[anotherjesse]

I have a similar setup (well, same goal, completely different components):

  * 37" lcd 1080p (1920x1080) - less than $1000 a year ago, now $500
  * mac mini, apple wireless keyboard, microsoft bluetooth mouse
  * a schwin recumbant bike

I can roll the bike in front of the screen, grab the keyboard and exercise while doing my non-coding activities: Google reader, checking social network buzz, watching videos (such as TED), ...

Then when I'm done, I move the bike away and I connect the 1080p display to my laptop (x60 running ubuntu) and I can hack with a large screen and my laptop's screen being for irc/im/social apps.

I had a 30" high res LCD (apple/dell), but found them frustrating due to mouse movement. Having a medium resolution screen (1080p is just about right for the mouse), with not many dots per inch (so you don't squint) for emacs/firefox, and a smaller auxiliary lcd for everything else.

At work I have 2 24" LCDs (rotated so they are taller than wider - 1920x1200 each), which works great as well, but wouldn't work for as well for the biking setup.