[HN Gopher] Investigating corrupt Winamp skins
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Investigating corrupt Winamp skins
Author : treve
Score : 473 points
Date : 2024-07-25 04:14 UTC (18 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (jordaneldredge.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (jordaneldredge.com)
| _def wrote:
| Love it. I really wonder though how people ended up doing this?
| dixie_land wrote:
| I have a theory that at least some of them might be taking
| advantage of an (un)official website/forum that allows for free
| sharing/hosting of wsz files, which of course are just zips
| cstuder wrote:
| A notorious issue when doing Windows support (An experience I
| recommend to every developer!): Double clicking a folder or
| file in Explorer in order to open it, but slipping the mouse
| and therefore accidently moving the target into another folder.
| metadat wrote:
| This happens to me almost daily.
|
| Almost never happens with Mac or Linux. How's that? :)
| account42 wrote:
| Do you have your Linux file browser set to click to open or
| double click to open?
| metadat wrote:
| Double click.
| RajT88 wrote:
| It is an irony that Windows makes keyboard shortcut users out
| of even non-techies.
| imp0cat wrote:
| Yes, single click, then Enter, that's the winning combo
| here.
| Nition wrote:
| If you're willing to try something a little bit
| different, Windows also has a single-click to open mode
| ('View->Options->Change folder and search options' in Win
| 11). To only select, you point and hover for a moment.
| account42 wrote:
| I wish it would let do single click open without hover to
| select. It's just too easy to mess up your selection if
| you are not careful where you park your cursor for even a
| split second.
|
| KDE's Dolphin is much better here, can be set to single
| click open with drag selection box or click + icon to
| select.
| layer8 wrote:
| FWIW, you can configure the minimum distance for a mouse
| move to count as a drag. The default was adequate for
| 640x480, but maybe should have been increased.
| NamTaf wrote:
| For others: I was curious how to do this, so if you put
| "change windows drag drop sensitivity" into your search
| engine of choice you'll find a tutorial for which
| registry settings to change.
|
| The default is 4 pixels, which I'm inclined to agree is
| low these days.
| layer8 wrote:
| To be more precise, it's the registry settings
| HKCU\Control Panel\Desktop\DragWidth and DragHeight. You
| can also use a tool like Winaero Tweaker to adjust the
| values.
| razakel wrote:
| Ctrl-Z to the rescue!
| pavon wrote:
| Oh, this is the bane of shared network drives.
| ggm wrote:
| Some of it was stupidity, some of it was cupidity, some of it
| was deliberate. The piece about people running slow IP over the
| text fields in the website for their frequent flyer miles
| homepage (accessible for free on in-flight wifi without paying
| for it) is an example of deliberate: I think some of this was
| early file sharing and warez in .. winamp skinz.
|
| "what does this do" causes a lot of things to happen. you zip
| up a folder and forget the metric tonne of other files in it,
| which don't interfere with the prime function so just come
| along for the ride.
| RyanShook wrote:
| Was the internet better back then or am I just old?
| doe_eyes wrote:
| It's still like that. There's a _lot_ of weird things you 're
| gonna find on the tail end of Github repositories, or Pastebin
| uploads, Imgur, or YouTube... it's just hard to find unless you
| crawl the whole thing or otherwise come into the possession of
| the underlying database (as this person did).
| 4gotunameagain wrote:
| The difference is that nowadays you have to shift through
| orders of magnitude more monetised manure in order to find
| the sprouting gems.
| asimovfan wrote:
| Sift
| echelon wrote:
| You were young and not working. The world was full of new
| frontiers and possibilities.
|
| Young people today are on Minecraft, Roblox, VRchat, Discord,
| and YouTube. That's their frontier internet, and they probably
| feel the same way about it as you do.
|
| A Geocities website, phpBB or EZBoard, webring, Xanga, and
| AIM/IRC has a similar analogues today. The pieces just have
| different names and shapes.
| dartos wrote:
| And different monetization strategies.
| ilrwbwrkhv wrote:
| I get this argument from a lot of people but it is not true.
| There was a much higher spirit of sharing and just cool shit
| back in the day. Now everyone is trying to make a buck, and
| shit is slow, like Slack.
