I'm not the author, but one of the reasons I recommended it is that's it's completely free to download (legally)-only the printed, bound book is sold,
http://www.dspguide.com/pdfbook.htm
And it does cover exactly the stuff that you'll need to make something like this

This is a great place to start, http://www.dspguide.com/

Well certainly not in the UK-aside from anything else you can draw 3kW from any socket, and three phase is certainly not easily available without special arrangements with the power company. Stoves or similar (commonly boilers) that draw 30+ amps (7+kW) are normally hardwired in, with a dedicated breaker

I'd just be impressed if they managed to find a marketing company that were willing to be paid in Bitcoins...

Well I booked a flight from the UK to see it on the basis it would launch on the 28th June, and it comes back on the 9th. Hope it isn't delayed any further! Bugger.... Truly sad to see the last shuttle go, and can only hope the science continues in the same vein for the next 30 years!

If you like this, read his book-goes through his approach in building Lucy, his robot. Very different approach to traditional AI, but absolutely fascinating
Growing Up with Lucy: How to Build an Android in Twenty Easy Steps
He's also got a book about how he designed the creature game, both really interesting, highly recommended!

Or he's Brian May-of Queen, with a PHD in astrophysics from Imperial College... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_May

If you're in the UK, http://www.bitsbox.co.uk/ is excellent, good passive component packs, although a lot of time if you're doing analogue design you'll need 1% accurate resistors, preferably in the E196 series, and if you're doing digital you can probably get away with keeping 1ks, 10ks and some resistors for LEDs in stock. Useful for prototyping though

Fortunately none of them can find Slashdot any more...

I've just bought a new scope at work, we had Agilent and Tektronix to play around with for a couple of weeks, so might be of some help. We were looking at MSOs, combination scopes and logic analysers which I can throughly recommend if you don't need all the triggering on a full logic analyser. The Agilent scope was simple to use, its all menu based with quick access to the most common features off the front, but its worth getting a tek scope in to play with the Wave Inspector technology, allows you to pan through long samples really quickly. Its worth getting a bigger sample memory, especially if you have transient events to find. Personally, I found the ability to decode I2C, serial data etc on the fly useful in debugging, but it depends on your needs. Oh, and the 12.1" screen on the agilent scopes is a pleasure to use.