhaps I'll be able to contribute articles.

--73--

--Jeff Duntemann K7JPD
Colorado Springs, Colorado

Re:Interest High

[Russ Nelson]

Good guess! They said at OSCON that it will be at most quarterly, and quite thick.
-russ

Ob. Beavis and Butt-head quote

[Zorilla]

Mechanic: "Well, how the hell am I supposed to change the oil if you don't have a car?.....Oh, I get it. You guys are do-it-yourselfers."

Butt-head: "Uhh...Beavis is a do-it-yourselfer."

Tech Books for IT pros no longer profitable?

[Cryofan]

Probably, they now that all the "Learn Programming in N Days" books are no longer such a big profit center, they are turning to the recreational side of technology, like so many former IT professionals who have been laid off....

Re:Tech Books for IT pros no longer profitable?

[fluffybacon]

Probably, they now that all the "Learn Programming in N Days" books are no longer such a big profit center

I thought that Sams published those books.

Re:Tech Books for IT pros no longer profitable?

[iantri]

That's Sams..

O'Reilly publishes the programming books that don't suck.

Re:Tech Books for IT pros no longer profitable?

[biobogonics]

O'Reilly publishes the programming books that don't suck

And who publishes programming magazines that don't suck? The only thing on the newstand that I look at today is Dr. Dobbs and I no longer buy it - it is largely irrelevant to what I do.

I find the professional journals largely unreadable today except for an occasional article in CACM with a practical basis. Sorry, the last time I went to a local ACM meeting, I concluded that ACM stood for "Academic Computer Masturbation".

As for DIY magazines, there once was a magazine called "Circuit Cellar" by the columnist from BYTE (back when *IT* didn't suck).

Re:(full text of article incase of /.'ing)

[Zorilla]

I agree with this guy; carriage returns are overrated.

Please.

[OmegaBlac]

"O'Reilly will begin publishing a new magazine, 'Make,' in early 2005"

Instead of O'Reilly running:

# make Make

maybe they should run:

# apt-get install Make

and it will be here now instead of 2005!

Re:Please.

[darkonc]

# apt-get install Make

I think of apt-get being for prepackaged and (nearly) complete builds.

If you're in the DIY mode, you're more likely to be using Make. Once you have a (semi) complete product then you'd be making it available to the apt-get crowd.

Re:Please.

[/dev/trash]

apt-get? Then we'd not see it til 2008.

I wouldn't buy it...

[ThisNukes4u]

Because half the fun in trying out cool stuff is thinking up the idea yourself, then trying to put your idea into a physical (or binary) representation. This magazine would take out all the fun.

Re:I wouldn't buy it...

[darkonc]

Because half the fun in trying out cool stuff is thinking up the idea yourself, ..... This magazine would take out all the fun.

Not at all.. The magazine lets you see what other people are doing. This gives you some interesting ideas for:
1: Things you might want to do that are (slightly or completely) different
2: Ways of getting unusual things done on a budget not signed by the NSA.

The guys that were the technical advisors to one of the second world war escape movies ("The Great Escape", I think) considered the possibility that it might give future jailers ideas about preventing those same tactics from being used again, then decided that what was most importat was teaching the committment to thinking up ingenious methods and diversions that was most important, while the specific tactics were all but irrelevent.

Re:I wouldn't buy it...

[Jeff DeMaagd]

I think it gives a good "springboard" to your own customizations. Kind of like "that's neat, but with this part like that, it can also perform another function twice as well".

Kind of like software programming, you shouldn't need to write your own kernel now, but it is easy to modify someone else's Linux or BSD kernel work rather than redoing the entire job.

Re:I wouldn't buy it...

[ArsonSmith]

I would see this as a great way to find out if there really are any user serviceable parts within that "No user serviceable parts" item. Motors, cuircit boards, etc... I hope they have an entire section dedicated to letting you know what is in diffrent electronic devices that can be gutted and used in something else.

Re:I wouldn't buy it...

[arose]

This issue: Getting your budget signed by the NSA. Next issue: Do-it-yourself NSA signatures.

make.oreilly.com - previewed

[pjones]

you can see a bit at the o'reilly site in the subject but you can also read quite a bit about Make on the various blog reports of FOO Camp.
At that time, I thought that Make == Popular Mechanics/Electronic + Wired (when Wired wasn't tired). Think of Make as a Mook or a Bagazine.
Here's my blog entry of the presentation at FOO:
The Real Paul Jones - Make = Mook/Bagazine

Just stop it

[ShatteredDream]

Ok MacGuyver, you've already proven that you can make a death ray out of chewing gum, a ford pinto radio antenna and a double A battery, so please stop bragging, it's getting old. We all bow before your higher geek prowess....

Will it be like

[Anonymous Coward]

Ready Made for geeks?

Make is so passe!

[OmegaBlac]

Wake me up when O'Reilly publishes Apt-Get, Emerge, or Pkg-Add. ;)

Forgot to ask my question!

[mefus]

Any other magazines (online or otherwise) like that out there?

Re:Forgot to ask my question!

[LMariachi]

ReadyMade is okay for household stuff, but most of the projects assume very little skill or knowledge on the readers' part so there's a lot of, like, birdfeeders and tissue cozies and stuff. Still, there are some good ideas to be found in there.

Re:Forgot to ask my question!

[LetterJ]

Yeah. ReadyMade is a decent magazine, but is much more oriented to lamps and other "home" projects. Much too oriented to the ultra hip urban art student who would want a table lamp made out of a garage sale sign or a Tide laundry bottle. My home decorating is already taken care of and runs a little more sophisticated than most of their projects. I want to build functional items and I think this new thing is more my pace.

Re:(full text of article incase of /.'ing)

[master0ne]

well if i had realized that when i copy/pasted the carrage returns wernt included, i would have manualy added them, but yes they are, i say we all return our carrage returns!

Obvious suggestion for issue #2

[Zocalo]

One of those digital photoframes to display the pictures from your kitecam. The panoramas... the approaching ground... the horrified expression on the face of a soon to be ex-digicam owner...

