Mr. X asks: How are magnets made?

Bill, if this is you, I swear, I had nothing to do with that escapade.  I told them all that the magnet was too big to use to manually write the file to the hard drive; and I definitely did not approve of the message.  So get off my back Bill.  It is not my fault you can now stick your laptop to the side of your fridge. 

Now then, lets get to the answer.

There are natural magnets, and man-made magnets.  Natural magnets can only be made by God, or natural consequences of complex processes, based on personal preferences.  The man-made magnets can be permanent, or induced, like electromagnets, but all man-made magnets are made by man.

The earliest magnets were stars.  The convective flow of charged plasma creates currents which cause the entire star to produce a magnetic field, resembling a huge electromagnet (seriously, stars are big).  As the stars went about their daily business (eonly business?) they formed Fe(iron), Li(lithium), Un(unobtainium), Kr(kryptonite), NaCl(table salt), Ba(bacon), and etc(other elements).  Iron is the key here, it is present in all naturally occurring magnets, and almost all refrigerator magnets, like Bills computer. 

To create a magnet you need to expose a piece of iron, or iron containing alloy such as compass needles, to a magnetic field.  MRI machines are great places to find magnetic fields, but they are not good for laptops.  Or, um, so I hear.

It works by making all of the individual magnetic elements in the material work together.  Team work is what it is all about.  About team work, remember there is no 'I' in team, but you can spell 'me.'  That, however, has nothing to do with magnets. 

There are several ways to make a magnet useless.  First, hit it with a hammer, this will break it into small pieces which are magnetic, but to small to be useful, this would be like taking apart a car, all the pieces are there, but it isn't good for anything.  Except recycling.  Or throwing at people.  Second, expose it to an opposite magnetic field, this is like trying to get teenage boys to do any meaningful work when there are girls around.  Third, heat it above its Curie point.  This physical property was discovered by Pierre Curie, but he died in 1906, and I don't know how he has been able to keep that property in his name.  Typically when you die your properties go to your next of kin, unless otherwise stated in your will.  I will refer to  this temperature as the Unmagnetizability Temperature.

So, by reverse logic, in addition to making magnets by by exposure to a magnetic field, they can also be made by unhitting a bunch of small magnets with a hammer; unexposing a nonmagnetic material to an opposite magnetic field, or lowering the material below the unmagnetizability temperature.

Hope that helps, <condescending voice>Bill</condescending voice>.

Note about magnetism:   The strength of a magnet is measured in either Gauss or Tesla.  Gauss is the preferred unit when dealing with weapons, while Tesla is more appropriate for applications generating power.  The important thing to remember is that a Tesla is bigger.  If given the option between a 100 Gauss canon and a 0.1 Tesla canon, I will pick the Tesla any day of the week.  Twice on weekends.