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Ball: A ball that lives in your dock
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- hot_gril 2y agoHe mentions the old Dashboard ball widget. There was a glitch you could use to put widgets onto your desktop instead, so naturally every school Mac had 20 bouncy balls on it.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- Wowfunhappy 2y agoI don't think it was a glitch, it was a developer mode. You can run in Terminal: > defaults write com.apple.dashboard devmode YES Maybe there was also a glitch to do it without the Terminal command; if there was I don't know about it.
- hot_gril 2y agoI remember there being dev mode and also a glitch, but I could be wrong and don't have a Tiger machine to test with now.
- Liquix 2y agoclassic. we had the versions of OS X with keyboard shortcuts for global zoom and color invert. took a couple months for the faculty to learn about these shortcuts the hard way..
- hot_gril 2y agoInvert colors, hold shift to slow down expose animations, spam F11 was what kids did when bored in computer lab
- hughesjj 2y agoWe'd print out the same string sans newlines and watch the console word wraparound make some shapes. All started from a bug someone wrote that we thought was funny.
- cortesoft 2y agoYou make me feel so old
- overshard 2y agoFun fidget utility! I find myself just mindlessly clicking stuff sometimes while I think and this gives me a little bit more to do.
- swayvil 2y agoI've always wanted a ball.
- gjm11 2y ago"And, oh! Father Christmas, if you love me at all, Bring me a big, red, india-rubber ball!" -- A. A. Milne, _King John's Christmas_
- Wowfunhappy 2y agoFwiw, here is the old Dashboard widget this is based on, for anyone else on an OS old enough to run it. It was a little annoying to dig out of the internet archive. https://web.archive.org/web/20110301011442/http://gogoredball.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20110301011442/http://gogoredbal...
- rubymamis 2y agoWhy does it only run on macOS 13+?
- wetpaws 2y ago[dead]
- pavel_lishin 2y agoI remember having these kinds of desktop toys in Windows, way back when, probably 95 or 98? Just a little joyful thing you could play with. This rules.
- Bluestein 2y agoI was fond (I know, I know ...) of those dancing er ... dancers you could have cavorting around your taskbar and Star Menu. The days ... PS. They would use up an obscene amount of memory and wholesale freeze your entire computer every 20 minutes. Didn't matter :)
- Bluestein 2y agoSomeone upthread is right: VirtualGirl it was called. Borderline spyware, but really well done.-
- scottyah 2y agoI loved the one that would take a screenshot of your current desktop and you could smash it with a hammer and set it on fire. Little me had some anger issues
- dylan604 2y agoHow could you not for being forced to use Windows?
- bigstrat2003 2y agoNot everyone has a hate boner for Windows.
- mixmastamyk 2y agoEveryone did around the VXD/BSOD era. Remember these? https://tenor.com/search/man-smashes-computer-gifs https://tenor.com/search/man-smashes-computer-gifs
- pedrogpimenta 2y agoI like ball. Almost makes me regret moving to Linux a year ago
- ashton314 2y agoI love the bouncy sounds! Thank you for adding a little whimsy to my day.
- docstryder 2y agoSuch a delightful thing
- soared 2y agoThis reminds me of rainmeter, but for fun instead.
- crooked-v 2y agoI'm suddenly reminded of the Petz series. I'm surprised that's never come back in some form.
- stevenpetryk 2y agoThere is something kind of similar as a VS Code extension: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=tonybaloney.vscode-pets https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=tonybalo...
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- riccardomc 2y agoI guess the duty of mentioning Neko befell on me this time: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neko_(software) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neko_(software)
- anyfoo 2y agoSerendipity, I just mentioned neko a few days ago. It's even the last comment I made before making this one now: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40756670 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40756670
- tambourine_man 2y agoIt's been a _really_ long time since I've seen that cat. Thanks for the memories.
- Bluestein 2y ago(I am convinced the Singularity will come in the form of a cute, harmless, screenmate AI, if not Neko itself ...)
