hah! MAKE is doing fantastic (i don't run it) - but there are over 200k+ people at maker faire each year, the advertising and print sales are great and *unlike* every other "magazine" MAKE is profitable and not going out of business. maker shed is multi-million dollar business and one of the largest open source hardware providers online. but hey, you have an axe to grind either MAKE, me or becky - it really doesn't matter how well MAKE does. in the DIY space MAKE is tops, you know that.
you're an anonymous commenter on slashdot, talking about what *others* are doing and making on a day-old post - think about that:)
as if anything you say matters. an anonymous comment on slashdot, on a story that's now a day old, you're reading what other people are doing, what other people are building - who is the consumer again, really?:)
we can squeeze maybe one code / one IR LED in to a cufflink, so it wouldn't be a stealth full-version of the tv-b-gone. you could do the sony off code and that's about it.
do you think a DIY publication should "look at the increase in cancer and sterility as a result of always on devices" - even if we had an opinion would anyone want it hear it from us? there's likely more qualified people to be looking at that:)
the open source cufflinks that i mention at the end of the article (and a product i co-designed) have already sold out and i'm guessing will be about $250k of revenue just for those, this isn't counting the earrings and necklaces. while they're meant to be decorative, i think there's a good market for this for companies that get the geek/nerd market who actually love these types of things.
"I'm too weary to look at anything but the RSS feed headline to this article. Is it another link to some horrible Conde Nast ad-story?"
MAKE isn't owned by conde-nast, it's part of oreilly.
the article talks about the failure of SPOT watches and what's changed since then, and why something like an open source hardware watch will probably do ok within a smaller market.
hi, i'm phil, from the video. it wasn't clear that the OSHW movement is making money? the title of presentation and the post has an actual number in it.
i work for adafruit and make magazine - i don't think it makes sense to scan in each company's tax returns, but generally speaking... most/all the companies listed are making money. decent money, many full time employees, benefits, bonuses, profit sharing - great ROI, access to credit and VC. keep in mind they were very kind to share any revenue numbers and over the last couple years there has been a recession, yet all these companies have thrived.
OSHW should be celebrated here on/. - it's a dream come true and many of the people doing it are following their dreams.
it's too bad many of the people here do not have any aspirations "making" anything besides trolly comments on/.
it doesn't matter what tools to make to create open source hardware, the computer you are using isn't 100% open source, so does that mean you can't write open source software?
the gerbers are posted, the schematic and source is posted.
open source hardware means you can make it by using all the things published and commercial use is allowed, it's obvious that ladyada is doing open source hardware - and has for years.
gothmollly, perhaps some might go through life not understanding how everything works and you're free to call them hacks, but all the evidence i have is that people who do the projects in MAKE go on to learn more, understand how things work but they needed to start somewhere.
parents, teachers and kids tell us all the time that MAKE is how they got started in science and engineering, we've been around for 5 years and we're seeing the results now. i can't 100% prove that we're teaching everyone, everything - but there is evidence we are doing some good.
we certainly are not a "buy this" site, magazine or tv show. i don't think we even cover thinkgeek. that said, thinkgeek has some cool kits lately, nothing wrong with that at all.
hi gad_zuki! - thanks for the feedback, i'd ask that you consider the following.
-make is what makers are doing, many folks are learning electronics and kits like the miniPOV are very popular so they are building, hacking and sharing - that said, with over 20,000 posts and thousands of articles in print, there is maybe a dozen at the most of these projects.
-as far as "DIY automobile repairs/hacks/projects and home repairs/hacks/projects" - please check the site and our past issues. we have "mod your rod" tons of projects for cars, check our site - tons of home repair, hacks and projects.
right now we are releasing an open source home power project.
i'd say that there are so many things in MAKE you might miss out if you only see it via other site like boing boing.
many/most of our makers and audience have never heard of steampunk or pacman scarves, they read the magazine and the site and share their projects and i'd say the average age is 12 and under and 25 and older, but i'd need to really dig in more for an upddated demographic discussion.
i'd love to see more editors at magazines, sites, videos get involved in the slashdot community. i know that some of my friends thinks it's a waste of time to participate here all these years, but there are many great things to discover.
there's a lot of good things happening in the comments but sometimes people state things that aren't accurate and it's really our job to at least offer up our point of view and facts for other to read and decide for themselves. there is legitimate cheers and jeers for anything you put out there - i guess i would challenge folks to be as passionate about the positive things as well as the negative things they see in what people make.
