Now you see it . . .

My new Zotac Zbox occasionally gets all spastic and ignores what I am typing for a few seconds. I am pretty sure Linux is the problem, but then I realize I'm using this new wireless keyboard and maybe it's causing the problem. So I go looking for customer reviews. I'm not finding anything that implicates the keyboard but I come across this picture:

 which features a disappearing USB port, at least here and now. When I first saw it on the original page (2nd picture in the second group), I could see the USB port plain as day, but within a second it had disappeared, and all I see is featureless black. When I select the picture inside of Blogger's editor, I get a red view of the pic, and the port is again visible.

I imagine it's a function of the video hardware and the drivers that are causing this. It's weird though how it's visible for a second before it disappears. Is something dynamically adjusting the contrast? And who is it?

As for the dropped characters, I complain on Launchpad, but I am not getting much in the way of encouragement. Stupid computers.

Update: the visibility of the port depends on the viewing angle, at least on my screen. Now that's really weird. What the devil is going on here?

Update 2: On my plasma screen, changing the viewing angle makes no difference. The port remains invisible.