[HN Gopher] Ball: A ball that lives in your dock
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Ball: A ball that lives in your dock
        
       Author : Bluestein
       Score  : 112 points
       Date   : 2024-06-25 20:52 UTC (2 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (github.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
        
       | hot_gril wrote:
       | He 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.
        
         | Wowfunhappy wrote:
         | I 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 wrote:
           | I 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 wrote:
         | classic. 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 wrote:
           | Invert colors, hold shift to slow down expose animations,
           | spam F11 was what kids did when bored in computer lab
        
             | hughesjj wrote:
             | We'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.
        
       | overshard wrote:
       | Fun fidget utility! I find myself just mindlessly clicking stuff
       | sometimes while I think and this gives me a little bit more to
       | do.
        
       | swayvil wrote:
       | I've always wanted a ball.
        
         | gjm11 wrote:
         | "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_
        
       | ashton314 wrote:
       | I love the bouncy sounds! Thank you for adding a little whimsy to
       | my day.
        
       | Wowfunhappy wrote:
       | Fwiw, 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://gogoredbal...
        
         | rkagerer wrote:
         | I miss websites that actually gave you useful information on
         | the landing page.
        
       | rubymamis wrote:
       | Why does it only run on macOS 13+?
        
       | pavel_lishin wrote:
       | I 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 wrote:
         | I 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 :)
        
         | scottyah wrote:
         | I 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 wrote:
           | How could you not for being forced to use Windows?
        
       | pedrogpimenta wrote:
       | I like ball. Almost makes me regret moving to Linux a year ago
        
       | docstryder wrote:
       | Such a delightful thing
        
       | soared wrote:
       | This reminds me of rainmeter, but for fun instead.
        
       | crooked-v wrote:
       | I'm suddenly reminded of the Petz series. I'm surprised that's
       | never come back in some form.
        
         | stevenpetryk wrote:
         | There is something kind of similar as a VS Code extension:
         | 
         | https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=tonybalo...
        
       | proee wrote:
       | Does 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/
        
         | bazzargh wrote:
         | Neko 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)
        
         | amelius wrote:
         | > 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
        
       | amethyst wrote:
       | I still miss my desktop sheep every once in a while:
       | 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!
        
       | riccardomc wrote:
       | I guess the duty of mentioning Neko befell on me this time:
       | 
       | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neko_(software)
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2024-06-25 23:00 UTC)