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O'Reilly's New Magazine for DIY Tech Projects

Posted by michael on from the stay-alert-and-keep-your-soldering-iron-handy dept.

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?

7 of 207 comments (clear)

  1. Also in the first magazine by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    How to create your own DIY Tech Magazine.

  2. Archives by VistaBoy · · Score: 5, Funny

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

  3. In related news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

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

    SCNR

  4. This is a tough format. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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?

    1. Re:This is a tough format. by HeyLaughingBoy · · Score: 5, Interesting
      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.
  5. Re:(full text of article incase of /.'ing) by Zorilla · · Score: 5, Funny

    I agree with this guy; carriage returns are overrated.

    --

    It would be cool if it didn't suck.
  6. Re:DIY Tricorder by Simonetta · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.