- proee 2y agoDoes anyone know of any similar ideas for an interactive animals/pets for your desktop? This is the best thing I could find so far to put on an extra monitor. Note you can click to interact with the penguins and also feed them. https://www.petpenguins.com/ https://www.petpenguins.com/
- bazzargh 2y agoNeko has been around for decades now (but was cuter I think back when the desktop resolution matched the cat) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neko_(software) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neko_(software)
- reaperducer 2y agoNot quite the same thing, but it's at least a cat. And it's in the menu bar. https://kyome.io/runcat/index.html?lang=en https://kyome.io/runcat/index.html?lang=en
- rkowalick 2y agoThis actually works quite well: https://github.com/mdonoughe/neko-mac/issues/5#issuecomment-1823257147 https://github.com/mdonoughe/neko-mac/issues/5#issuecomment-...
- lioeters 2y agoAn article about Neko and historical archive: https://github.com/eliot-akira/neko https://github.com/eliot-akira/neko
- amelius 2y ago> Does anyone know of any similar ideas for an interactive animals/pets for your desktop? Maybe try Bonzi Buddy? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BonziBuddy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BonziBuddy
- dyauspitr 2y agoTrojanware aside, bonzibuddy was so much fun.
- amethyst 2y agoI still miss my desktop sheep every once in a while: https://github.com/Adrianotiger/desktopPet?tab=readme-ov-file#desktop-pet-esheep https://github.com/Adrianotiger/desktopPet?tab=readme-ov-fil... Edit: the best part was running it a couple dozen times to get an entire flock walking, falling, and rolling all over your desktop, and watching everything grind to halt under CPU strain!
- dheera 2y agoIt looks like this repo is is a rewrite of an earlier "scmpoo.exe" that roamed the internet in the mid-1990s. That was fun to set up on school computers to automatically launch at random times.
- amethyst 2y agoThat's the one I had. I got it from my friend in sixth grade, and who knows where he got it from!
- AShyFig 2y agoOh wow! Not sure if it was this exact program, but I remember some similar sheep roaming my desktop when I was young. It had the ability to draw pictures in MS Paint, and would often do so when you were working on something...
- ilrwbwrkhv 2y agoI was a big fan of VirtuaGirl myself. (NSFW if you Google about it).
- bcardarella 2y agoI read that title wrong
- sloproth 2y agoI love this. I think I'll just keep this app open at all times so I always have a little ball on screen. :)
- lxgr 2y agoAmazing! Now to get this approved as business critical software at work... :)
- h2odragon 2y agoDexterity development, ergonomic assistant, etc
- CodeWriter23 2y agoIt’s a productivity decline indicator. You’re welcome lol
- Bluestein 2y agoIt is essential (essential) to avoid repetitive motion injuries. OSHA agrees :)
- behnamoh 2y agoThis is why I visit HN! A fucking ball on my dock---this made my day.
- ryanmcbride 2y agoI don't have any hard proof but you can ask my wife, a few years ago I totally called that bonzibuddy was gonna come back in style. We're almost there
- al_borland 2y agoBonzibuddy, but with AI.
- circa 2y agoBonzAI Buddy
- Geezus_42 2y agoI'm surprised no one has brought back the desktop stripper yet. Now with state of the art GFE AI!
- ungamedplayer 2y agoDoes it work like paint stripper?
- pjot 2y agoMy dad was so angry when I installed this on the family Packard Bell
- sen 2y agoIf I knew how, I would 100% make a native app that simulates Clippy but is my daily interface with ChatGPT.
- dwighttk 2y agoDO NOT TAUNT BALL
- aresant 2y agoThis is awesomely reminiscent of the old school 68k macintosh era - dogcow, oscar the grouch in the trash can, etc I miss that simplicity / playfulness / aesthic of that era (yes I am old, please get off my lawn)
- easton 2y agoIf you’re still on a recent macOS, check out the page setup dialog in any app with printing. (She’s still there, doing flips and precision bitmap alignment)
- oneeyedpigeon 2y agoWow, I had to check a lot more apps before I found one that used the standard page setup. I eventually relented and opened Pages — for anyone who wishes to bypass all that hunting around!