RTA - those "gadget" magazines

[StrawberryFrog]

I'm very interested in such a magazine, but disappointed that they almost inevitably are or become those "gadget" magazines

Make is not another one of those "gadget" magazines that feature products on every page. While we like gadgets as much as the next person, we chose to focus on cool things you can do with technology, not just what to buy. Each of us has plenty of new technology at home and in our briefcase, and we'll write about our experience using this technology. What we are most interested in is the knack for making that technology work the way we want it.

Huh...

[josh3736]

This is a magazine that celebrates your right to tweak, hack, and bend any technology to your own will.

Funny, that's not what the good people over at the RIAA/MPAA have been telling me...

Re:Huh...

[/dev/trash]

Music is not really hardware, now is it?

Kite meshes, AP art, Car hacking....

[otis wildflower]

... I presume cool hacks like building wireless mesh networks hoisted on kites would be covered.. Even if the AP equipment is on the ground for power, you could run conductive wire along kitestring as an antenna or as a connection to an antenna on the kite. If it's good enough for the French during WWI it should be good enough for us ;)

Also, how about building Wifi access points into sculptures, picture frames, etc?

Additionally, any hacking into proprietary car systems (CD changer emulation, VAG-COM, etc) to build extensibility into them would be useful. If anyone can point me to the specs on the Traffic Pro CD changer interface I'd be grateful ;)

And of course,

ROBOTS! ROBOTS! ROBOTS!

Re:Kite aerial photography

[kingkade]

I have a suggestion for you: make sense more often.

stay-alert-and-keep-your-soldering-iron-handy

[John Hasler]

Only my soldering iron? What about my cutting torch and my drill press?

Lego Mindstorms programming via Applescript

[lazylion]

..also, I'd love to get into
(1) J2ME/MIDP development on Mac OS X
(2) hardware modifications to mobile phones (simple mods! Like hooking up a digital voice recorder to a small microcontroller and a phone to make it automatically call me. or hooking up an RS-2332 GPS to a phone to make a portable location transponder. The trouble is (and the reason we'd need a magazine) the companies that supply this stuff won't just give it out to mere persons like me. Hopefully the magazine can get through that first tough layer of salesworms so we can actually get interesting chips and prototyping boards like in the olden days before DirectTV starting suing anybody who owned a souldering iron.

Re:what they should cover.

[Zorilla]

How about the bottom of my birdcage?

Damn, it was a challenge to be a messy slob before. Now we have to compete with budgies that post to Slashdot!

don't forget the legal section

[v1]

Since the gov't seems bound and determined to make any form of hardware hacks illegal, they may as well have a monthly column on the state of affairs on the DMCA and all that other crap they're trying to pass.

Reminds me of that movie where ppl buy 'consumer goods', then take them home and put them down a chute. You can buy it, they want you to buy it, but you can't DO anything with it.

Idiots.

Re:don't forget the legal section

[Alsee]

Yes, I can think of topics for at least three consecutive issues. One on the DMCA, one on the Broadcast Flag, and one on the Audio Home Recording Act. Each and every one of those makes one or another project illegal.

-

Build-it-yourself speakers?

[brxndxn]

My buddy and I build a HT subwoofer on our own and it turned out pretty amazing. It was very powerful and very tight. We paid about $200 for the materials and it turned out about as good as a $1000 subwoofer.

There are lots of ways to build speakers, but they are more complicated because the sound quality depends a lot about the box that they're in. Perhaps this magazine can have a few DIY templates for speakers boxes, crossover wiring, and things like that.

DIY CAM Lathe!

[carcosa30]

O'Reilly-- you must cover the Gingery Lathe!

Gingery lathes are professional quality machine tools you make yourself. Not from parts. You build a furnace out of concrete and sand, you melt the aluminum, you sand-cast the basic parts. Then you use the skeleton of the lathe to machine the rest of the parts out of steel.

There are also people out there who have turned-- no pun intended-- turned gingery lathes into CAM gingery lathes.

BTW if gingery lathes have not been on slashdot before, they certainly deserve to be. More than, say, the Japanese guy who made his own Battle Angel Alita realdoll out of sushi-rice. IMO.

Re:DIY CAM Lathe!

[Seraphim_72]

Wish I had mod points - good one :)

Re:DIY CAM Lathe!

[Cpt_Kirks]

Yeah, Lindsay has a ton of cool books. Everything from "The Impoverished Radio Experimenter" to "DIY Embalming" (I'm not kidding).

Lots of metal working stuff and old books on interesting subjects.

Re:(full text of article incase of /.'ing)

[operagost]

Use the Preview button next time. And plain old text mode.

keeping the ghost in your shell

[neuraloverload]

they should run a project with the future in mind. an envelope that reduces the backscatter of rfid transmitters from one's person to the street. this would (hopefully) allow a person to walk down a busy street of vending machines and storefronts with out becoming a target for overwhelming advertising directed at you and your tastes, as displayed by commercial tracking of spending habits collected via rfid. a handy addition at a later date would be to become your favourite celebrities rfid "ghost" and feel like for a day as you wander by automated greetings and advertising.

Re:keeping the ghost in your shell

[Cpt_Kirks]

Think "tin foil suit" to go with your hat.

RFID jammers are already being discussed (and maybe produced).

Lots of projects to do

[strider3700]

This is something that I'd be all over.

I've just finished building a projector out of a LCD some lenses and a very bright lightbulb. Got the plans from www.lumenlab.com and I have to say it works amazingly well.

Next project is getting mythTV or Freevo working with my hauppage under linux to give me TV on the new projector(It was plug and play under windows but I can't stand 2000 anymore)

After that I'll be using the serial port on my motorola cable box to let the PVR change channels on the cable box. At that point I don't know where to go with my media center. Maybe remote PC's to let me access the backend from all the rooms in the house?