@vlm - "I wish they could do something about the high price"
that's good feedback, what price would you like to see for a 200+ page quarterly with minimal ads? do you use the digital edition? do you subscribe? those are lower cost ways of getting MAKE.
it's possible to get MAKE for less than the cost of just about any magazine/book comparable, we also have discount codes.
if you don't have any money at all we can work something out and get you some MAKEs, and lastly much of the content is online for free, we do try to run a business so we can continue to do all of this but we're always willing to help out.
good question, i'll need to see what's possible for subtitles across all the video properties we posted the show - we might need some help adding them, if anyone is interested let me know.
@Cornwallis - that's your choice, what i've found is that talking to other makers and folks online is usually more helpful than not participating. i'd love if everyone editor at every magazine participated more online. we get great feedback, lots of makers contact us this way and i think it's important for folks to know we're out there. slashdot has been my home page for 10+ years, i've submitted projects that celebrate making things, cool engineering, science - without slashdot i doubt i would have ended up working with MAKE, it's all connected.
perhaps i'm used to what we do a MAKE now, the makers submit their own projects and we post them up in the their own words, i think slashdot is doing that more as more people make things and share their projects here directly.
i always disclose who i am, if you don't want to buy MAKE that's ok, but please give us a try and feel free to contact me directly if you have any questions or want a preview version of the digital edition.
@Canazza - yah that is pretty cynical. go to makezine.tv and you'll see every single part of the show is available for download, there's also full HD downloads as well a direct link to the entire show and there are torrents starting.
we do not leave out details, we do optimize for the format we are in, in print we suggest folks visit our site for downloads, in video we suggest folks visit our site for a schematic. all of these things work together and we give it away for free. we'd love if you bought a magazine, a kit or visited our maker faire, but it's not required to build the projects we have on Make: television.
the links to youtube, blip and vimeo go to our video channel, these have additional videos we do that are not part of the TV show, it didn't make sense to do a new channel just for the show, we want everyone to see all we have to offer.
@that this is not und - every single volume of MAKE has source code, schematics and our site has tens of thousands of electronics articles.
while you might say some projects are "novelty" they're not - taking apart a child's toy to understand how it works, how it can be modded and documenting all of it is very important. some articles are to spark the minds of future makers, others are "hardcore" and include hundreds of pages of data sheers on on our site, firmware, schematics and more.
if you'd like i can provide hundreds of examples of extremely complex and well documented projects that include schematics - on a similar note, MAKE has the largest open source hardware online store on the web. every single kit that's OSH is documented on MAKE and has the source / schematics.
i think you didn't take a good look around or looks at all of MAKE.
@gothmolly - "real engineers" and people doing "real engineering" usually agree that every single component does not need to be 100% understood top to bottom, especially in task based learning. in time some components will be explored more, others may not.
sometimes it's more about the output for the specific task - the point is that it was the right choice for this project and the article was about a task (espresso machine) not about PID control, but we didn't just stop there. there are many PID resources on MAKE and many PID projects.
the articles *do* have many resources for PID, but in print, where space is limted, we utilize our site - that's where we can expand upon topics.
