The Friday Fillip

gadget – Used as an indefinite or general name for: a comparatively small fitting, contrivance, or piece of mechanism / An accessory or adjunct; a knick-knack or gewgaw

[Origin obscure. Not found in print before 1886.]

But now found online at Boing Boing Gadgets, a recent child of Jackhammer Jill’s venerable Boing Boing. Sporting its own mascot — Jack Hammer? — it brings to our attention the necessary, useless, ornamental, latest, nifty, silly, ingenious…gewgaws and kickshaws and -aws of all kinds.

Today, for instance, there were: three-wheeled cars, mini-robots, new EV-DO interfaces from Novatel, and a long-slot executive toaster. And the beauty is that you can’t buy most of them because BBG gets on to them early in the production stage or because they haven’t made it over from Japan yet.