Brian's Brain

Yesterday, EDN's Margery Conner published her holiday gift suggestion list over at PowerSource. She'd sent out a request for ideas from the rest of the staff back on the 5th, and she thankfully used one of the suggestions I'd sent her in reply (a MAKE Magazine subscription). She didn't use any of my other suggestions...;-)...but admittedly that's because she intended to focus her list on tools. Without further ado, therefore, please find below the remainder of my list (in no particular priority order), which in my case has a heavy open-source slant:

• Open-source hardware kits from Arduino and Bug Labs.
• A Chumby.
• Nokia's 770, N800 or N810 Internet Tablet.
• A Linux-based Linksys WRT54GL router, whose factory firmware you can replace with alternatives such as DD-WRT and Tomato.
• An iRobot Create.
• A (Sony-blessed) Linux-installable PlayStation 3.
• A few Bluetooth-based and hackable-for-other-uses Nintendo Wii controllers.
• A Linux-based OpenMoko mobile phone developer kit.
• A Via Technologies Mini-ITX, Nano-ITX or Pico-ITX board, or the company's Pico-ITX-based ARTiGO development kit.

With that all said, considering the relative affluence (versus folks in other parts of the world) with which those of us in the 'First World' are blessed, along with the wise saying that 'if you're not careful, your possessions will end up possessing you', you may be interested in taking a different (and dare I say, more enlightened?) tack on gift-giving this year. If so, I'll suggest the following:

• A donation to a tech-leaning organization such as the Computer History Museum, Electronic Frontier Foundation, or SETI@home.
• The One Laptop Per Child organization's 'Give One Get One', 'Give Many' or traditional donation programs.

If you have suggestions on other worthy charities to add to the list, I welcome your comments!

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