| GardenLetter27 wrote:
| There still is amongst the users on Discord, e.g. in some
| gamedev Discords, etc. - it's even easier to do things
| together ad-hoc with screen sharing built-in.
|
| It really is just that we're old now so we don't interact
| with them.
|
| Although I agree the grindset culture has harmed Internet
| culture.
| ilrwbwrkhv wrote:
| I'm in my 30s and I am interact a lot with discord. I
| agree gamedev is one last large scale space where
| interesting things happen.
|
| But overall people are just trying to optimize total
| compensation and bend over backwards to get into FAANG.
| Imagine telling us to get into IBM back in the day.
|
| So things have definitely changed. The punk spirit has
| also been lost. Normies have arrived. It's good for the
| normies, but we won't get a Napster again.
| wiseowise wrote:
| That's not the point. Modern crap doesn't hold a candle to
| what we had back then.
|
| And no, this is not the rambling of getting-older-man.
|
| Rampant corporate control, completely sanitized internet by
| default, "social" networks that literally give kids
| https://cwi.pressbooks.pub/urj/chapter/2022-first-place-
| inst... mental disorders, political agenda pushed from every
| hole, disinformation campaigns, bots to the point where you
| don't even know if you're talking to a real person. Internet
| became a weapon.
|
| Back then we an intranet within local ISP (additionally to
| internet access) that had a sense of community, local
| services, file sharing, chats, meetups which generally self
| moderated themselves and everyone knew each other. What do
| you have now? Proprietary discord chat rooms filled with
| degeneracy? Good luck going through that.
|
| Say what you want, but
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September is real.
| mlyle wrote:
| I think there is great stuff on Discord and people do the
| same things they did then and enjoy similar tomfoolery..
| they just don't own it and are monetized, and don't have
| viable alternatives (none of which was true back then).
|
| I think the big reason why social media is toxic is because
| going online is no longer a choice and it follows you
| around. Some decisions by social media providers aren't
| helping, but mobile is more guilty than social itself.
| jumelles wrote:
| It was certainly more decentralized, less corporate, and a lot
| messier.
| itsmeknt wrote:
| When a new island is formed, usually it is first inhabited by
| algae and moss. As the ecosystem matures, plants, birds,
| insects, and all sorts of organisms populate it. You can still
| usually find the early algae and moss. They are just harder to
| spot due to the thriving and abundant ecosystem.
|
| I think the Internet is a lot like that.
| shmeeed wrote:
| This is a beautiful way to see it, thank you for leading me
| to it.
|
| Guess I'll have to consider myself a bryophite of the
| information age from now on.
| specproc wrote:
| Unfortunately, most of the island has now been buried under
| fast food joints, car parks and factories.
| anal_reactor wrote:
| I think that this analogy is really fitting. The old
| internet was way less organized, which means that it was
| less useful, but it also gave this fantastic sense of
| exploring something new. It was highly personal, the lack
| of common standards meant that everyone had to reinvent the
| wheel in their own way. Its dangers were more direct and
| "in your face". Yes, you could stumble upon a pedofile on
| an open forum and ordering a taxi online was wrong on so
| many levels, but there was no systematic explotation of
| human weaknesses like we have nowadays. The phrase "global
| village" captures the experience really well, as opposed to
| the megacity we have now.
|
| I think it's a curse of progress. Once you get the taste of
| a highly developed, efficiently functioning society you
| can't go back and live in a cave again. At the same time
| you can't deny that living in a cave has its charm.
| mlyle wrote:
| There is also the effect of sharply concentrated power in
| a few hands. Antitrust shouldn't let individual tech
| powers get too strong.
|
| To keep the analogy going, mankind introduced a few
| invasive species to the island.
| gosub100 wrote:
| And one platform has, arguably, been infested with rats!
| ilrwbwrkhv wrote:
| The old internet is harder to find, which means its harder to
| ruin by normies. You just have to know where to look. ;)
| jjulius wrote:
| Yes.
| hluska wrote:
| It might be somewhere between the two. The internet was messier
| back in the day. It didn't feel as corporate and there was a
| strong spirit of sharing cool things because cool things are
| fun. Nowadays, it seems like everyone is just trying to get
| paid. And that's fine because getting paid is fun too, but the
| spirit has changed.
