Mark Frauenfelder
Mark Frauenfelder

John Edgar Park introduced me to the gentle art of recreational lock-picking. It's fun and potentially useful to know how to tickle tumblers in the right way to open door locks and padlocks.

Mark Frauenfelder
Mark Frauenfelder

Ted Cruz is the Schroedinger's cat of politicians. He is both eligible and not eligible to be president.

Mark Frauenfelder
Mark Frauenfelder

The Cat Dancer is a 30-inch piece of wire with some little cardboard cylinders on the end. My cats go crazy for it. I stuck it on the wall with the adhesive mount, but I ended up taking it off so I could hold it and play directly with my cats.

Mark Frauenfelder
Mark Frauenfelder

My problem with mechanical pencils is that I break the lead tips constantly.

Mark Frauenfelder
Mark Frauenfelder

Skillshare is a terrific online learning community for creative people. It teaches you new skills through well-made videos with great production values. I've been using Skillshare to teach myself Adobe After Effects. All the videos feature people who are professionals in their field. I love this site.

Mark Frauenfelder
Mark Frauenfelder

I can't imagine how much time it took Matt Bucy to cut up 'The Wizard of Oz' and reassemble every word of dialog into alphabetical order. The resulting movie is called 'Of Oz the Wizard.'

Mark Frauenfelder
Mark Frauenfelder

My friend Josh Glenn compiles terrific lists of genre novels from the mid-20th century. His latest is a list of the ten best adventure novels of 1966. Josh also includes the cover art of early editions of the books, which are always much better than the art on newer editions. I want to read every book in this list!

Mark Frauenfelder
Mark Frauenfelder

Forrest Mims is the author of the famous book 'Getting Started in Electronics,' published by RadioShack for many years. I bought the book in the 1980s and had a blast making the projects in it. When I was editor-in-chief of 'MAKE,' I asked Forrest to write a column for the magazine, called 'The Backyard Scientist.'

Mark Frauenfelder
Mark Frauenfelder

In school, we learn that mistakes translate into bad grades. This unfortunate lesson gets burned into our brains, and we go through life shunning challenges that might end in failure.

Mark Frauenfelder
Mark Frauenfelder

My advice for raising daughters is to spend time with them doing things you both enjoy.

Mark Frauenfelder
Mark Frauenfelder

My idea of a traditional holiday - the right way to do it - goes back to the days when gift-giving meant sharing homemade things: hand-knit sweaters, carved wooden toys, smoked meats and the like.