A hacker's Christmas wishlist

For anyone thinking about buying the Kuru Toga, I'd highly recommend getting the original Japanese "High Grade" version (metal housing, rather than plastic) from JetPens instead: <a href="http://www.jetpens.com/index.php/product/view?products_id=4445" rel="nofollow">http://www.jetpens.com/index.php/product/view?products_id=44...</a><p>I've been using it on a daily basis since September and it's absolutely phenomenal.

A nice collection of affiliate links.

I'd take off the Vibram Five Fingers, unless you caution your running geek to take it easy in them.<p>In a marathon I did on Sunday there was a lady wearing VFFs who already had two stress fractures, but was still determined to run in them. We questioned that decision....<p>I think some people might be reading "Born to Run" and jumping full on into barefoot running and VFFs without taking the time to get their feet used to the minimalist style! That said, they do work for a lot of people.

I'd recommend a Tonido plug. Who wouldn't like a server the size of a wall plug that uses only $0.50/month in electricity? It runs Ubuntu with root SSH access so the possibilities are endless. It's under $100 too.

Or gift them some linux gaming - <a href="http://www.humblebundle.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.humblebundle.com/</a>

Considering that hackers are usually open to experimenting new things, why not try something new on Christmas that could become one of your passions? This could be a good time to enter the world of tea/tea-brewing, something that a caffeinated hacker should be able to appreciate. Buy some starter kit (below $50) and see how it goes. Gadget-wise, if you don't have it already you should definitely buy an ebook reader.

I love my yubikey (yubico.com) I doubt I really need that level of security for my data but it's too damn cool not to have.

Ideas for the range below 10EUR/$10:<p>a TI LaunchPad for the future microcontroller enthusiast ($4.30)<p>a bag of Sugru (<a href="http://www.sugru.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.sugru.com</a> )<p>Ideas for the near-zero range:<p>a hand-made pen-and-USB-stick etui (<a href="http://zeughaus.pechfunk.de/post/2415508111/my-first-sewing-machine-project" rel="nofollow">http://zeughaus.pechfunk.de/post/2415508111/my-first-sewing-...</a> ) made from a Tyvek envelope

I'm surprised he chose a 1TB drive for backup over a year of online backup - a physical drive fails a lot more easily than a company whose sole purpose is backing up your data, and if he/she already has a computer that has a disk of a size close to 1TB, the drive is going to fill with backups.

One year of virtualised hosting would be pretty cool as well, although hackers tend to already have that...

All I know is that I'd hurt someone for a USRP.

I'd add one of the LaCie key-like USB flash drives to this list -- &#60;$30 from Amazon: <a href="http://amzn.com/B004D2AZ0Q" rel="nofollow">http://amzn.com/B004D2AZ0Q</a>.