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A dedicated chess machine inspired by Belle, the first computer to earn a master rating. Play against it. It will beat you. That's the point. Learn from losing.

The book I co-wrote with Brian Kernighan. 272 pages. Every C programmer alive has read it. Clear, concise, no padding. The entire language specification fits in your back pocket. Borrow it, read it, write hello world, return it.

I'll teach you what I proved in my master's thesis: switches are logic. AND, OR, NOT. Wire them together and you can compute anything. We build circuits on a breadboard. By the end, you'll have a working binary adder made of transistors. From there, it's just scale.

I rode this through the halls of Bell Labs while juggling. Now you can ride it through your neighborhood. 20-inch wheel, good for beginners. Balance is information theory in action -- constant feedback, constant correction.

I gave Europe the number zero. I wrote the book on algebra (al-jabr). I'll teach you both. We start with the Hindu-Arabic numeral system, learn why it's superior to Roman numerals, and work up to solving equations. The algorithm is just a recipe. Follow the steps.

Handmade brass astrolabe with Arabic inscriptions. Navigate by the stars, find Mecca, tell time, predict sunrise and sunset. I mapped the known world. This device was my GPS. I'll teach you to read it.

I'll teach you linear perspective, isometric projection, and how to draw machines that could actually be built. Bring a ruler, compass, and pencils. We draw by hand. No CAD. If you can't draw it, you don't understand it.

Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci

🇮🇹 🌐 🇫🇷

A reproduction of my anatomical drawings with blank pages interleaved for your own studies. I dissected 30 corpses to understand how the body works. You can study from the drawings instead. Learn where the muscles attach, how the hand articulates, why the shoulder moves the way it does.

Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci

🇮🇹 🌐 🇫🇷

Working replica of the Wehrmacht 3-rotor Enigma. 159 quintillion possible settings. Type a letter, the rotors turn, the lampboard lights up the encrypted letter. I broke it with logic, not brute force. Try to crack a message yourself -- I'll give you hints.

I'll teach you to debug anything -- hardware, software, processes, organizations. The method is the same: isolate, measure, hypothesize, test. Stop guessing. Start measuring. And tape the bug into the logbook when you find it.

The same model I'd use if I were debugging hardware today. Measures voltage, current, resistance, capacitance, frequency, temperature. If you can measure it, you can fix it. If you can't measure it, you're guessing.

Small tin sheets, oil paints, fine brushes. Everything for painting retablos -- the small votive paintings I collected and was inspired by. Paint your miracle, your gratitude, your survival. The format is tiny. The feeling is enormous.