Horrisonous Holiday Habromania

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Welcome back Jeff! Joining us for some holiday fun!

• Chris started a new engineering job today! Dave is getting the keys to his new lab today!
• Jeff is attending DorkBot Austin tonight! Reminds Chris of PechaKucha.
• What should we call a group of nerds standing around? Chris likes the term, "a grumbling of nerds".
• Dave hasn't seen Altoid tins in the grocery stores, but has built projects in tic tac boxes, cassette cases and hammond cases.
• Chris just got a new BeagleBone to play with! It's awesome!

• Digi-key is doing their Digi-Wish again this year, so you can ask for something out of their catalog.
• Chris wished for some of the classical CDs they stock at Digi-Key(?).
• What's the difference between black and pink foam in electronics? One is conductive (black) and one is static resistant (pink)
• Our wishlists:
  • Dave -- A spectrum analyzer, likely one off of eBay. The Rigol ones are too much for Dave so he needs to go older.
  • Chris -- A sig gen like the newer Rigol DG1022 because a certain Aussie's kit isn't available anymore. Jeff and Dave say Chris isn't wishing big enough.
  • Jeff -- Lots and lots of kits!
    • The adafruit Icetube clock kit.
    • The NixieKit NixieTherm thermometer kit (suggested by electroman-j).
    • The Fun Cube Dongle kit.
• Jeff's new Ham Callsign is W6OHM! Awesome! Dave wants VK2EEV (but has to get his license first!)
• Chris's co-worker did a homebrew solution for programmable outdoor holiday lights, controlled by text message!
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77bTCBb8apc
• We loved John DeCristafaro's (@johngineer) post on displaying a holiday image on an old scope with a micro!
• Our past guest, Jeremy Blum was named the IEEE "New Face of College Engineering"!  Awesome! He will be featured during national eWeek.
• Itching to get your hands on an old micro? Try out the new Microbee Z80 kit, which is now available!
• This Day in Nerd History:
  • As seen on today's Google Doodle, it would have been Robert Noyce's 84th birthday. He started Fairchild and Intel. Wow!
  • It was on this day in 1901 that Guglielmo Marconi received the first transatlantic radio transmissions. They had been transmitted from his large transmitting station in Poldhu Cornwall England and he had received them in St Johns Newfoundland. (thanks to Alan Wolke for the suggestions!)
• New contest from DesignSpark for using the ChipKit in an energy efficient application. Giving away 1000 ChipKits but you have to play by their rules.