[HN Gopher] Show HN: Parallax wallpaper engine for Linux and Win...
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Show HN: Parallax wallpaper engine for Linux and Windows
Author : Czikenix
Score : 95 points
Date : 2023-02-23 17:22 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (github.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
| zorr wrote:
| This looks cool! Congrats on releasing.
|
| The Linux installation steps look a bit funky to me: Downloading
| a zip file from the internet and unzipping directly to "/".
|
| It's not very different from piping curl output to bash.
| Czikenix wrote:
| Thanks! I think most Linux users probably build it using make,
| although I decided to add a compiled zip anyway
| matthewhartmans wrote:
| Really cool and super neat! Well done OP!
| Czikenix wrote:
| Thanks! ;D
| memco wrote:
| Could something like this be built for macOS too? I remember
| there used to be a Quartz plugin you could use to have a
| screensaver as a background so you could get animated
| backgrounds, but something like this would be fun to have. The
| issue with the screensaver as a desktop background if I recall
| was rapid battery drain: what kind of resources are required to
| use this one?
| behnamoh wrote:
| Umm, NO. How many human hours should be wasted on toy projects
| that only cause distraction and get abandoned shortly after? When
| do we learn from past mistakes?
| dokem wrote:
| Where did the open source touch you?
| prophesi wrote:
| I don't understand the sentiment of this at all. It's fun to
| create things, I've learned the most from working on "toy"
| projects, it helps with job burnout, and could potentially
| become a new product/company/revenue-source.
| rom-antics wrote:
| Linux also started out as a toy project.
| https://fossbytes.com/linus-torvaldss-famous-email-first-lin...
| [deleted]
| nunobrito wrote:
| I bet you're fun at parties
| Narishma wrote:
| > How many human hours should be wasted on toy projects that
| only cause distraction and get abandoned shortly after?
|
| As many hours as possible.
| dijksterhuis wrote:
| Sometimes it's nice to have a bit of fun.
| raydiatian wrote:
| One thing that would probably make this adoption fodder for the
| custom Arch Linux & r/LinuxPorn communities is if it were just a
| desktop that side scrolled with parallax. Those folks seem to
| strongly reward anything even _remotely_ 8-bit. I get that drops
| the mouse-driven parallax, just an idea.
| jhallenworld wrote:
| You need to use the Wii remote in reverse so you can make a fake
| window.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jd3-eiid-Uw
|
| (can't believe this was 15 years ago now..)
| otterpro wrote:
| I remember him, Johnny Lee. I actually bought his Poor man's
| stabilizer ~15 years ago because I couldn't afford to buy
| Steadicam. EDIT: He also worked as dev for XBox Kinect
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Lee_(computer_scientist...
| albert_e wrote:
| This is brilliant!
|
| Why haven't we seen this idea developed further into consumer
| devices by now
| Jam-O wrote:
| Fake Windows can be made with OpenCV face tracking and webcam
| as well!
| jamespo wrote:
| Does this work on wayland?
| Czikenix wrote:
| Unfortunately no, but I'm going to make it work on wayland too
| at some point
| maybelsyrup wrote:
| This is exactly the sort of fun, random, small project that
| reminds me of the more anarchic and playful older days of
| computing and the web. Those days are gone and not coming back,
| but their spirit lives on in things like this.
|
| It's not some earth shattering YCombinator thing, it's not a
| SaaS, it's not (at least to my eye) about money -- it's a neat
| thing to do with a piece of screen real estate we all look at a
| million times a day. Not to be melodramatic but the world needs a
| lot more "heh, neat".
| irusensei wrote:
| Not so early internet but what happened to over the top Compiz
| 3D cube desktops and wobbly windows that catch on fire when
| closed?
| razemio wrote:
| Some of it is still there.
|
| 3D Cube: https://github.com/Schneegans/Desktop-Cube
|
| Burning Windows: https://github.com/Schneegans/Burn-My-
| Windows
| rektide wrote:
| It's a long way around but I think/believe we'll have some
| general purpose computing/systems research wins, that start to
| expose some computing as fun, interesting, casual, and from
| there we'll see a budding "heh, neat" attitude.
|
| The atmosphere around computing had gotten hypersaturated by
| the intense capital flows & software heavy-industries that have
| built up. Serving the industrial need has been an overehelming
| priority. And it's really outshadowed much of the fart around &
| make fun stuff element that made it a scene of interest for so
| long.
|
| I continue to tend to believe there's a ton of looming change
| in what computing will be when it grows up more. While most of
| that work gets concentrated in refinement & iteration & support
| of heavy-industrial software, we also keep finding/stumbling on
| stupendously more straightforward ways of doing things (react
| components/vdom, then hoc, then hooks). The ability of very
| small ideas to more capably express computing has enormous
| implications.
|
| The web is interesting here because the page is a bit of a
| canvas, resculptable by anyone knowing a little introductory
| javascript+html+css. Whatever innovation computing has,
| ultimately most of it strongly contrasts, is esoteric, no
| matter how useful it could be. Almost all the work is sent
| through an extremely small funnel where a handful of people are
| at all familiar with the system. For bigger libraries, it might
| be hundreds. It's bad that most works are obscure &
| inaccessible, but worse, most software being opaque means rven
| though it's everywhere around us, we never can learn it. The
| world is obscure, it's mechanism happening at nanoscale levels
| we cant get to & which are still down-compiled assembly codes
| with most of the meaning wiped away.
|
| Computing needs a kick towards extropic ends. Creativity will
| re-emerge, but only if there's an exosystem or ecosystem of
| computing, and right now we are small isolated islands,
| producing appliances, fixed systems, not computing software.
| Somewhere computing has to start letting users back in.
| davidandgoliath wrote:
| Those days are still very much here, there is just a lot more
| noise from the opposite end of the computing world.
| spyremeown wrote:
| Super neat. Congratulations, OP.
| muratsu wrote:
| I don't know if you're interested in monetizing this, but
| Wallpaper Engine on Steam is really popular (>500k reviews, 75k
| concurrent users). There's definitely a market for this type of
| product if you can find a way to differentiate yourself and crack
| the gtm strategy. eg seems like the wallpaper engine doesn't
| support linux yet, which may be your early wedge. Good luck!
|
| https://store.steampowered.com/app/431960/Wallpaper_Engine/
| Czikenix wrote:
| Thanks for Your advise! It sounds really interesting, I have to
| think about it
| prophesi wrote:
| I could see adding a nice GUI app for uploading/managing
| layers, editing the config, etc making waves on Steam.
| malnourish wrote:
| Believe it or not, Wallpaper Engine apparently works through
| Proton and a KDE plugin:
|
| https://www.protondb.com/app/431960
| mikub wrote:
| Nice idea, I really like it.
| Czikenix wrote:
| Thank You!
| hummus_bae wrote:
| [dead]
| SaintSeiya84 wrote:
| Cool thanks for sharing
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