Now as for the magazine I'd love to see a nice big how two on creating my own speakers, even if it is just a build a box and plug the parts in I'm curious if this can be done cheaper then buying the nice ones at a store. Home made amplifiers would be cool as well.

Getting away from my media viewing, I'd love to see articles on wiring up houses. Temp sensors in every room/area, on the water pipes. A way to monitor electric usage on every circuit. Door/Window open/closed monitoring... All linked back to a PC with some nice logging software to keep track of whats going on in the house.

There are tons of other things I'd love to have but can't afford so I'm forced to build them. The difficult part for the magazine is going to be how difficult some of them are. Using one project to develop the skills needed for the next is a great way to learn but if you jump in to the magazine part way though you could end up stuck. If they don't gradually get harded the long term readers will be bored.

What should they cover?

[Anonymous Coward]

The first issue will focus on kite aerial photography." Any suggestions for what they should cover?

Good techniques to photograph HOT BABES, of course!

Re:What should they cover?

[AndroidCat]

"The first issue will focus on kite aerial photography."

What should they cover? Quite a lot from up there. Hey, I can see your house from here!

Wired House, Wired Car

[Duke Machesne]

I want to see hacks for things like dashboard-console mp3 servers running out of the trunk on the existing alternator,

how to make my computer trick my thermostat into thinking it's a full-fledged climate control system,

how to make an uber-scary AI haunted house at halloween,

how to make a creepy surveillance systems that automatically close the storm shutters and say nasty things to intruders...

I'm envisioning Martha Stuart meets Kevin Mitnick

Re:Wired House, Wired Car

[eakerin]

I want to see hacks for things like dashboard-console mp3 servers running out of the trunk on the existing alternator,

People have done this for years now. I've had an mp3 player in my car for going on 7 years now.

My first version was a full PC, and I used a 140 watt inverter to connect it up to the car power.

Then I got a Jeep Wrangler, and didn't have room to put it in there like that anymore. So I bought an embedded systems board off ebay that ran off of 5v. I then built a 5v linear power supply, that I used to power it. I cable tied it behind the dash board.

The latest incarnation is a new board that is smaller, and faster, and much more expensive. I bought a 12v Switching power supply to power it now, I can run it all night, and it won't kill my battery. To mount it this time I welded up a nice bracket that mounts it behind the dash much more securely. I also use a flash drive to store the MP3 files. There are no moving parts in this incarnation at all.

My original version used a sawed off keyboard to control it (just the number pad). Later, I added the ability to use an Infra-red remote using LIRC.

2 months ago I re-wrote the code completely from scratch, now I can write plugins to decode the music, and I added OGG Vorbis support, in addition to MP3. I also switched the embedded OS from a stripped down redhat 7.x to Busybox and uclibc.

All in all, it's been a fun project. But nowadays when I tell people I have an mp3 player in my car it dosn't have the same effect. Time to find a cool new project.

Re:Wired House, Wired Car

[R2.0]

I can't help with the other two, but:

"how to make my computer trick my thermostat into thinking it's a full-fledged climate control system,"

http://diy-zoning.sourceforge.net/

"how to make an uber-scary AI haunted house at halloween,"

http://markbutler.8m.com/monsterlist.htm

That being said, the magazine still sounds cool.

Re:Wired House, Wired Car

[unitron]

"I'm envisioning Martha Stuart meets Kevin Mitnick"

Why? Are you expecting Kevin to violate parole and get sent back inside?

Steve Ciarcia

[fermion]

This kind of reminds me of the Circuit Cellar articles that used to appear in Byte and have since become a full magazine. I know that Steve has long since left control, but last I checked, and since I am off doing other things I do not read it regularly, it still seems to a good magazine to get project ideas.

Of course these articles appeared in the day when it made much more sense to build your own IC board, solder your own components, and build your own cable. Today one 'builds' a computer by plugging off the shelf components together and downloaded software and drivers. If the current complaints from the DIY crowd are any indications, few people even think to write their own drivers. I wonder if the articles in Make will teach the readers interesting concepts and techniques, or merely provide a step by step on making cool toys.

So my questions for this magazine are two. First, given that Steve Ciarcia showing us how to build cool technology 20 years ago, how is Make the First. For instance, the current issue og Circuit Cellar talks about building a rover. Second, O'Reilly has wonderful editors that keep errors to below industry average, but the quality of the authors vary widely. For books that is fine. One can pick a choose. But a magazine requires a much tighter control. Can O'Reilly find enough authors and good ideas?

Re:Steve Ciarcia

[Gordonjcp]

I miss Byte, I really do. When I was but a spotty student at RGIT, I used to spend hours in the library reading very old back issues of Byte (going back to the late 70s IIRC). Whole articles devoted to building your own 32x24 character tv display, and stuff. Brilliant.

There used to be a few good magazines like Hobby Electronics, and Electronics Today International, but HE folded and the last issue of ETI I saw was ages ago, when the "construction" articles were pretty much all about plugging *this* ready-made microcontroller development board into *that* ready-made LCD controller, then programming it from your Windows PC. Dull dull dull. All this from the same magazine that published a 4-part article on constructing a very nice little analogue monosynth, in the late 70s. Shame really.

Re:Steve Ciarcia

[John Miles]

Nuts & Volts is pretty decent nowadays, going by the last couple of copies I've bought from the newsstand. I'm thinking it might almost be worth subscribing to.

Re:Steve Ciarcia

[FFFish]

Y'know, there's probably a great website to be had by seeking out the old Byte magazine Circuit Cellar columns and putting them online. All the more great if you were to check parts availability and update anything that would be difficult/expensive to do now.

10 books for $20 bucks

[BoldAC]

Both of them are confusing sometimes...
Both of them are popular...

Just for reference, we are talking about this O'Reilly, not this O'Reilly.

(grin)

Really though, get your boss to get you a subscription to Safari O'Reilly. You get access to any 10 O'Reilly books you want each month for less than $20. We've quit buying dead trees... and we just all use this now as our library.

