make a list of 43 things I'd like to own.

43. A gold ring. But I don’t intend to keep it very long before I give it to someone else.

42. A multi-fuel camping stove. One of those that can run off everything from alcohol to diesel. If it is square and can fit in a magazine pouch, so much the better.

41. A solar water heater for my house, or, while I wait for the house, at least a set of evacuated tube collecting tubes to play with.

40. A general-purpose I/O device for my computer. A few ADCs and DACs, a counter or six, at least 16 DIO lines. A decade ago I lusted after a PC-30 board, but today I guess it’ll be a USB device.

39. An antique writing slope.

38. A solar-powered robot lawnmower.

There’s a lot I could say about lawns but the one thing all lawns have in common is that they need to be mowed. To me it seems a waste of manpower to have a human do it when a robot can do it so much better.

37. Another pretty naff one, if the context is wrong: I’d like to own an electric winch for my bakkie.

36. A barometer/altimeter. I don’t know much about this technology, but I know I’d like to an answer to the question “how high are we now?”. If I would would be able to find a device with an integrated anemometer and thermometer, so much the better.

Edit:

I see I’ve already had this on my list, so I’m replacing it with:

36. A good quality soldering station with a desoldering tool and a hot air jet for reworking SMD components.

35. A decent digital SLR camera. This is might seem like rather common thing to want to own, but the little digital camera I have at the moment has limitations.

34. A wood chipper.