Slashdot Mirror
hah! MAKE is doing fantastic (i don't run it) - but there are over 200k+ people at maker faire each year, the advertising and print sales are great and *unlike* every other "magazine" MAKE is profitable and not going out of business. maker shed is multi-million dollar business and one of the largest open source hardware providers online. but hey, you have an axe to grind either MAKE, me or becky - it really doesn't matter how well MAKE does. in the DIY space MAKE is tops, you know that.
you're an anonymous commenter on slashdot, talking about what *others* are doing and making on a day-old post - think about that :)
as if anything you say matters. an anonymous comment on slashdot, on a story that's now a day old, you're reading what other people are doing, what other people are building - who is the consumer again, really? :)
we can squeeze maybe one code / one IR LED in to a cufflink, so it wouldn't be a stealth full-version of the tv-b-gone. you could do the sony off code and that's about it.
the tv-b-gone version will be done soon :)
do you think a DIY publication should "look at the increase in cancer and sterility as a result of always on devices" - even if we had an opinion would anyone want it hear it from us? there's likely more qualified people to be looking at that :)
the open source cufflinks that i mention at the end of the article (and a product i co-designed) have already sold out and i'm guessing will be about $250k of revenue just for those, this isn't counting the earrings and necklaces. while they're meant to be decorative, i think there's a good market for this for companies that get the geek/nerd market who actually love these types of things.
"I'm too weary to look at anything but the RSS feed headline to this article. Is it another link to some horrible Conde Nast ad-story?"
MAKE isn't owned by conde-nast, it's part of oreilly.
the article talks about the failure of SPOT watches and what's changed since then, and why something like an open source hardware watch will probably do ok within a smaller market.
don't be so lazy :)
hi, i'm phil, from the video. it wasn't clear that the OSHW movement is making money? the title of presentation and the post has an actual number in it.
i work for adafruit and make magazine - i don't think it makes sense to scan in each company's tax returns, but generally speaking... most/all the companies listed are making money. decent money, many full time employees, benefits, bonuses, profit sharing - great ROI, access to credit and VC. keep in mind they were very kind to share any revenue numbers and over the last couple years there has been a recession, yet all these companies have thrived.
OSHW should be celebrated here on /. - it's a dream come true and many of the people doing it are following their dreams.
it's too bad many of the people here do not have any aspirations "making" anything besides trolly comments on /.
it doesn't matter what tools to make to create open source hardware, the computer you are using isn't 100% open source, so does that mean you can't write open source software?
the gerbers are posted, the schematic and source is posted.
open source hardware means you can make it by using all the things published and commercial use is allowed, it's obvious that ladyada is doing open source hardware - and has for years.
hey "Anonymous" - you're right, i don't know how you figured it out, but you are clearly on to something big.
limor didn't do *any* of the web site or "real coding".
if you're really interested, here's the mastermind behind most of what you see at adafruit and ladyada...
http://bit.ly/sscsd
please keep this to yourself, thanks.
we actually might make this a shirt, i'm not kidding either.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/pmtorrone/3175456884/
hey, thanks for this - i may agree or disagree but not matter what i will pass this along to our team. thanks vlm, and thanks for supporting MAKE.
gothmollly, perhaps some might go through life not understanding how everything works and you're free to call them hacks, but all the evidence i have is that people who do the projects in MAKE go on to learn more, understand how things work but they needed to start somewhere.
parents, teachers and kids tell us all the time that MAKE is how they got started in science and engineering, we've been around for 5 years and we're seeing the results now. i can't 100% prove that we're teaching everyone, everything - but there is evidence we are doing some good.
we certainly are not a "buy this" site, magazine or tv show. i don't think we even cover thinkgeek. that said, thinkgeek has some cool kits lately, nothing wrong with that at all.
here's a torrent of the show for those interested, it wasn't in the article/post but there is one:
http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2009/01/bittorrent_of_make_television_episo.html
hi gad_zuki! - thanks for the feedback, i'd ask that you consider the following.
-make is what makers are doing, many folks are learning electronics and kits like the miniPOV are very popular so they are building, hacking and sharing - that said, with over 20,000 posts and thousands of articles in print, there is maybe a dozen at the most of these projects.
