Thanks to the listeners who sent in emails describing their favorite tech gift from holidays past!

• The Holmes Archive of Electronic Music, maintained by Thom Holmes, includes Merry Moog 2023, Merry Moog 2022, etc. Thanks to Webhamster Henry for the pointer.

• Myst for the Atari 2600 (Mastodon post, Dec 11, 2023) . . . or play it in-browser

• Coleco Electronic Quarterback Game on Wikipedia (similar to the Mattel Football and Football 2).

• The worst tech of 2023 (an anti-gift guide) (Brian Merchant in the LA Times, Dec 7, 2023): Don’t buy Amazon Ring.

• Annual Reminder: 23andMe Is a Dangerous Christmas Gift That Could Have Unforeseen Impacts on Your Entire Family, Your Children, Etc. (by Jason Koebler in 404 Media, Dec 6, 2023): “The ever-worsening 23andMe hack shows the inherent vulnerability of genetic databases designed to show connections between people.”

Koebler writes: “23andMe’s current privacy practices, security practices and policies, business models, advertising models, research practices, big Pharma data sharing agreements, and everything else are not guaranteed to stay as they are forever. Consider, for example, that 23andMe suddenly changed its terms of service in the aftermath of the hack to include a mandatory arbitration provision to prevent class action lawsuits. 23andMe has already been subject to a SPAC, while Ancestry was purchased by Blackstone, a gigantic private equity firm. We have no idea what 23andMe will be doing in one, 10, or 100 years, who will own it, what will happen to its databases, and who will have direct or indirect access to your DNA. Business models change, companies are sold, strategies change, promises can be broken, privacy policies can be updated. These things are impermanent. But your DNA is forever.”

• 23andMe admits hackers accessed 6.9 million users’ DNA Relatives data (The Verge, Dec 4, 2023): “The data revealed includes things like display names, predicted relationships with others, the amount of DNA users share with matches, ancestry reports, self-reported locations, ancestor birth locations, family names, profile pictures, and more.”

    --> As John Overholt posted on Mastodon (Dec 4, 2023), “23andMe was hacked, so if your information was compromised, make sure to change your genetic code ASAP.”

• Good news: The Hyperloop is dead (Futurism, Dec 22, 2023)