Popular Mechanics

Gerhardt

Gerhardt

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Gerhardt
My dad has had a subscription since before I was born. When he's done flipping through them he passes them along to me, and I pass them along to my 14 year-old son, then to my brother and he forwards it on. The only rule is that they never see the inside of a bathroom since several people will be reading them. It's light reading, and occasionally you'll find something interesting and every now and then you may read something you didn't know.

So I'm flipping through the April issue and I'm kind of put off by an ad. It's a full-page ad with bold type "F*CK OFF, I'M HELPING" It's an ad encouraging people to be a mentor to youth. Maybe I'm just old and out of date, but I don't think young people need to be mentored by people enamored with this ad.

I calm down a little and I'm reading an amusing "how-to" section with short snippets on how to accomplish a variety of small tasks. And one of them is how to remove a girl's bra with one hand.

My son knows what's what, and is fairly level headed, but this isn't the kind of thing I want to pass along.
 
I haven't seen a Popular Mechanics in years, but that surprises me very much.
 
The PM would be audience gets their info from the web. The magazine is past dead. Very old people and libraries are the only subscribers.
 
My favorite ad was in "Boys Life."

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You're saying your 14-year old doesn't need to know how to open a bra with one hand.

Poor kid!
 
One handed bra removal doesn't require instructions, it requires practice. By 14 I could have taught my dad a few things.
 
PM are currently running a 4 part "Learn to fly" article, if part 1 is anything to go by, I will skip the rest.
 
Gerhardt said:
. . . .

So I'm flipping through the April issue and I'm kind of put off by an ad. It's a full-page ad with bold type "F*CK OFF, I'M HELPING" It's an ad encouraging people to be a mentor to youth. Maybe I'm just old and out of date, but I don't think young people need to be mentored by people enamored with this ad. . . .
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It's actually an Esquire-sponsored project.

http://mentoring.esquire.com/campaigns/fck-off-im-helping/

Rich
 
PM is still around? I think the last one I saw was at my grandfather's house in 1982.

How about Popular Science? That's another one that by all rights should be dead and buried.
 
Scrabo said:
PM are currently running a 4 part "Learn to fly" article, if part 1 is anything to go by, I will skip the rest.
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Yeah, I didn't want to bring that up. The first installment not only didn't have much to do with aviation, it didn't make the reader want to take flying lessons. Or even read the second installment.

Until now I've always liked the magazine. But I thought the F*CK YOU ad and the bra removal tip were way out of line.
 
PM and similar magazines have been feeding us lies for decades. No wonder they resort to silly stuff to sell mags now. I'm still waiting for the promised machines:

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flying-saucer-car.jpg


images


Dan
 
In the 70s I liked Mechanix Illustrated because it had a comely model clad in striped overalls named Mimi who featured various new products.

ME031966-3.jpg
 
Wordless Workshop! I turned to that first thing when my Dad's copy arrived in the mail. Wordless Workshop. It was the best.

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wsuffa said:
PM is still around? I think the last one I saw was at my grandfather's house in 1982.

How about Popular Science? That's another one that by all rights should be dead and buried.
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I really liked Popular Science back in the day. The Paul Wahl gun section, the Smokey Yunick car care section. It's all a dinosour by now.
 
Sac Arrow said:
I really liked Popular Science back in the day. The Paul Wahl gun section, the Smokey Yunick car care section. It's all a dinosour by now.
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Popular Mechanics, Popular Science, Mechanix Illustrated, Popular Electronics. All of them had good articles on how to fix stuff or how to build something useful, or what the benefits or drawbacks were of various products. Aside from the "new and revolutionary" engines or aircraft or cars or war machines, most of which still don't exist or weren't practical, those magazines were a reflection of an ability and desire to build or repair things. There were shops and mail-order houses full of real hardware and components to build or fix almost everything.