Re:10 books for $20 bucks

[BoldAC]

While that might be an excellent way to advance your personal knowledge, a bunch of torrent downloads is probably not something you want linked to your business account/computer.

$20 a month gives you a lot of knowledge... and you can write it off as a business expense.

Re:10 books for $20 bucks

[shadowkoder]

I just went to that link, and I noticed in the top right corner it said "Welcome Rochester Institute of Technology" (my univ). Umm ... wow. If I understand this right, RIT pays for this service so I do not have to buy a book from them if I'm willing to forgo the benefits of the dead-tree version. I wonder how many other univ's have deal like this (and students who dont know about it) ?

Re:10 books for $20 bucks

[theonetruekeebler]

If printed copies of these books average $30 each, the break-even point on this subscription service is 15 months. Even in this industry, not very many things worth writing a whole book about are revised that often, not to the point that 16 month-old books are worthless. So as fascinating as this concept is, and as handy as search features and revised-as-needed reference material can be, this smells like a losing proposition for users. Books are meant to be owned, not rented.

I'm taking a tech writing course this term, and the "book" is an on-line thingy that I pay $40 for the privilege of using for a year. Shame I wouldn't mind being a tech writer when I grow up, because instead of having something on my shelf I can use every day for ten years, I have to spend $400 for access to the same information for the same decade.

Re:10 books for $20 bucks

[chrismtb]

Worcester Polytechnic Institute (my school) does the same thing, they have paid for a subscription that is good for anyone with an on-campus ip address (including proxy). RIT probably subscribes to a ton of online subscriptions like WPI does and also like WPI, they probably don't do a good enough job of letting students know about these valuable resources.

Re:10 books for $20 bucks

[wed128]

just checked...PSU does!

Re:10 books for $20 bucks

[gregfortune]

Ummm, so buy the paper copy instead? The advantages of having an electronic copy are pretty compelling and the choice is never a bad thing.. I think I'll just continue to mix and match as needed.

Re:10 books for $20 bucks

[Rinikusu]

Well, the big difference is the fact that it's printed on paper. I know that sounds trite, but even as a person who "grew up" on the electronic medium, I still cannot get to grips on e-books. There's just something uncomfortable about trying to read documentation online. I much prefer dead trees, even at the added expense (not to mention storage.. 2 6' bookshelves full of mostly outdated tech manuals). :(

Hell, I just bought the Blender 2.3 guide even though I have it "free" on my harddrive. Even with dual 21" monitors, I find it cumbersome to have documentation open in one while working on the other...

Re:10 books for $20 bucks

[macdaddy]

I don't want Safari quite frankly. What I want is for O'Reilly's to include a HTML/PDF version of the book inside the actual dead tree version. I don't want to haul 5 books back and forth from home to work every day and I'm sure as hell not going to buy two sets of the same damned books. I should be able to get an electronic copy to benefit me when I'm away from my dead tree racks. Safari just doesn't cut it. I need more.

Re:10 books for $20 bucks

[16K Ram Pack]

It's a tricky balance. Personally, I use Safari and love it.

There's 3 levels of learning to me:-

Introduction. Book, definitely. Getting to know a subject like a new language.

Odd gaps in knowledge. Articles/newsgroups.

Learning how to do something with a language that you've never done before. This is where Safari works for me. I know C#, but didn't know how to do something with XML datasets. But the articles were a bit vague or covered one small part of it. So, I checked out the book, read the chapters, got going on it and then put it back. 2 weeks of checking out.

It's not just the cost for me - I just don't have space for more giant size books.

Re:10 books for $20 bucks

[16K Ram Pack]

Books are meant to be owned, not rented.

That depends, really.

I have bought books in the past for a subject, and really they've collected a lot of dust. Once I have enough knowledge on a language, online articles and things like Safari are more useful.

obviously

[fuck_this_shit]

"The first issue will focus on kite aerial photography." Any suggestions for what they should cover?" Sure, my hot neighbour when she's tanning nude in her garden.

Circuit Cellar

[gaj]

This sounds link a simpler version of Circuit Cellar, brought to us by that master of "programming in solder", Steve Ciarcia. For those of you too young (or too new to geekdom, anyway), Steve wrote a column for Byte back before it became just a weak PC Magazine clone.

Circuit Cellar does range into more advaced electronic design, but the've done lots of fun and approachable stuff over the years. Back in the early days they did a whole series on making rockets with 2 liter bottles.

Re:Circuit Cellar

[jthayden]

"Back in the early days they did a whole series on making rockets with 2 liter bottles"

We did this back in high school physics class and since it was raining we fired them down the hall. Extra credit points to the distance winner. I didn't win that but I did hit my english teacher. I think I won in the long run.

Re:Circuit Cellar

[cyclocommuter]

Yeah, I found an article in Circuit Cellar very helpful when I was building a prototype application that sends car engine parameters to my PDA. It was that article that pointed me to Muliplex Engineering in California where I was able to buy a multiplexer which enabled me to hook up the PDA to the car computer via a serial cable.

One thing I would like to do next is to turn my PDA or computer into a cyclocomputer hooked up to my stationary bike. The problem is I could not find a circuit diagram for a magnetic sensor on the bike's wheel which will send signals to the PDA via the serial or USB bus. Why build instead of buy a $20 cyclocomputer? Because I can get all the information and then put it into a real database (MySQL) automatically which will help me in my training. Maybe a future article on the new magazine will give some guidance.

While I am at it, perhaps there could also be an article on how I can intercept wireless transmissions from my heart rate monitor so I can also collate the same info into the database. Maybe intercepting wirless communications between these small embedded devices is the key... my current cyclocomputer is wireless and so is the Polar heart rate monitor I am using. Only problem is these might be in violation of some obscure DRM I am not aware of.

Headphone Amplifiers

[HeelToe]

Ok, maybe this is over the top geeky, but I built a solid state headphone amp for http://www.headwize.com/ has tons of info, but it would be neat to see this geeky pursuit put in print with good research and recommendations.

