New Column: Your Comments

Computers & Mobile
New Column: Your Comments

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One of the best things about writing for this site is the awesome discussions, stories, and tips that form around the posts. To highlight this, we’re launching a new weekly column to share our favorite comments from Make: Online, our Facebook page, and Twitter. We hope you will find these little snippets informative, inspiring, and entertaining. So, without further ado… Your Comments!

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Kids from of the Georgia Street neighborhood of Detroit, building “seed bombs.”

Empress Ceramic seed grenade:

I really love this idea. I wouldn’t mind a few of those lovely grenades
lurking in pieces in my garden. :) I remember reading something recently about “seed bombs” on a low-budget, homemade scale… Aha! Found it, and the follow up.

Over on Facebook, Jim Fay saw
Brian Viglione’s homemade NIN drum kit, and remembered another experimental percussionist:

I was working on the streets of Cambridge, MA with a utility company a few years ago when I heard what I thought was a drummer in a music store. I figured they simply had the door open. It was a street musician playing a homemade set of buckets that sounded perfect! I’ve been a drummer for 35 yrs and this guy sounded great.

CircuitGizmo had an idea to improve the corset featured in the Three-part corset making series on CRAFT:

“True geek chic” would be a corset with a cell-phone pouch. Or a pocket protector. Rrrwwwrrrr!

In a discussion about Vintage radios at Hamvention 2010, VA5LF (Sean) shared what kit building means to him:

There are still a good number of kits out there these days. Heathkit may be out of the business, but in the last six months I’ve built an Elecraft K2 plus a bunch of optional modules, a Winkeyer, an AX.25 modem shield for Arduino, and a Geiger counter I plan to fly on a high altitude balloon, all from kits. I find you don’t get much savings by building a kit, but for me it’s all about the fun of building and using something you put together with your own hands.

In response to the statement that basic physical sciences should have been learned in grade school (in the intro to this month’s Physical Science theme, John T wrote:

As said, some may have been a little distracted during those lessons, but I’m not entirely convinced that is entirely the problem. When I look back at what I learned in school, not all of the things you mentioned were even mentioned. While ideas like forces acting on objects on slopes, cams, gears etc were taught, ideas such as pulleys etc were not covered in any great detail. One memory that sticks with me is the first mention of pulleys which occurred during a mock exam paper only a matter of weeks before the real thing. Aside from that question, nothing was ever mentioned until a year or so later on a different course (A physics course, not a systems course designed to teach these ideas). So while these basics should be taught, they simply are not in some places. A great disappointment indeed. I’m sure many will agree however when I say that it is never too late to learn these skills. I for one look forward to seeing what new skills I may learn from this months theme!

On Facebook, Erik Keilholtz got excited when he misread the title of the Automatic coop door opener:

I read this as “atomic coop door opener” and got really excited

Jon Weseman had a less positive experience:

I read it as “Automatic Poop Door Opener”, and decided that I need more coffee.

Twitter user disquiet shared his feelings about the music archive:

The music section of the @make website is like some ongoing, geographically-distributed electronica Manhattan project

Like these comments? Be sure to sound off in the comments! You could be in next week’s column.

4 thoughts on “New Column: Your Comments

  1. BobsYourUncle says:

    Seems like a huge drop-off in the number and quality of comments since you enacted the new ‘be nice’ policy… I take it that this column is an attempt to restore some of the interactivity this site once enjoyed? If this fails, I’d recommend removing the policy and letting the Internet be the Internet.

    1. Gareth Branwyn says:

      Hey Bob,

      Thanks for your comment. You ARE right about this new column being about increasing comment activity, but it’s not because of any perceived loss of interactivity. We’re actually very happy with the results of the new “Be Nice” policy. We’re just looking to build from that.

      What we’re NOT happy with is our login process, which is outdated and can be confusing. We’re in the process of revamping that and hope that this will help overcome some of the frustration folks have experienced in logging on to comment.

      And anecdotally, BTW, I don’t think any of the authors/editors feel that there’s been some dramatic drop off in comments since the new policy and we think the quality and tone has improved. As I said in the announcement of the change, this is all tied in with our redesign process and you will see, when that redesign is launched, community participation will be way more out front and community-contributions will be a much bigger part of our content. We’re really excited about it and think our readers will be too.

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