Screen-shot of Metisse for FVWM

ESTERDAY I read about three-dimensional displays, which are said to require no glasses and make stereo-vision a reality. This seemed like ‘queue hopping’ from a scientific point-of-view, so I had to read it carefully and identify some points of skepticism. I was successful in finding some gaps and deficiencies, which a careful read would quickly reveal (albeit the headline is very eye-catching — an exaggeration within or even beyond reason).

If you have some idiosyncratic interests which pertain to the study of vision and human-computer interaction (HCI), you may find some of my past essays on the topic intersting:

• Spherical Display
• The User Interfaces of Tomorrow
• 3-D Interaction on the Desktop
• Accelerated X Draws Competition
• The Desktop Sphere
• Next Generation of X
• Spherical Desktop

A shrimpy yet fully-functional USB drive

Here are a couple of fun lists which I have recently come across:

• Top 10 Strangest Custom Gaming Systems
• Ten Products Google Should Develop (hypothetical)

Some even contain videos.

OME time ago I linked to a screenshot showcasting Boot Camp. This involved Mac OS X, Ubuntu Linux, and Windows running simultaneously. There now exists a public video, which illustrates this rather exciting experience. Well, it is exciting to folks like me…

[Video omitted one week later]

This shows nothing unprecedented or novel, but it can be pleasant to watch if you fancy operating systems.

The last time I embedded an off-site video, this led to trouble and invalidated the markup. Let us hope for better luck this time around.

The little ‘object’ on the left has the most responsibility. The laptop may act as merely a relic, a host.

The title says it all. It is
Booting Linux on a Mac from an iPod”>yet another story which illustrates the versatility of GNU/Linux.

Think about this scenario for a moment: Using an iPod to boot Linux on a Mac. No, we’re not kidding. This is exactly what writer Dave Taylor describes in a new online article at LinuxJournal.com entitled “Yellow Dog Linux Installs Neatly on an iPod.”

What happens when every time you receive a product and it breaks, time after time? You lose confidence, right? Here is the story of a rather stubborn guy.

Apparently, Szarek has had not one faulty Xbox 360, not two, not even three. No, he’s had four, count ‘em, four malfunctioning Xboxes, and he’s pissed, especially since he read that the console’s maker, Microsoft, feels customers who complain about faulty Xboxes should take their gripes elsewhere.

Older item: Xbox 360 Off to a Slow Start in Japan

The affordability of Linux begins to show. Last year I was getting excited over a Linux laptop that was sold for under $500. This year, however, new barriers are being pushed. A few prime examples are listed below:

• $150 for a Linux desktop computer in China
• The $100 laptop for developing countires
• Linspire PC for $159 in the States
• In Britain, several shops sell an eSys unit for as little as 127 pounds. Nowadays, the cost keeps sliding. There are finally some laptops from eSys as well.

VER the past few years I have accumulated new workstations, which joined what would become ‘legacy hardware’. The neat thing is that modern workstations can collaborate with the older ones and greatly benefit from their existence, e.g. for backup purposes or the use as a remote terminal. The key step is that which involved delegating tasks to each workstation, depending on its available capacity.

Currently, I have three machines at work. Ubuntu Linux is my pride with an admirable uptime (09:57:27 up 148 days, 1:47, 5 users, load average: 0.04, 0.05, 0.01), but there is also a Windows box and a Mac, none of which I bother to switch on anymore. There is one more computer at the University (SuSE), one at home (SuSE), and a laptop that I recently handed over to my sister. If it counts, I still have a Pentium at home, but it runs Windows 98 and it is not even connected to a source of power. It simply lies in storage and occasionally brings back memories from my mid-teens.

Giving up on one of my jobs is something I decided to do last week. I will still be left with another job, as well as the full-time Ph.D., on which I must concentrate. Thesis composition should probably start within weeks.

This departure from the job will leave me with 3 machines less. A post on my resignation should come up soon, once all is confirmed. I am obliged to come in for my last afternoon of duty tomorrow. I am saddened to think that the better choice was to resign. But not doubt it was.