Anyway, it's amazing what a difference in sound quality a headphone amp can make. As a magazine wanting to help you get the most out of your tech at home and elsewhere, I think headphone amps qualify.

Re:Headphone Amplifiers

[RiffRafff]

Yes, I second your headphone amp recommendation. I just bought a set of Grado's and it's amazing how much better everything sounds (troubling, too: you can really hear the flaws in mp3s...I've pretty much gone back to CD's, although .ogg files still sound great). Anyway, next on my list is building a "mint tin" headphone amp.

Re:Headphone Amplifiers

[HeelToe]

This is actually what I built - it fits in an Altoids-sized mint tin. I had a wall-wart for it at work, though now that I'm telecommuting, I may just build a very nice solid-state amp that runs off mains - I'm thinking separate circuitry from power to output. Not sure how to do the volume control in a synchronized way, though. Perhaps a dual pot that is physically synchronized on one knob.

Re:Headphone Amplifiers

[RiffRafff]

I plan on using a dual (ganged) pot, but I'd like to find one with a switch on the end of it (to eliminate the separate on/off switch). I can find pots with switches for single pots, but haven't found one for duals. :-/

Um..not to sound stupid, but....

[Generalisimo Zang]

I'd actually be interested in something like that, and I know others would be too.

Sometimes people forget that not everyone is endowed at birth with immense knowledge (like the parent poster apparently was :P ), and that many people would appreciate something that walks them through the simple first steps of new concepts.

What really tees me off about a lot of tutorials and manuals, is how they'll go into great detail on the basic principles (great), and they go into great detail on solutions to intermediate and advanced level concepts (again, great), but they spend a tiny ammount of time quickly glossing over the first few steps to actually get something done (arrrghh!).

It's sort of like getting some piece of furniture home from Ikea, and discovering that the pictographic instruction sheet had been replaced by a journeyman carpenter's course book.

Yeah yeah, it's great to be able to see how to shingle a roof and build drywall... but I just want to know how to put friggin Tab A into Tab B so my Ikea bookcase doesn't collapse when I set it up.

So, please don't disparage anyone who's going to actually step up to the plate and provide good solid basic knowledge to people who may not have been exposed to it in a way that they could actually USE it before.

Basic knowledge is a good thing... except for those of you who were born knowing everything :|

Suggestion Box

[mod_parent_down]

I've been wanting to build my own compiler-farm using Linux boxes and distcc. Now that computers are so silly cheap, it's looks like a good idea, and probably other people around here have had the same inkling.

But it's still too much money for me to be the one to go make all the first-timer mistakes and discover all the hidden costs. I guess that's precisely the reason most DIYers would buy a magazine like this.

MacGyver

[cronius]

I really hope they get MacGyver to write some articles, I already got a Swiss Army Knife and a roll of duct tape standing by.

nice mosaics from kite-aerial photography

[keshto]

and this guy did this with a real cheapo camera

missing link for the kite photography

[keshto]

http://www.ai.mit.edu/people/wtf/kite.html

When computers aren't fun anymore

[IGnatius T Foobar]

Remember the 1970's (and earlier)? People were into all sorts of geek DIY activities. Building your own electronic devices, photography with home darkrooms, mechanical stuff, theater/stage tech ... there were a lot of hobbies that are now a shadow of their former selves because the advent of personal computing sucked up all the mindshare.

That trend almost reversed itself in the 1990's, when computers became boring. A vast wasteland of Intel and Microsoft. Nothing fun there. But then Linux and Open Source came along and re-kindled geeks' love for computing again. There's undeniable geek fun in the DIY aspect of open source hacking. (And it's great that we also have non-DIY products available now for the non-geeks.)

My prediction (which I hope never comes true) is that if Microsoft's DRM dystopia becomes reality and we can't do open source anymore, geeks will scramble away from computing in large numbers, and we'll see a resurgence of interest in DIY hobbies.

connect my house

[bvdbos]

There's tons of things i'd like to do if only i'd know how, for instance:

* connect my thermostate to my server so I can turn the heating on when I leave work

* feed my rabbits through a remote system (so I can go on holiday and feed them by browsing to their own server)

* create a grey-water system which tracks and records waterusage, rainfall, humidity of the gardensoil etc

* remote-control the lights in house

* remote-control my vcr/tivo

* put solar-energy panels on my roof and track and record energy-usage and delivered energy

* program my coffee-machine so there is coffee when I wake up or arrive home

mainly, connect everything in my house to a server with a web-interface and voicerecognition, come to think about it

Re:connect my house

[DBCooper]

Try MisterHouse.

Focus on old tech

[Seraphim_72]

Dont give me projects that require the latest and the greatest. If I have to spend $300 to save $299 it isn't worth my time - though it may be really fun. If it costs $1200 - even if it involves sex it isn't going to be that fun. For example I have two old b/w gameboys lying about - tell me how to port the screens to my computer. I have tons of old hardware - tell me how to solder in flash ram from a thumbdrive into an old digital camera. Provide How-To's to the how to's, not everyone was born witha soldering iron in one hand and a Bridgeport in the other. Gimme anything that an old stick of RAM is good for. Or an old scanner, or zip drive. Have a case mod corner - I don't case mod at all - but I find them neet to look at. Starting in #3 start a basic course, a mid and advance course in electronics. Have something that involves gun powder, and another that involves a catapult. .Get feature articles about cool stuff people have done, and &exactly& how they did them. Get advertisers that supply stuff - for example, short of Radio Shack I know of no place that will sell me a resistor - get me some adverts that will. Get that "Dark Tipster" guy from Tech TV to write a column. There, hell, do you guys need any actual help? Call me.

Sera

Re:Focus on old tech

[bitflip]

short of Radio Shack I know of no place that will sell me a resistor

You may not have one in your town, but Fry's sells resistors, and just about any other itty-bitty electrical component you might need.

