Rael is playing with microcontroller stamp kits, including Parallax's BASIC Stamp Discovery Kit, a stamp programming app for Mac OS X called MacBS2, and a USB serial adapter. I'm convinced that my casual (and pretty much entirely unexplored) interest in electronics probably won't go any deeper than stamp kits at this point. After getting the light to go on, the next thing I'll want to do is get the light to go on from the Mac OS X command line, and I'm probably not patient enough to learn the interim steps, at least not right away. I have a couple of "build your own Z80 computer" books from twenty years ago that I keep thinking will be a project some day, and I had thought stamp kits were cutting a corner I wanted to navigate myself. But stepping through a classic Forrest M. Mimms book then getting a stamp kit sounds like more fun right now.

Also: MP3 player in an Altoids can.