-as far as "DIY automobile repairs/hacks/projects and home repairs/hacks/projects" - please check the site and our past issues. we have "mod your rod" tons of projects for cars, check our site - tons of home repair, hacks and projects.
right now we are releasing an open source home power project.
i'd say that there are so many things in MAKE you might miss out if you only see it via other site like boing boing.
many/most of our makers and audience have never heard of steampunk or pacman scarves, they read the magazine and the site and share their projects and i'd say the average age is 12 and under and 25 and older, but i'd need to really dig in more for an upddated demographic discussion.
i'd love to see more editors at magazines, sites, videos get involved in the slashdot community. i know that some of my friends thinks it's a waste of time to participate here all these years, but there are many great things to discover.
there's a lot of good things happening in the comments but sometimes people state things that aren't accurate and it's really our job to at least offer up our point of view and facts for other to read and decide for themselves. there is legitimate cheers and jeers for anything you put out there - i guess i would challenge folks to be as passionate about the positive things as well as the negative things they see in what people make.
you're correct it's a newly formed habit, i'll try and remember not to do that.
@vlm - "I wish they could do something about the high price"
that's good feedback, what price would you like to see for a 200+ page quarterly with minimal ads? do you use the digital edition? do you subscribe? those are lower cost ways of getting MAKE.
it's possible to get MAKE for less than the cost of just about any magazine/book comparable, we also have discount codes.
if you don't have any money at all we can work something out and get you some MAKEs, and lastly much of the content is online for free, we do try to run a business so we can continue to do all of this but we're always willing to help out.
good question, i'll need to see what's possible for subtitles across all the video properties we posted the show - we might need some help adding them, if anyone is interested let me know.
@Cornwallis - that's your choice, what i've found is that talking to other makers and folks online is usually more helpful than not participating. i'd love if everyone editor at every magazine participated more online. we get great feedback, lots of makers contact us this way and i think it's important for folks to know we're out there. slashdot has been my home page for 10+ years, i've submitted projects that celebrate making things, cool engineering, science - without slashdot i doubt i would have ended up working with MAKE, it's all connected.
perhaps i'm used to what we do a MAKE now, the makers submit their own projects and we post them up in the their own words, i think slashdot is doing that more as more people make things and share their projects here directly.
i always disclose who i am, if you don't want to buy MAKE that's ok, but please give us a try and feel free to contact me directly if you have any questions or want a preview version of the digital edition.
@Canazza - yah that is pretty cynical. go to makezine.tv and you'll see every single part of the show is available for download, there's also full HD downloads as well a direct link to the entire show and there are torrents starting.
we do not leave out details, we do optimize for the format we are in, in print we suggest folks visit our site for downloads, in video we suggest folks visit our site for a schematic. all of these things work together and we give it away for free. we'd love if you bought a magazine, a kit or visited our maker faire, but it's not required to build the projects we have on Make: television.
the links to youtube, blip and vimeo go to our video channel, these have additional videos we do that are not part of the TV show, it didn't make sense to do a new channel just for the show, we want everyone to see all we have to offer.
@that this is not und - every single volume of MAKE has source code, schematics and our site has tens of thousands of electronics articles.
while you might say some projects are "novelty" they're not - taking apart a child's toy to understand how it works, how it can be modded and documenting all of it is very important. some articles are to spark the minds of future makers, others are "hardcore" and include hundreds of pages of data sheers on on our site, firmware, schematics and more.
if you'd like i can provide hundreds of examples of extremely complex and well documented projects that include schematics - on a similar note, MAKE has the largest open source hardware online store on the web. every single kit that's OSH is documented on MAKE and has the source / schematics.
i think you didn't take a good look around or looks at all of MAKE.
@RMH101 - every time MAKE is mentioned on /. it appears that this person (sometimes anonymously) posts the same thing over and over.
@gothmolly - "real engineers" and people doing "real engineering" usually agree that every single component does not need to be 100% understood top to bottom, especially in task based learning. in time some components will be explored more, others may not.
sometimes it's more about the output for the specific task - the point is that it was the right choice for this project and the article was about a task (espresso machine) not about PID control, but we didn't just stop there. there are many PID resources on MAKE and many PID projects.
the articles *do* have many resources for PID, but in print, where space is limted, we utilize our site - that's where we can expand upon topics.
this is pretty cool, can you send me an email about this / might be a nice little article for MAKE if you're up for it.