The Perpetual Motion Dept.
Physics you can fidget with on a call.
Some people think with their hands, and this is their department: toys that click, balance, spin and run on temperature differentials. The selection criterion is that each one demonstrates something real — momentum, equilibrium, thermodynamics — and survives being handed to a curious coworker. Call-mute buttons exist for the clicky ones.
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The Demonstrations
Kinetic and executive: the toys with a physics lesson inside.
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Reading for the rabbit hole
- Build a Desk-Mounted, AI Aim-Assisted Foam Dart Turret
A webcam, a pan-tilt servo bracket, OpenCV face tracking, and a motorized Nerf blaster make a weekend project that defends your desk — or starts an office war.
- Work-From-Home Gifts for a New Remote Job
A footrest, a monitor lamp and a decent microphone solve the problems a new remote worker hits in week one. Here's what to buy and what to skip.
- White Elephant Gifts for Tech Coworkers That Get Stolen First
The gifts that get fought over are useful enough to keep and weird enough to remember. Here's what survives the round.
- Gifts for Programmers Under $25 That Don't Feel Cheap
The right gift isn't about the price. It's about choosing something that joins a daily workflow, not a drawer full of branded swag.
- Gifts for the Mechanical Keyboard Person in Your Life
Never buy them a keyboard. Buy keycaps, a desk mat, or a switch sampler instead — the things they want but would not buy themselves.
- The Best Gifts for Programmers, Chosen by One
Skip the novelty mug. Buy something that upgrades the desk without replacing what they already chose, and you'll get it right.
Questions people ask
- Which desk toys are safe to use on video calls?
- The silent ones: balance sculptures, kinetic sand art, a Stirling engine on a warm mug. A Newton’s cradle is a metronome your microphone will faithfully broadcast to the whole standup — park it while unmuted.
- Are these just gifts, or do people buy them for themselves?
- Both, in about equal measure. They are the classic safe gift for an engineer precisely because the engineer would happily have bought one anyway.
Other departments
- The '90s RewindRebuild the room you did your first save game in.
- The Duck PondDebugging partners. Some wear hats. Some are Funkos.
- The Desk JunglePhotosynthesis for people who read stack traces.
- The Keycap GalleryYour keyboard, but it finally looks like you.
- The Paper DivisionVersion control for thoughts: cross it out, keep the history.
- The Listening PostA desk that is also the best seat in the house.