- gcanyon 2y agoActual flips? If so, that's an easter egg I didn't manage to trigger.
- jonhohle 2y agoI wrote a Norton-style drive activity monitor, if that’s the kind of thing you like - https://apps.apple.com/us/app/drivelight/id6446650999 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/drivelight/id6446650999
- samcgraw 2y agoOne of my first memories is of my dad showing me how Oscar the Grouch was in his Mac trash can, and sang, “I love trash!” when he put something in there. Haven’t thought of that in many years, but it was the first thing I thought of when I saw this.
- shrikant 2y agoI vaguely recall a LiteStep theme for Windows back in the day that did something like this -- hadn't heard of it as a Mac feature before!
- BWStearns 2y agoDo not taunt happy fun ball.
- fanf2 2y agoReminds me of playing around with the WIMP on an Acorn Archimedes in about 1990, making a trivial app in BBC BASIC V that put a bouncing ball on the icon bar. Good times.
- notarealllama 2y agoBall is life
- alsetmusic 2y agoI remember Docklings, a feature of early OSX that let devs put mini-apps in the Dock. I had one showing uptime, undoubtedly just piping the output from the CLI command. That was one of the early steps toward my interest in the CLI, which still wouldn’t be realized for a handful of years. This is a great throwback with more capability than those had. Very cool.
- pram 2y agoThat came from NextStep. They’re still in Windowmaker if you want a nostalgia trip.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- Bluestein 2y agoNeXT (the whole proposition) was way ahead of its time ...
- Lammy 2y ago> early OSX So early that they got de-facto replaced by MenuItems in 10.1 just six months after 10-dot-0 (though Docklings were in DPs/PB too)
- palad1n 2y agoWhat if your dock is on the side of the screen? Or do I need to install it and see for myself?
- ascorbic 2y agohttps://github.com/nate-parrott/ball/blob/main/Ball/DockUtils.swift https://github.com/nate-parrott/ball/blob/main/Ball/DockUtil...
- heinrich5991 2y agoPermalink (press 'y' anywhere on github): https://github.com/nate-parrott/ball/blob/609f3bdba21b6a6a594edc6bed397cf22cadcedb/Ball/DockUtils.swift https://github.com/nate-parrott/ball/blob/609f3bdba21b6a6a59...
- teaearlgraycold 2y agoLove it. Only thing missing is multi monitor support. I want the ball to go across screens.
- CodeWriter23 2y agoExactly the kind of content I come to HN for. I wish someone would resurrect the Das Blinkenlights Mac screensaver. I think it was frozen in the Power PC age.
- brink 2y agoGo for it.
- CodeWriter23 2y agoIf the source was around somewhere, maybe. But I don’t think the author ever released it.
- crmd 2y agoI like this, it reminds me of xeyes and similar early UI toys.
- pbhjpbhj 2y agoI thought I remembered their being a ball; was the package xtoys?
- PedroBatista 2y agoNow compare this with Apple's 90min multi million dollar bi-yearly recorded presentation where Tim Apple & friends lobotomize the credulous consumers... 'member when computers used to be fun?
- neom 2y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlAhRJjOhDg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlAhRJjOhDg First time I saw that Amiga ball bounce, mind = blown.
- kevpie 2y agoI was going to say this sounds like Go Go Red Ball. Wonderful to see the nod to Nate Heagy in the repo!
- adambartlett 2y ago[flagged]
- doawoo 2y agohonestly perfect. no notes.
- th0ma5 2y agoWhy are physics engines still so unrealistic?
- luke_abell 2y agoStrangely reminds me of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BumpTop https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BumpTop
- TeMPOraL 2y agoI remember that, it was cool! This and CodeBubbles are two ideas that I wish had succeeded.
