SciTech
There's no place like 127.0.0.1
Published 11 December 2006
Cute novelties and the latest console . . . Becky Hogge makes a Christmas list for the geek in her life
I had a strange dream last night. In a living room that bears no resemblance to my own, but in which I was entertaining friends, one of my guests found a box marked simply "Wii". "What's this?" he asked accusingly. It could only be one thing. As we pulled out swaths of bubble-wrap, looks of betrayal appeared on the faces around me. Sure enough, it was Nintendo's seventh-generation games console, complete with innovative motion-sensitive wireless controller. What was I doing with this, when the product won't hit the UK market until 8 December? More importantly, why was it still in the box?
It was a classic anxiety dream. Despite clear instructions, I am yet to venture into town to deposit the mere £30 required to ensure that the geek in my life will get to play with Wii on Christmas Day. It's an experience we're both looking forward to. Instead of watching It's a Wonderful Life for the umpteenth time, we will be swinging the clever new controller back and forth as we play virtual tennis, or download vintage games whose archaic, eight-bit and 64-bit natural habitats can be emulated by this powerful machine. Just as long as I get to the shops in time.
If you have a geek in your life, Christmas can be a difficult time. They may have finally ended their 24-hour sit-ins of your upstairs bedroom, made their first million, and moved to Docklands, but you still want to say thank you for the hours they've spent at the other end of the phone, helping you set up Skype. While we laypeople busily devour iPods and USB keys, a real geek, if you give him that sort of thing, will smile wanly, and then mutter something about digital rights management, or closed-source device drivers.
Much better to buy your family hacker something he can take apart. Does your geek own a soldering iron? If so, vintage technology, from the time before companies hid the mechanics of machines, is a good bet. If you don't have the time to scour eBay for a 1980 Tomytronics hand-held in perfect condition, try Make magazine's open-source gift guide, which includes a kit for a portable MP3 player.
Sites dedicated to the geek consumer abound, and now is the time to infiltrate them. The market leader, Engadget, has gift guides for him and her, the "hers" list recommending Nabaztag, the "wifi-enabled information-sharing rabbit". Once you've fallen for its cute LED blush and wobbly ears, you'll forget to ask what it's actually for.
And for novelty gifts, there's always ThinkGeek, whose website includes a whole section dedicated to caffeine products (for late-night coding). My favourite from this site remains a doormat bearing the legend "There's no place like 127.0.0.1". For those who don't immediately get it, 127.0.0.1 is the IP address assigned to the localhost loopback device, ie, "home". Oh well, perhaps some things are best left to the initiated.
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