Now, go into Radio Shack and try to find any fix/build component more complicated than a switch. The store is full of toys and cellphones. Same for the hardware stores. I tried to find a couple of pressure gauges the other day; nothing useful. O-rings? A little assortment that has maybe 1/20th of the possible numbers, and certainly none made of modern materials. I'd have to order bags of 100 of one part number from an industrial supplier to get useful parts. It's a reflection of modern buy it/use it/throw it away practices, and the fact that the TV and the internet have taken over our leisure time.

My son builds or fixes anything and his friends are all envious of his abilities.

Dan
 
Dan Thomas said:
Popular Mechanics, Popular Science, Mechanix Illustrated, Popular Electronics. All of them had good articles on how to fix stuff or how to build something useful, or what the benefits or drawbacks were of various products. Aside from the "new and revolutionary" engines or aircraft or cars or war machines, most of which still don't exist or weren't practical, those magazines were a reflection of an ability and desire to build or repair things. There were shops and mail-order houses full of real hardware and components to build or fix almost everything.

Now, go into Radio Shack and try to find any fix/build component more complicated than a switch. The store is full of toys and cellphones. Same for the hardware stores. I tried to find a couple of pressure gauges the other day; nothing useful. O-rings? A little assortment that has maybe 1/20th of the possible numbers, and certainly none made of modern materials. I'd have to order bags of 100 of one part number from an industrial supplier to get useful parts. It's a reflection of modern buy it/use it/throw it away practices, and the fact that the TV and the internet have taken over our leisure time.

My son builds or fixes anything and his friends are all envious of his abilities.

Dan
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Agreed. Maybe ten or fifteen years ago my late '70's model Panasonic stereo cassette boom box developed a volume control issue. Radio Shack had already stopped carrying rheostats by then, so I had to go to an obscure electronic supply house to get them (very simple fix, why throw it away, it worked fine).

Actually I just checked, the "obscure" electronics supply house is still in existence, and appears to be well stocked.
 
Plenty of people still fixing things. Why hope one of those magazines has the info you need, when YouTube has a video of someone fixing the exact same thing? Next time you have a broken crank check YouTube for a fix. And radio shack as a diy supplier was dead by the late 1980's.
 
wsuffa said:
Good luck. RS liquidated within the last year. It is deader than the magazines should be.
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In Canada we have The Source, which is just a rebranded Rat Shack. It's still going, but never very busy. The big box stores beat them on inventory and price. All of their electronic build/fix component displays would fit into a broom closet.

Dan
 
I wondered for 20 years how Radio Shack was still in business. I never see anyone in the stores. Certainly never at the register.

That wasn't the case when I was a kid. There small stores were packed with people picking up everything from batteries to obscure electronic parts to my favorite....the 300 in 1 Electronics Kit. My brother and I played with that thing for hours at a time.
 
Gerhardt said:
I wondered for 20 years how Radio Shack was still in business. I never see anyone in the stores. Certainly never at the register.

That wasn't the case when I was a kid. There small stores were packed with people picking up everything from batteries to obscure electronic parts to my favorite....the 300 in 1 Electronics Kit. My brother and I played with that thing for hours at a time.
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Yeah, it was there, but they pushed the higher ticket items from the sound wall.

I was fortunate to have a Heathkit store nearby, though couldn't afford much there. I still remember ordering a KnightKit receiver from Allied.
 
wsuffa said:
..I was fortunate to have a Heathkit store nearby, though couldn't afford much there.
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Me and a neighbor/friend of mine back in 8th grade both bought Heathkit GR-64 receivers (actually, his parents bought his...I had to mow a ****load of lawns and wash cars to get the money for mine :rolleyes:)

SWL'ing was pretty cool in the late 60's - early 70's.

We spent about a week every day after school working on putting them together. We then strung up longwires and dipoles between our back-to-back yards. Looked like a VoA antenna farm, but the parents and neighbors were very accommodating to the two geeky kids that loved playing with electronics!! :D
 
Gerhardt said:
I wondered for 20 years how Radio Shack was still in business. I never see anyone in the stores. Certainly never at the register.
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Front for the mob ?

Actually on second thoughts, not even the mob would go in a Radio Shack.
 
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