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I started my own repair business in eighth grade. Now, in my retirement, I’m part of the global fix-it movement.

Wayne Seltzer

founder of the Boulder U-Fix-It Clinic in Colorado: boulderufixitclinic.org

November 21st, 2022November 18th, 2022

Fixing broken things was just a normal part of my family life. I was born in New York City and was raised in New Jersey in a home with lots of tools, a garage, a basement workshop, and a backyard. My father was a Depression-era baby who grew up with a sense of frugality. He […]

Emergency Prep! How Makers Can Prepare For Disruptions and Disasters of All Kinds

By Tim Deagan

Tim Deagan

Tim Deagan (@TimDeagan) likes to make things. He casts, prints, screens, welds, brazes, bends, screws, glues, nails, and dreams in his Austin, Texas, shop. He's spent decades gathering tools based on the idea that one day he will come up with a project that has a special use for each and every one of them.

Tim likes to learn and try new things. A career troubleshooter, he designs, writes, and debugs code to pay the bills. He has worked as a stagehand, meat cutter, speechwriter, programmer, sales associate at Radio Shack, VJ, sandwich maker, computer tech support specialist, car washer, desk clerk, DBA, virtual CIO, and technical writer. He's run archeology field labs, darkrooms, produce teams, video stores, ice cream shops, consulting teams, developers, and QA teams. He's written for Make: magazine, Nuts & Volts, Lotus Notes Advisor and Databased Advisor.

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November 6th, 2022November 3rd, 2022

Responding effectively to emergencies and disasters is almost always a result of preparation. With a little forethought, know-how, and advance planning, makers with a DIY and community mindset are fantastically positioned to help themselves and others in extreme situations. But which threats should we invest in preparing for? Risk is calculated by multiplying likelihood times […]

Cursed Objects: Jumpstart the Season With These Spooky Builds

By Caleb Kraft

Caleb Kraft

I get ridiculously excited seeing people make things. I just want to revel in the creativity I see in makers. My favorite thing in the world is sharing a maker's story. You can find me on tiktok, talking about my animals at TikTok

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@calebkraft

October 25th, 2022October 25th, 2022

Make your Halloween the spookiest it can possibly be! There’s no way we could include all the wonderfully inspiring projects that we loved this year. Here are just a few that stood out.

Cyber Security Prep: Harden Your Digital Domain Against Disasters and Bad Actors

By David Groom

David Groom

David bought his first Arduino in 2007 as part of a Roomba hacking project. Since then, he has been obsessed with writing code that you can touch. David fell in love with the original Pebble smartwatch, and even more so with its successor, which allowed him to combine the beloved wearable with his passion for hardware hacking via its smartstrap functionality. Unable to part with his smartwatch sweetheart, David wrote a love letter to the Pebble community, which blossomed into Rebble, the service that keeps Pebbles ticking today, despite the company's demise in 2016. When he's not hacking on wearables, David can probably be found building a companion bot, experimenting with machine learning, growing his ever-increasing collection of dev boards, or hacking on DOS-based palmtops from the 90s.

Find David on Mastodon at @ishotjr@chaos.social and to a far lesser extent on Twitter at @IShJR.

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July 30th, 2022July 29th, 2022

Protect your online self with these basic cyber security tips.