Re:Focus on old tech

[plcurechax]

Your idea of using surplus is only good is you have whatever said surplus already laying around. I don't happen to have any of the old parts you mention (gameboys, zip drives, scanner, etc.) lying around, or you have a large enough surplus supply (electronic goldmine, ocean state electronics, ebay but prices get whacked quickly) on the market.

Experimenting with cheap 8-bit microcontrollers such as Microchip's PIC or Atmel's AVRs is quite cheap, and typically all you need is a chip and one (really cheap if want) device - a programmer to transfer the (binary/hex) programs from your PC to the microcontroller's flash memory.

You will quickly outgrow Radio Shack unless you need a part right now and you don't have the right one in your own stock pile, often referred to as a "junk box" regardless of actual physical size. You should be getting the free catalogs (or CDs) from Digikey, Mouser, Newark, and Jameco. These all have usable online ordering systems and reasonable minimum order & shipping fees. UK geeks check G3SEK's UK Component and Tool Suppliers web page.

Many useful projects can be made for less than $100 even if you need to buy all the parts. After you build a collection of common parts (common resistors, capacitor values, PIC 16F628, AVR AT90S2313, red & green LEDs, 2N2222A, 2N3904, 2N3906, 2N4401, 2N4403, 2N4416, 4N25, 1N4148, 1N4001, 1N4007, etc.) and tools this cost will go down.

The real question is do they assume a general audience or do they assume a "knowledgeable user" is their target market? If the stuff is purely "cookbook" & kit building (AmQRP kits as an example) with little or no encouragement (and knowledge transfer) for the average Make reader to explore and expand it won't survive IMHO. BTW AmQRP kits on their own are pretty limited at expanding your knowledge, but combined with the AMQRP Homebrewer magazine and Conference Proceedings they do teach a lot. There is also the QRP-L mailing list which is very useful for technical questions (and has a rich archive)

I think it should be what Nuts and Volts magazine tries to be, but without the "legacy" dead weight and filler articles. A gentler introduction to most of the Circuit Cellar type stuff.

If people think this will recreate the Homebrew Computer Club, I expect they will be mistaken, but if you expect it to awaken the curiousity and encourage youth to learn about electronics, then I hope it is a brillent success.

In the end, I am curious and not quite sure what to expect of Make. It could be really lame if all it ends up being is computer geeks pretending to be electronic engineers (or electronic hobbyists). I hope that at least 10% of it expands what I know, which is more than I can say of books like Hardware Hacking Projects for Geeks (O'Reilly) and Hardware Hacking: Have Fun While Voiding Your Warranty. I am more interested in reading stuff like Hacking the Xbox (An Introduction to Reverse Engineering) by Andrew "bunnie" Huang which starts simple but gets into FPGAs and reverse engineering.

Re:Focus on old tech

[rfarma5]

I agree with your ideas, except for getting the "Dark Tipper" or whatever Kevin Rose calls himself now. He may know something, but his "super cool hacking tips" generally are nothing more than some simple social engineering or a windows "hacking" utility download. Don't even get me started on the screensavers since TechTV merged with G4 (ugh)... But I digress.

I truly hope this magazine makes it (no-pun intended) and if you are interested, be sure to check out the newsletter where they'll send you more information. With any luck this will turn out to be a usefull magazine in todays world where "PC Magazine" seems to dominate the bookstores.

I got an idea

[segfault7375]

This is a magazine that celebrates your right to tweak, hack, and bend any technology to your own will.... [snip] ...Any suggestions for what they should cover?

How about where to hire a good lawyer that knows how to defend against DMCA lawusuits?

Wireless projects are a good start

[camperslo]

How to send video back from a kite over 802.11 is a good start. I'd like to see similar projects for remote controlled planes. Sending the control signals up on the same wireless link is a logical extension.

I'd like to see other wireless related projects, like some of the things that have been covered by http://tv.seattlewireless.net/ - making antennas, community access points with cheap hardware and free software etc.

Details of simple hacks (hardware and software) would be great to fill in between the big articles. Show me how to add an external antenna to my Airport Express. Show me how power it from 12 Volts in the car without adding an inverter.

It's probably of too limited appeal, but I'd like to see a simple add-on I could use with old surplus 20" fixed-frequency workstation monitors to give them a shut-down sleep mode. It'd be something that looks at the video signal and kills power with a triac.

I'd like to see a project showing how to convert a power supply from an old PC into a general-purpose bench supply. (Perhaps some kind of diode/capacitor voltage multiplier on the coil for the 5 Volt circuit to make a higher current 12 Volt output. It might be easier to add a new winding though hmmmm...)

I'd enjoy seeing various PVR (personal video recorder) projects... how about one with an analog/HDTV tuner that works with Linux, and has a slick version for OS X too? (I expect both to be able to send audio out to an Airport Express)

Projects based on software that'll let us take analog audio and other sources and stream it out to an Airport Express would be fun in general.

How about something that'll let me send multiple streams from analog and HDTV off-air and broadcast them from a hilltop with 802.11b/g for multiple people to receive?

How about a homemade subwoofer with motion-sensing feedback from the cone to the amplifier driving it. That'd flatten frequency response while reducing distortion and box-effects.

How about modifications to consumer appliances to reduce their energy consumption when they're "off"?

How about a collection of Voice over IP telephony projects?

How about a framework for a P2P open-source owned-by-nobody global community-access TV network?

How about noise-cancelling electronics to add to old headphones so I can use my woodworking tools in comfort?

How about a collection of software tools and hardware hacks that can be adapted for mechanical control of all sorts of things? If someone makes a radio-controlled flying chainsaw, please make the link secure. Thank you!

Re:Wireless projects are a good start

[Doc Ruby]

Those are all terrific geek must-have projects. Even packaged commercial versions would be great, and commercial communities with DIY alternatives would be even better. But I wonder about the kite network: aren't kites physically required to be tethered by a wire? Steerable ones seem to all require two wires. That screams "network" to me, and could be much smaller and lighter. Has no one demonstrated that? WiFi seems much more useful for planes, which can also use the wide outdoor range in their unobstructed skies.

