I agree with the comments.

On HackerNews main page, I can see the top 24 links without scrolling. On MakerNews I see 8.

The drawings on the side are nice, but it's the first thing I see when coming on the page. I need to self consciously blind the side of the page to focus on the content.

Links:

- Color. Make it dark. Light blue on a white background is very hard to read.

- Font size: Too big. Look at HN.

Layout:

- Reduce the padding in between entries. HN is easy to scan because everything is neatly packed. You only need to scroll a little to see the rest.

- The header is too big. Kept it simple with a little logo. The focus here is the content, not branding. The tweet button should go in the bottom of the page.

- The footer is nice, but a bit too big.

- The subscription form is in the way of the "More News" link. Also, a lot of people in your target market refrain from giving their name along with their email.

Font size on HN is too small. I wonder why every webdesigner uses 14px and smaller. there is a reason why 16px is default size.

You can adjust it with ctrl (or cmd) +/-.

this is very useful, thanks. we have just exported most of these into our tasks and we'll fix it soon

Is the code open source? If so, I could give you a hand with the UI.

1) fit 30 items on one screen; 2) remove wasted space and visual noise in the bottom, top, left side and right side.

PS: I am not your target audience.

RSS feed?