- agrimonyhal 2y agoFinally an app Apple won’t Sherlock
- michaelmilst 2y agoSpeaking of ball, check out https://www.moveball.org/ https://www.moveball.org/
- snaeker58 2y ago[flagged]
- J_cst 2y agoThat's llm to me
- flerp 2y agoI love it
- findthebug 2y agolove it.
- aitchnyu 2y agoBoring. There was/is a Linux dock which was main demo of a physics engine. We could toss icons which would bounce off screen corner and land in some part of the dock. You never know what order your icons are in. Dont forget to notice how old the video is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSZtTo1lXP8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSZtTo1lXP8
- trueismywork 2y agoIt's not a competition
- tommica 2y agoMan, you must be fun at parties. Why do you need to put down the person who made a fun little project because it has been done in the past differently? It's a weird thing that we do in the tech community, I can't imagine people who knit to say the same kind of things.
- pomian 2y agoThis reminds me of a Lara Croft desktop(?) Screensaver? She climbed onto the window's edges -that were open on your windows screen, rolled, jumped, etc. Sometimes made a comment about you not having cleaned up your desktop. It was a small executable, than ran with or without sound. It wasn't very random, but it made for an interactive mind distraction on a rough day. She also walked across the bottom of the screen, out to the right (eg), then you would hear her walking, and eventually she would show up on your left of the screen. Fun little thing with no particular purpose.
- hnlmorg 2y agoThere was a few programs like this. The earliest one I recall was Neko https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neko_(software) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neko_(software) But I think there were sheep, dancing babies (ugh!!), something like Bonzi Buddy rings a bell (I once had to clean something named that off a colleague’s workstation when he reported it thinking it was malware). There was also toys like this on Linux and Unix too. Most famously xeyes. I miss the playful era when things like this and novelty screensavers were “cool”.
- praseodym 2y agoBonzi Buddy was widely classified as spyware: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BonziBuddy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BonziBuddy But if you read the description of its spyware behaviour from a current perspective, it's not that different from the telemetry that’s implemented everywhere and Windows bugging you to use Bing as a search engine.
- EdwardDiego 2y agoWas wild reading the talk page for that and seeing Jimbo Wales weighing in. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:BonziBuddy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:BonziBuddy
- Gormo 2y agoYes, Bonzi Buddy was spyware. It's not that what they were doing was OK, but rather that the industry has normalized spyware.
- CRConrad 2y agoIdunno exactly why, but the headline feels somehow slightly smutty.
- lnxg33k1 2y agoDo you know how much it costs RAM on a macbook
- jwr 2y agoThe spirit of xeyes lives on! I'm happy to see that.
- perryizgr8 2y agoReminds me of a toy that would let you break/destroy the screen with a variety of tools like hammer, drill, bomb, etc.
- ville 2y agoDesktop Toys! I remember playing with this on Windows 95, but it turns out it was made for Windows 3.1 initially. YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sesM1fygKDs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sesM1fygKDs Internet archive: https://archive.org/details/desktoptoys_201911 https://archive.org/details/desktoptoys_201911
- perryizgr8 2y agoI was using this on XP! Edit: Noooooo I was playing some other program! It looked slightly better than this. Can't find it now :(
- Bluestein 2y agoTIL PowerToys was a 3.1 thing. Many thanks.-
- Beijinger 2y agoThats a nasty headline. I first read cock instead of dock. Sorry.
- deafpolygon 2y agoI'm also sorry. I read it the same way too
- albert_e 2y agoI want widgets on Windows desktop as well. I want clock, calendar, notes, CPU and system stats, pull out or slide out menus with shortcuts, quirky ones like this one. Instead what I have is ads. And copilot everywhere. With touch screen laptops today you can do so much more. My levono also folds 360 and let's me use it as a full touch screen desktop. There is so much potential for productivity hacks and interactive UX ideas if Windows customization and widgets ecosystem was alive and thriving.