Please do an article on toilets!!

[Helpadingoatemybaby]

I've been working for some time now on hacking my toilet. Basically some previous person had installed a "low flush system" into a high flush toilet which is very, very bad for pressure. Those who have this "serpent" configuration will sympathize.

So I've been working on "improving" the toilet with various weights and countermeasures so that the water will submerge the low flush system but not overfill the tank.

If you look at how a toilet is designed, you'll see it's actually quite brilliant. Most designs use the water itself as a counterweight to keep the valve open -- quite ingenious actually. But this only works if the tank is exerting the right pressure, otherwise as soon as you lift the handle, the valve closes.

And for those of us with four or five death logs sticking six inches past the rim it's either hack the toilet or use the plunger as a club -- "Die! Die! Die! Why! Won't! You! Go! Down!"

Anyway, that's what I'D like to see. Umm... because of my girlfriend. (*cough*)

Re:Please do an article on toilets!!

[hacker]

The solution to this, of course, is to flush WHILE you're on the toilet, as well as AFTER you're done with your duty there. Sure, it uses a bit more water, but a heck of a lot less than when you clog the toilet and have to flush 3, 4, 5 times to get that pile down the pipe.

Re:Please do an article on toilets!!

[shplorb]

I don't know about you, but if I've got a boris that won't flush after a few full-flushes I go and grab a 10L bucket from the shed, fill it with water and pour it all in the bowl from a standing height. Never fails, and is certainly nicer than mashing it up with a plunger.

Fortunately though, the need to do so is a rare event.

"Any suggestions?" Yeah, how to hack Fritz

[RiffRafff]

A how-to guide for hacking the TCPA's "Fritz" chip would make for a great DIY article.

Disclaimer

[*Pres*]

Very important: they should put a huge disclaimer on the first page about voiding warranties, stuff blowing up, no guarantees, etc.

Re:Disclaimer

[sexecutioner]

Discaimers are lame lame lame!!!

They probably need something legally, but put it on the inside or back cover, not on the front!

Cmon guys, what's with this "not my fault" attitude?

Perhaps not

[EmbeddedJanitor]

Popular Mechanics in the 1960s etc was very much an interesting HOW-TO type mag, unlike the glossy car-wax-commercial thing it is now. Many people browse these mags on an infomercial basis, just interested in how stuff works and what they can do with things without actually ever getting around to do stuff oneself.

Sign me up!

Transactor Magazine

[klyde256]

This sounds somewhat like Transactor Magazine from the early 80s for C= based computers. All kinds of programming and hardware hacks to help you get the most out of technology. I miss that style of hacking, and hope this will provide something along those lines. I still keep my copy of the Innerspace Anthology around, just for the translations, formulas and equasions in the back.

Hustler and Make are complementary

[tunabomber]

Something tells me that Make won't be as capable of covering the same DIY tasks that Hustler walks you through:

birdboy:~ tunabomber$ make love
make: *** No rule to make target `love'. Stop.

Re:DIY Lathe! and everything else...

[carcosa30]

I already know about the books, and I have all of the ones associated with home machining. I want this awesomeness to be shared with fellow geeks.

Re:DIY Lathe! and everything else...

[Saeger]

I like the "how to bootstrap civilization again if you had to" aspect of it. :)

--

Electronic Kits?

[TrentL]

Speaking of hobbies, I want to lean more about electronics and circuit theory. Does anyone recommend specific learning kits? I've seen some at Radio Shack and other places. I don't have any place to solder and I don't want to electrocute myself, so I'd like to start out with some kind of kit.

Re:Electronic Kits?

[fliptout]

I'm a bit peeved, as I just wrote you a long response that was lost when i tried to preview, but no problem ;)

Anyways, these are not kits, but some books that can help you get on your way: any electronics books written by Forest M. Mims III, which you might still be able to find at Radio Shack. To learn about digital electronic theory, Bebop to the Boolean Boogie by Max Maxfield explains things in an accessible manner.

You may want to pick up a few electronic components to get yourself started. Carbon film resisters of various values, various capacitors, a prototype board, some LEDs, a multimeter, a logic probe, a DC power supply, a voltage regulator chip (7805) if your power supply does not supply 5 volts, some logic ICs like the 7400, 7404.. AND, NAND, OR, NOR gates

Then figure out how to put stuff together. Get someone to help you out if necessary. Have fun.

YMMV, I'm an electrical engineer now.. I apologize ahead of time if I got the book information wrong- I'm studying abroad in china at the moment and can't see my bookshelf ;)

Re:Electronic Kits?

[TrentL]

Thanks for the info! I looked at that book on Amazon and added it to my bookmarks.

Re:DIY Tricorder s facts are wrong or irrelevant

[cinnamon colbert]

Do you have any documentation to back up yr claim that FDA cfr 21 boosts costs ?, or that consumers would prefer cheaper, less reliable parts ?

In my experinence, many fda rules are the sort of things you would be doing anyway, if you wre producing a quality product . Like, if you are changing the inside of a blood bag, you have to show that the change does not harm the blood. real basic, simple stuff, kinda rare in computer world.

(fade to hospital corridor, surgeion in green coming down the hall to crying family)
SIG: Sorry guys, but that 59 cent electrode we used shored out, and we could not start your kid's heart. Guess we shd have gone with the name brand, but those discount electrodes looked good..
CF member: thats ok doc. we understand how important it is to have compitition in the device field.

OR: when windows fails to load a .mov file,it is bad; when a family member dies because of a software but, it is worse.

As I am sure you know, just to get some circuit boards and a plastic housing and reliable software can add up, and since most med devices are produced in small lots, you cant spread your rnd costs out.

KAP article will probably be half assed

[GoRK]

I have a fear that this magazine will unfortunately be a half-assed regurgitation of other peoples' free how-to's. Like many magazines, they'll probably run a companion website that will provide as much or more value as the print version.

