From the editor

By now, you should be well into the swing of sculpting that new, leaner, meaner you. You remember, the body you solemnly resolved to construct as 2017 burst noisily into life. If you can even squeeze your way into the gym – and please don’t get me wrong: I’m not suggesting that you’re too big to get through the turnstiles. The thing is, this is the time of year that fitness centres groan under the burden of masses of heaving, glistening bodies hyper-energetically attempting to sweat off Festive Season excesses. You are not alone in this. As one whose job description involves playing with stuff – euphemistically described as populating our Tested section – Lindsey Schutters is undertaking a test of a different sort. He’s testing out a lifestyle change on his way back to peak fitness. In the process, he is enlisting the aid of every gadget and piece of gear that will help him reach his destination more swiftly. (When I suggested just settling for alternative transport, I swear his lips curled with such venom I feared he would develop whiplash. He is clearly resolute about this fitness thing.)

At Popular Mechanics, after all, we live our ethos. First to know? You bet. Which is partly why our Lumka Nofemele has been tasked with turning her own life upside down, if only for a short while, to experience and report back on an activity previously unknown to me, Suspension Yoga. What’s all of this got to do with Popular Mechanics? You’ve known us as the standard-bearers for Science and Technology. As fierce custodians of the how-to spirit and equally fierce defenders of the right, if it should come to that, to perform the occasional wheelie, perhaps accompanied by a discreet “whoo-hoo”.

But times change, people’s interests change and we need to be aware of the constantly shifting ideascape in which we operate. With that in mind, some of you may have noticed that Popular Mechanics has headed out once more to explore your likes, dislikes and couldn’t-care-lesses. Let’s not call it market research or a survey, even if that’s exactly what it is. Let’s rather call it getting in touch with your life, with what makes you tick. Or hum, for that matter.

We need to know, and not just for our own sakes, where we could do better and where we could do a lot better. Self-examination can take you only so far before you need to subject yourself to the scrutiny of the merciless reader.

In the meantime, those of you with long memories and sharp eyes – I guess that applies to most of you – will have noticed a subtle change to our cover. When the South African edition of Popular Mechanics came into being, it held fast to five pillars: Science, Technology, Automotive, Outdoors and DIY. (In case you’re wondering: a wise guy once described Outdoors as anything that, by definition, wasn’t Indoors.)

Since then we’ve flirted with variations on those themes, always returning in some shape or form to echoes of the original. This month we’ve taken our cue from our redesigned, slimmed-down website – which by now should be up and running – to change the line-up subtly to reflect contemporary tastes. It now encompasses Tech, Science, Driving, DIY and Life. What’s Life, you ask? There’s this wise guy who might have an answer…