Special "handy tips" edition of the MAKE newsletter

MAKE has a monthly newsletter (subscribe here) and this month's issue has a host of handy tips.

Keep track of your car keys by attaching them to a binder clip: Squeeze the metal handles to remove them from the clip, loop one or both handles through your key, and reattach to the clip.

--Max Eliaser, MAKE engineering intern

April MAKE Newsletter: Tips

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

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The Snowden Principle

John Etnier

And whatever you do, don’t put that assembly in your pockets.
- Paul Renault
  
  Next up on MAKE: how to repair pants’ pockets.
  
  Also, for Henry below: Yeah, a strip of magnet tape would work much betterly.
Henry Hatcher

Yeah, this kind of feels like the opposite of a helpful tip. What’s wrong with a keyring, and how is having a binder clip attached to my car keys going to keep me from losing them? Carrying that in your pocket seems like it would be hard on your clothes and your leg.
http://twitter.com/TheNewsIsBroken Gern Blanston

That should read:
Special “handy tips” edition of the MAKE PROBLEMS newsletter
… or is this some kind of Rube Goldberg/Steampunk thing that I don’t get.
theophrastvs

I’ve seen so many “handy tips” (and mathematical constructions) that depend upon binder, banker’s, foldover, foldback clips, (or paperclop), that someone ought to write the definitive work “1001 cool uses of [these] clips” (and that ‘someone’ ought to be you, the one reading this now, g’wan, go write it!) and that way all and various blogs can just post: “handy clip use #153″. (much akin to the list of all known jokes: “so he says ‘#153!’ and then everyone laughs, but when i tell it no one does.” “that’s because his delivery is so good”)
Antinous / Moderator

Certainly nobody’s ever accused me of having manual dexterity, but binder clips just seem determined to leap at my eye.
Efemmeral

The real problem is the deceptive nature of the bind: strong enough to appear secure, weak enough to pop off.
ferrjerr

Don’t show this to my wife…she’s already using paperclips for keychains…
- Warren_Terra
  
  Do it with a sense of style! Use Regal Owl Paper Clips! Or Butterfly clamps!
Church

Y’know what would be even better? A loop of some kind of metal. Perhaps with a clip that has a much smaller profile.
Carl Johnson

I agree with Church — and I don’t think it’s witchcraft to think that such a device might even hold more than a single key. How long must we wait for such a device?!
flappy

I do this with all my keys. The easiest way to wrangle them now is to put them all in a shoebox – I velcroed the lid- and carry a (small) orange traffic cone to mark the location of the box when I must put it down.
Working on adding an Arduino to the box that will tweet me the current weather at that location whenever a kitten rubs up against the cone.
penguinchris

In case anyone decides not to read the rest of the “handy tips” based on the quality of this one: the rest are all much, much better :)
http://twitter.com/EssBen Ben Rosenthal

“A next door neighbour’s car aerial, carefully folded,

makes an ideal coat hanger in an emergency”
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_EJQ5BUOB4VPSY7HL6YXA7QRRBI David

key rings work well too.