- matsemann 2y agoWidgets has existed natively on Windows since Vista. Unless you have disabled it from your taskbar settings, it's the icon next to your start menu.
- skrebbel 2y agoYou mean the tabloid news panel? I know it’s called widgets but it’s actually a tabloid news panel. I have no idea why MS thinks people need tabloid news inside their OS but alas. You can’t turn off the tabloid news without turning off the entire panel, ergo effectively Windows doesn’t have widgets.
- nasvay_factory 2y agohttps://www.rainmeter.net/ https://www.rainmeter.net/
- elementalest 2y agoThis. Its been around for over a decade and has all the features mentioned.
- Bluestein 2y agoAnother classic. An entire "subculture" ...
- Bluestein 2y ago
- ianpenney 2y agoDoes anyone else think this is the least important distraction to real hackers today?
- criddell 2y agoI'm not sure. What's an example of a more important distraction? And is a real hacker anything like a true Scotsman?
- ianpenney 2y agoReasonable comeback. Assange news is pretty big. I guess I was surprised that wasn’t top of the page. And I always defer to the Jargon file for my own axioms. It’s been a long time with that as a North Star.
- koliber 2y agoYou know what would be cool? If I could throw my ball into your dock. And then it's yours. You can throw it back to me.
- Bluestein 2y agoNetworked hacky sack (ball).- Now that's a thought.-
- kome 2y agoFinally something useful!!! i love it
- helboi4 2y agoI need more recommendations to make my computer (mac) silly
- krylon 2y agoIf I was still using a Mac as my desktop, my productivity would be completely gone now. =D
- visarga 2y agonarrow escape
- shaan7 2y agoReminds me of Plasma's ball widget: https://store.kde.org/p/1172489/ https://store.kde.org/p/1172489/ Apart from amusement, this served as a nice example when you are giving talks at universities trying to motivate students to tinker. Just multiple gravity by -1 and voila!
- InDubioProRubio 2y agoBut can you drop it in the bin?
- Bluestein 2y agoYour question is a total slam dunk :)
- Reason077 2y ago> "It's inspired by Nate Heagy's widget for the OS X Dashboard" Bring back the Dashboard, Apple! The original Dashboard was dropped because of it's shaky technology foundations, but the UX was fantastic and much better than the widgets buried in the notification centre or cluttering the desktop that we have today. Now that we have modern native Widgets on macOS X, they need a place where they can thrive, and look cool, and be quickly accessible. Dashboard!
- jb1991 2y agoWe’ve been using this in production for the last three months and I can report it has been fairly smooth overall. Only very minor downtime, and we’ve received a lot of communication from our customers about it, they like it quite a bit. So that’s been nice.
- talkinghead 2y agowhat have you been using it for?
- Waterluvian 2y agoCan’t speak for parent but we’ve been using it for our standard red ball use cases. The physics can seem a bit floaty, particularly with space or moonscape wallpapers, but overall it’s good.
- Bluestein 2y agoTotally mission critical.-
- mb2100 2y agowhen ours was down, we found clicking the ball helped... it immediately bounced up again.
- Bluestein 2y agoWe find a soft re-bounce helps.-
- toddmorey 2y agoThis has been a complete show stopper for my organization: https://github.com/nate-parrott/ball/issues/10 https://github.com/nate-parrott/ball/issues/10 We've submitted numerous GH issues and even tried to chase the developer down on LinkedIn. But he treats the project like a fun, novelty "gift" to the community and doesn't respect the SLAs that any repo maintainer needs to adhere to for my org to put their free code in production.
- 867-5309 2y agofor Apple OS
- TomMasz 2y agoThere is still room for a bit of whimsy in computing. Anything to combat the flood of doom is welcome.