|
| On the other hand, my eight year old is a big fan of a YouTube
| channel called Pilot Debrief. We just watched a documentary on
| the Gimli Glider and when we talked about it after, it was
| apparent that she has learned a tremendous amount about flying
| from that channel.
|
| So for my kid, that spirit of sharing cool things because cool
| things are fun is still going strong. And when I experience her
| experiencing things like that, I'm reminded that that spirit is
| still out there but I'm just old.
| Eumenes wrote:
| It was better and you're old
| Teever wrote:
| What a fabulous find.
|
| It's really neat to find something that I grew up with like
| Winamp skins become a subject of anthropological/historical
| study.
|
| It's gonna be neat/kinda creepy to see how much of this sort of
| application of investigative techniques can turn up stuff from my
| younger years that I ever could have thought would still exist.
| nvy wrote:
| It really does whip the llama's ass.
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| Bob's car is from Greenock, Scotland (via geospy.ai)
| thebruce87m wrote:
| Looks like a match: https://shorturl.at/SBYHT
|
| Edit: shorter url
| cwillu wrote:
| There is no reason to shorten the url here, and I much prefer
| to be able to see where I'm going before I click.
| thebruce87m wrote:
| Here is the original:
|
| https://maps.app.goo.gl/?link=https://www.google.com/maps/p
| l...
| HeatrayEnjoyer wrote:
| Why does Google do this. There isn't any need for so much
| data just to link a resource
| stordoff wrote:
| They do offer a link for sharing as an alternative:
| https://maps.app.goo.gl/HZMATsSJJhpcejoJ8
| account42 wrote:
| That's just another shortlink though.
| tadfisher wrote:
| You can try the original then:
|
| https://maps.app.goo.gl/?link=https://www.google.com/maps
| /pl...
| vintagedave wrote:
| There's always a chance that Bob _is_ the car. Twenty-five
| years ago, in Winamp days, I remember several peers naming
| their cars.
|
| It doesn't seem to happen now we're older :(
| hanniabu wrote:
| It's great seeing all the skins
|
| https://skins.webamp.org/
| locusofself wrote:
| I loved reading this. I was transported back to being 13 (27
| years ago).
| gorlilla wrote:
| I, too, was 13 some 27 years ago. Coincidentally so were many
| of my friends!
|
| Happy 4th decade!
| carl_dr wrote:
| 5th decade ...
|
| Related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40884356
| pandemic_region wrote:
| I had an incredible deja-vu feeling on the guys standing around
| the hoop, so weird.
| serf wrote:
| I did too, I wonder if this image was included in some other
| package somewhere?
| hoyd wrote:
| Reminded me of pointerpointer.com and for some reason new kids
| on the block.
| mikae1 wrote:
| _> TinEye searched over 69.1 billion images but didn 't find
| any matches for your search image. That's probably because we
| have yet to crawl any pages where this image appears._
|
| -\\_(tsu)_/-
| voidUpdate wrote:
| Google's reverse image search (images.google.com, click the
| little camera) can perform better in many cases, though here
| it only finds the linked page
| account42 wrote:
| Yandex reverse image search can also be useful often,
| although in this case it just gives you other images of
| people with basketballs. Curse whoever decided to introduce
| AI to reverse image search.
| lmm wrote:
| It's got that early-'00s digicam look to it. My pictures from
| the end of high school have a similar vibe, despite having no
| basketball.
| cpach wrote:
| When I look at the sky and the bricks I get the impression
| that the photo has "grain". I wonder if it was actually shot
| on film.
| layer8 wrote:
| Early digital camera sensors could be quite noisy.
| account42 wrote:
| Digital camera sensors are still quite noisy, perhaps
| even more so as sensors have gotten smaller while
| resolutions have gotten higher (meaning even smaller
| pixels). We just process all the noise away most of the
| time.
| layer8 wrote:
| Good point. "Visibly noisy" would have been more
| accurate.
| bityard wrote:
| It's not from a digicam, it's a scan of a photo. The white
| bar on the left is from a subpar cropping job and is slightly
| crooked. The resolution (1275x1167) is higher than a typical
| 3:4 digital image sensor of the day, which would have maxed
| out at 640x480 in the late '90s to early 2000's, maybe
| 1024x768 for a really high-spec (expensive and uncommon)
| camera.
