Make Magazine

The incredible Make Magazine hit my radar about 2 weeks ago. I almost picked one up while browsing the Computers and Electronics magazines at Barnes and Noble because it looked interesting, but the $15.00 price tag turned me off. Few magazines are worth that. Since then, I kept hearing about it from different sources: blogs, podcasts, conversations and most recently at the CTO Breakfast. Everyone that is talking about it is saying how great it is. So yesterday I picked one up at B&N and began reading it.

What an awesome magazine!

I would recommend this rag to any entrepreneur who is looking to keep the creative juices flowing. There are few things that stimulate the creative process more than reading/studying the unique ways other people have utilised their creative abilities. This thing is packed with brilliant, wacky, obvious, and goofy ideas. It’s all about people looking for a way to solve problems.

The issue I picked up is the 04 issue – I think it’s a quarterly publication. There are a few tidbits that have really stood out to me so far:

I love the quote Tim O’Reilly presents on page 15.

The future is here. It’s just not evenly distributed yet. – William Gibson

Man oh man does that apply to the Web 2.0 movement! Provo Labs is working on a new business that will help get the future more evenly distributed. There is a real and tangible disconnect between the high tech movers and shakers and the lay person on the internet. If you’re reading this blog entry, chances are you already have a fairly good distribution of the future.

There’s a fairly intersting article on page 17 titled ‘Speak your mind’ – about One Free Minute. Perhaps the reason it was so interesting to me was that Scott Lemon and I had a discussion at lunch on Friday about 2 minute video’s, a similar social broadcasting effort. One Free Minute allows people to anonomously call a cell phone for one minute. That phone is connected to a loudspeaker that broadcasts the call to the public.

My favorite article so far however is on page 28 – ‘The Dean of Engineering‘ it’s an interview with Dean Kamen whose company invented the Segway, iBot and several other new technologies. He talks about his research methods saying:

I try to understand the basic laws of nature. Beyond this, I do very little research as to what the products should be. … If you do “Product research,” the product that you end up with will be similar to what already exists. … You have to start with basic questions: if this person is now missing this amount of functionality, is there some alternative … that is both dramatically better and not prohibited by the laws of physics and the current state of engineering and technology?

The entire article is a fascinating read.

I’m not even halfway done with this issue, but I have now subscribed - for $35.00 you can get a years subscription, a cool Make T-Shirt and you can upgrade to digital access for free.

There are lots of cool articles still coming up, I’ll post stuff I find amazing later