- Bluestein 2y agoAgreed. Totally. Also, the "whimsy" is - I believe - indicative of something deeper ... PS. Incidentally, "lightheartedness", humor, might just be the ultimate Turing test.-
- pkstn 2y agoBut why?
- Borgorg 2y agoso simple, yet one of the best things to happen to my desktop ever
- dizhn 2y agoI read the description of the product and came away with the feeling that it's safe to say it's a ball.
- yashbindal 2y agoWhat's this about
- leokennis 2y agoThis will get Sherlocked by Apple in 5 years time. DockBall Pro Max.
- floatrock 2y ago> It's a ball. It's fun. It's a ball. All that's missing is about 3 more README's of warnings and disclosures ending with "Do not taunt Ball." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmqeZl8OI2M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmqeZl8OI2M
- dayjah 2y agoLooks cool, but I just can’t justify the subscription cost.
- Bluestein 2y ago(Have you considered the "per-bounce" (egress) tier? :)
- papa0101 2y agoAh, reminds me of my intro to maths and trig in the good old Flash days! https://www.kirupa.com/developer/as3/physics_bounce_effect_pg1.htm https://www.kirupa.com/developer/as3/physics_bounce_effect_p...
- yakito 2y agoAt the moment of writing this I have no clue what my wallpaper is. I can't remember when was the last time I actually saw my desktop or interacted with it. I am not sure if this ball will also bounce on top of opened windows, but the whole thing made me think about the need for the desktop at all or how it could be made more useful.
- Bluestein 2y agoHeavy command line user, eh?
- greenpresident 2y agoNot OP but for everyone I know the desktop is mostly either empty or a messy “temp” folder.
- Bluestein 2y agoTotally. There's absolutely no in-between.-
- caseyohara 2y agoI treat my desktop as a temp dir and manually empty it every few days. A desktop hygiene tip I read years ago (but can't remember where) is to increase the size of your desktop icons almost to the point of being ridiculously large, like 96x96. This way your desktop will "fill up" faster, forcing you to clear it more regularly.
- Bluestein 2y ago(*Me fails at the "empty it every few days" stage ...)
- mFixman 2y agoI use it as a Downloads folder. I always know where my recently downloaded files are, and I have visual feedback of when I should delete them. I also use it as a temporary launchpad for sorting uploads.
- ananya_paw 2y agoI don't know what's the use case, but it like it already
- Bluestein 2y ago(Somebody upthread is using it in production for spherical-cow simulation :) /s
- drowntoge 2y agoThis desperately needs a hoop or a bin to aim for, then it's golden.
- Bluestein 2y agoSomebody upthread proposed the OS trashbin be used for that :)
- anbardoi 2y agoAs cool and fun as this is, the OP is honestly one of my favorite developers. The app “Feeeed” on iOS is such a game-changer of an RSS reader, and any feedback I’ve had in the past, he’s responded promptly and respectfully. Glad to see this trending on HN.
- jari_mustonen 2y agoA bug: The ball guesses the location with multiple monitors based on a finder window. If the dock and the Finder window are in separate displays, the ball does not work.
- nayuki 2y agoIt reminds me of the Easter egg in Cool Edit Pro (audio editor): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgPTxXiHvI4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgPTxXiHvI4
- Bluestein 2y agoOh, goodness gracious. Cool Edit. Those were the days ... Great great piece of software. Bought by Adobe, I believe.-
- Weryj 2y agoIt's an effective way to get your laptop in Game Mode, unless you right click-quit, it's detected as a game in focus.
- coldblues 2y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QokOwvPxrE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QokOwvPxrE Speaking of fun desktop toys, Compiz effects used to be wild.
- Rakshith 2y agois there one for windows?
- Bluestein 2y agoI really did ask myself the same question. I am afraid not (that I could cursorily find ...)
- MollyRealized 2y agoI feel it's worth warning as to a concern, though: Do Not Taunt Happy Fun Ball.
- TristanBall 2y agoPfft. Let's talk about the rent before announcing where I live eh?
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