In that light, I am going to go ahead and assume that the Kite Photography article will be about 4 pages of cheap ineffective hacks (somewhat akin to the recent engadget articles). Anyone wanting a serious collection of articles on KAP might consider buying the complete archive of The Aerial Eye, a semiannual publication about KAP that ran for 9 years. It is a fantastic reference for $30.

projects for Make

[HuskyVB]

- Cold fusion - room temperature superconductor - time travel

Beam Robotics

[fireshipjohn]

How about that? Cheap, hackable, ugly and fun...
See http://www.solarbotics.net/library.html
Perfect!

Networked media player

[SysKoll]

My current project involves successive refinements on a networked music player (in my living room) that grabs OGG and MP3 files from a server machine (in my office) and plays them on the stereo. The successive refinements involve cutting down the minimum hardware requirements (pricewise more than MIPS-wise).

Scientific American's Amateur Scientist

[Noksagt]

I will be eager to see this magazine! I was very bummed about the demise of the "Amateur Scientist" column from Scientific American. You can get that wonderful column on a CD (yes, that has my ref id in it) or read recent articles online. The old articles are the best--how to construct electron/proton accelerators & the like.

long forgotten - a BYTE of Steve

[poptones]

What you just described is Steve Ciarcia's Circuit Cellar magazine. It was one of the first online and even offered BBS access to usenet to its members way back when even Playboy had yet to come to the internet. They were my email address for years and the thousands of posts I made to usenet will, I guess, forever linger in the google archive.

Anyway, it seems nobody remembers steve, because I expected to see someone here mention how this magazine looks pretty much like a "mainstream" version of Circuit Cellar. The whole "aerial photography with a kite" thing was done AGES ago in that magazine - as well as helium balloons, hot air balloons, rockets and R/C airplanes, helicopters, and cars (and, I believe I recall, even model trains). And "home control" was the project that got steve started on all this way back when. The magazine often cooperates with manufacturers of chips to sponsor design contests, and some really nice projects have evolved from this.

Very Cool

[Cnik70]

I'll be interested in checking out the first issue. I have always loved their series of books, so, hopefully, thier magazine will be just as good.

DIY Silicon!

[Jamie Lokier]

Yup, it's a dream but some of us are working on making it real: Semiconductor devices made on an individual or small community scale. We're aiming for full-on complex circuits but we'll be very happy when the first transistor works.

One of the stages is indeed a home-made lathe and milling machine, to make some of the vacuum chambers and chemical vessels. Fun stuff :) By the way, thanks Slashdot for pointing me at these books. (This isn't the first article whose comments recommend them).

Is anyone else working on home made silicon? Anyone like the project enough to fund it? :) Go on, you know you want to see Free / Open Source Hardware succeed :-)

-- Jamie

Circuit Cellar

[calidoscope]

As for DIY magazines, there once was a magazine called "Circuit Cellar" by the columnist from BYTE (back when *IT* didn't suck).

Circuit Cellar is still alive and well.

If Make is broader based technology than Circuit Cellar, they may have a chance. Back in the 60's, rags like PopSci, PopMech, MexIllustrated had a very hands on approach (Pop Sci even had some electronics construction projects).

So... it's what Slashdot used to be in print form?

[Trolling4Dollars]

When I first joined Slashdot in 97, a lot of the people here used to be DIYers who actually had a clue about computers and technology. Very few fanboys and the trolls at that time were far more intelligent and creative (GNAA losers can go eat a dick). Unfortunately, since that time Slashdot has slowly degraded into a den of losers who want to identify with so called "geekdom". I'll give you folks a little hint. A true geek is a DIYer. If you can't or haven't achieved that level of grokking computers or technology, then you are not really a classic geek. The only possibly exception is gamer geeks. DIY isn't a necessity in that arena. So... the question about this new O'Reilly mag is: will there be an online version? If so, it might be nice to have forums and journals there so that the last of the geeks can finally jump ship from Slashdot and head over to somewhere better.

Confirm for ASU

[Ndiin]

Confirm this is true for Arizona State University as well! Very nice find!

I'm sure my colleagues and fellow students will appreciate this knowledge.

Thanks for the heads up.

The cover should be . . .

[oakbox]

Something to do with a phone, maybe with a GTE phone van sitting in what looks like someone's back yard.

LCDs, Spectroscopy, X-Ray, Laser, Measuring

[daina]

(1) A general system for interfacing old laptop LCDs to desktop computers.

(2) A simple spectrometer for the near infra-red with a PC interface & open-source software to detect things like benzene in tap water and PAHs in milk.

(3) A (shielded) solid-state x-ray machine with flouroscopy & CCD detection for examining small parts for structural flaws.

(4) A tunable solid-state laser.

(5) A small inductive or external shunt current measuring system that can be housed in an electrical outlet, and that reports current draw via WiFi or Bluetooth or something, so you can plot the currnt draw versus time for every appliance in your home.

Yeah, right.

RFID-like acces to my home

[cra]

I'd like to se a guide of how I could turn the electronic start-blocker (or whatever it's called in english) from a car into a keyless access to my house. Preferably in a way that would let me unlock the door while the key is still in my pocket. Would be mighty handy when I'm loaded with croceries or furniture. :-)

hmm..

[andrewweb]

"This is a magazine that celebrates your right to tweak, hack, and bend any technology to your own will"

Anyone taking any bets then on how long long until either the DMCA or the INDUCE act shuts it down...?

Re:DIY Tricorder s facts are wrong or irrelevant

[darkharlequin]

oh come on. I was billing out at an obscene rate to validate 21cfr part 11 requirements. No documentation except perhaps invoices.

converting a CD audio jukebox to DVD-R?

[alizard]

This is something I've been wondering about for a long time Haven't gone past wondering because I don't have the electronic hardware setup required to build the first one. p Price a 100CD audio jukebox vs a 100 DVD-R data jukebox if you're wondering why I'd be thinking about this.