|
| As for the "look", I'm not a photographer but this was likely
| taken on either a low-end handheld film camera or disposable
| jobbie, which were absolutely ubiquitous around this time
| frame because they were so cheap (practically free, until you
| went to develop them). The picture was taken on an overcast
| day at dusk, later in the evening. Just dark enough to auto-
| trigger the insufficient flash which lights up the middle of
| the image and puts everything in the periphery in a dark
| shadow.
|
| I do like that the kid with the beer isn't looking at the
| camera and seems to have missed the point that everyone was
| supposed to be holding the ball.
| bn-l wrote:
| Me also. Immediately. And I see a lot of other people. I think
| it's the baggy formal shirt and hair styles.
| vijucat wrote:
| I've always love WinAmp due to the simple reason that it is
| keyboard friendly. For example, the 5 buttons for Previous, Play,
| Pause, Stop, Next map to zxcvb. Simple and fun. Operations like
| searching for and queuing up files to play are lightning fast
| compared to Spotify, YT Music, et al. Also, I absolutely detest
| how YT Music keeps A/B testing ALL THE TIME, changing the
| location of things around. Ultimately, a website is never in your
| control.
| loa_in_ wrote:
| As a home grown hacker from before the time of internet, I
| increasingly understand why people despise computers. I was
| always telling people, that you can make computers do your
| bidding, make them part of your life, frictionless. But I never
| needed IT help, I knew that whatever frustrations I might have
| are because of something I can work and fix with some digging
| around. But having things like Windows auto updates, websites
| ever changing makes even me feel the frustration and friction.
| It's no longer a wrench, it's a wireless corporate-run ad-
| powered e-wrench which needs printer ink for bolt-screwning.
| mcny wrote:
| > Windows auto updates
|
| if I remember correctly, Windows Updates were a pain in
| Windows 98 or even Windows XP. Maybe it was just a pain
| because I was on slow as molasses dial up but just the fact
| that active x(?) only worked on Microsoft Internet Explorer
| and it was required(?) for Windows Update, made me wonder why
| updating Windows requires a web browser.
|
| I think Windows auto updates are a good thing. I just think
| people should have to opt IN to auto updates for different
| stuff differently and then opt IN to automatic reboots. An
| operating system should never auto reboot without at least a
| one time user consent. Any corporate computer I've ever used
| disables this automatic reboot when a user is logged in. I
| think this is proof that the setting should be like this.
|
| Of course, over the long term, what we really need is to make
| more of updates not require a reboot, but that is a different
| conversation.
| h4jrheue388 wrote:
| Windows auto update could always be disabled. A person must
| be extremely tech incompetent if they couldn't do the
| simplest of windows tasks.
| Nullabillity wrote:
| Tell me you haven't used Windows 10 without telling me you
| haven't used Windows 10.
| mlyle wrote:
| I just love how I am in a constant funnel trying to move me
| to a Microsoft account, and get to find new ad-funnel
| content on my task bar and get to figure out how to turn it
| off and hope it sticks more than a couple of days over and
| over again. And preventing playing this game requires
| disabling security updates and getting pwned.
|
| Decades of experience and deep knowledge doesn't keep me
| out of wrestling with the machine like this. What is it
| like for someone who devotes a lot less of their attention
| span and learning to computers?
| elbelcho wrote:
| _It 's no longer a wrench, it's a wireless corporate-run ad-
| powered e-wrench which needs printer ink for bolt-screwning._
|
| Perfect.
| 5040 wrote:
| My favorite Winamp shortcut is Ctrl+Shift+R to randomize the
| playlist. I wish every application with a playlist could do
| this.
| danielovichdk wrote:
| I bet the worm game was written in Turing and one of the guys in
| the photo did it in high-school.
|
| It was what I did in a class in high-school and it instantly
| reminded me of that.
| WhereIsTheTruth wrote:
| fun easter egg, software became too serious nowadays
| yoz wrote:
| Jordan Eldredge, the author, has done some amazing WinAmp-related
| projects over the years, including WebAmp (a web-based, from-
| scratch reimplementation of much of WinAmp) and a WASM engine for
| WinAmp-style music visualisation.
