I'm guessing he had emacs open in a "Cathode":http://www.secretgeometry.com/apps/cathode/ session. The extra warping at the end of the video can be achieved by fiddling with the "distress" parameters in Cathode's preferences.

Is there a linux alternative to that? I want it incredibly badly.

The apple2 screensaver that comes with xscreensaver can be used as a terminal emulator. You can also get a chintzy version by fullscreening xterm or gnome-terminal with the vt220 TrueType font and green-on-black, but that doesn't give you CRT distortions, or for that matter even correct-looking reverse video.

the apple2 screensaver is a thing of beauty.

Sadly it's just post-processign FX. However, a terminal that looked like that would be totally badass.

The glow fits very well with the flymake (i guess) flashing.

In theory a ~compiz composite plugin for this purpose wouldnt be hard to create, if it doesn't already exists. And Qt seems capable of glowing to.. time to patch Konsole.

If on OSX, you may be interested in this:

http://www.secretgeometry.com/apps/cathode/

Not sure if I would really use it aside from a novelty, but I may need to buy this simply to support such a great/fun idea.

I actually asked him some time ago and he said (much to my disappointment) that he did it in post-processing.

I think it's a little of column A and a little of column B.