zabbo

The One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) effort aims to develop a laptop that costs U$100 which will be used to educate children, particularly in the developing world. For quite a while now our friend Chris has been heavily involved in the project (that’s him!).

Chris finally convinced me that tackling some of the technical problems, particularly in getting the kernel to run efficiently on such lean hardware, would be a lot of fun. I’m excited by the notion of a project I can spend hobby time on that lots of people are actively interested in. So I requested a board and here it is! I have to order some USB kit to get a development environment up and running but that shouldn’t take long at all.

I was surprised to notice that it’s been almost two months since the last loftice update. In that time I managed to lose a laptop drive that had photos showing a few steps along the way so we’re jumping ahead a bit. There have also been the welcome distractions of attending a lovely wedding and helping organize a linux file system developer workshop (free tip: have James order the wine). So lots has happened.

Probably most dramatically: the floor has been refinished. It took them a few passes to get the stain to soak into the old and dry boards. Each time the house smelt like it was made entirely of dry-erase markers. It was absolutely worth it, though, as the result is very nice to look at and is infinitely less likely to give splinters.

The bulk of the trim has been put in and it does a great job framing the room. Again we went with the smaller trim that is readily available these days and is mostly in keeping with the style of the house. We painted it before it went up to save a huge amount of irritating brush work. We just had to spackle and touch up some dings and nail-holes from installation. No sweat.

The railing which replaces the wall is installed. Alice was right; the room feels significantly larger now that it’s effectivey merged with the stairwell. The latter also now gets a strong dose of sunlight as the sun goes down past the windows on the west wall of the loftice. And the cats like watching us through the spindles as we walk up and down the stairs — everybody wins.

Finally, there is some furniture! We rented a van and drove up to the Ikea in Seattle to get matching pairs of desks, chairs, and rugs. I’m quite pleased with the way they fit around the corner formed by the otherwise awkward dormer. It makes good use of the space.

There is still some work to do — finishing up trim, patching some holes, staining the railing, hanging curtains — but it should go quickly. It sure will be nice to have a stable work space again after all these months.