|
| His project page: https://jordaneldredge.com/projects/
| thenthenthen wrote:
| I remember "Sovereign Sect" as having something to do with
| skateboard(apparel)[1]. Not totally sure what or how.
|
| [1]https://www.thrashermagazine.com/articles/magazine/the-
| regro...
| MaxGripe wrote:
| I'm mostly using Windows, so even today, it remains my main audio
| player. I use Winamp for FLACs and DI.fm streams
| ThrowawayTestr wrote:
| If you're in Windows you should check out Tray Player
| https://www.trayplayer.com/
| NamTaf wrote:
| One of the first things I did on my Steam Deck was to get
| Winamp running via Bottles :) it lives on the inbuilt screen
| when I've got it docked in desktop mode on my 2 desktop
| monitors.
| AdmiralAsshat wrote:
| Audacious with a Winamp skin is close enough that it has
| replaced the need to have Winamp proper on my Linux
| workstations. Mostly because I want MPRIS integration, but
| also because I just can't be bothered to setup WINE or
| Crossover these days.
| nwsm wrote:
| Love this stuff - so weird and obscure. The Acura skin is
| cracking me up. I'm listening to OP's playlist now
| sen wrote:
| I miss skinning so much. I was hugely into the scene of
| making/releasing skins for any/every program that included the
| ability (and a bunch that didn't, thanks to unsigned
| applications).
|
| To this day I'm the type to customise everything I own and I
| despise staring at generic looking programs all day. It's even
| worse when it's stuff like Discord that has a very opinionated
| style that won't even respect the small amount of customisation
| my Linux theming gives me.
|
| I feel like a huge reason the indie web died off was OSes and
| programs limiting user customisation which was a gateway drug for
| many. MySpace themes would get people learning html/css. Winamp
| skins got people learning photoshop/graphics. mIRC scripting
| taught people basic coding. OS customising had all of it. Now you
| just shut up and use it as they dictate.
| JohnMakin wrote:
| There's another benefit to opening this kind of functionality
| to apps - it's very friendly towards developing interfaces that
| are more friendly to the disabled. I have certain disabilities
| where specific types of UI designs are basically unusable to
| me, and without the ability to customize them, I kinda just
| cannot use them (unless they provide an API as an alternative).
| gorlilla wrote:
| Until they rug-pull the API access that countless third
| parties built those accessibility features around....
| WD-42 wrote:
| I completely agree. I, in no small part, owe my career as a
| software dev to falling in love with Linux because of the
| ability to theme everything, apps, desktops, ui toolkits.
|
| Of course, this was back in the kde3 and gnome(2?) days. It's
| different now, it seems like theming has become actively
| discouraged, especially in Gnome.
|
| It makes me sad wondering how many young creative people the
| community is missing an opportunity to captivate.
| donatj wrote:
| I truly miss working in software in the early 2000's. We were
| all using XP but it was all customized up the wazoo. Almost all
| of us had custom themes and icons and what not.
|
| I ran a Mac at home, and had that customized as well, I forget
| the name of the app that would install custom themes/docks, but
| CandyBar would install custom icon sets.
|
| Now days most people don't even bother to change their
| wallpaper. Live a little!
| KronisLV wrote:
| > Now days most people don't even bother to change their
| wallpaper. Live a little!
|
| There are some nice communities around custom desktops, like
| https://www.reddit.com/r/unixporn/top/?t=year (despite the
| odd name)
|
| For other OSes there's also
| https://www.reddit.com/r/desktops/top/?t=year
|
| That said, for many the defaults are sufficient and I guess
| people just use what's there out of the box to get things
| done.
| supportengineer wrote:
| I feel like the cost of housing along with layoff culture has
| caused an underlying sense of desperation, software isn't fun
| when you're just trying to avoid being homeless/deported
| poyu wrote:
| > I forget the name of the app that would install custom
| themes/docks
|
| Shapeshifter! Those were the days...
| shiftpgdn wrote:
| I used to use Litestep on 2000 and XP, it had such a big
| community and feature set.
| rhplus wrote:
| Moddable sandboxes like Minecraft and Roblox have picked up
| that role for younger people.
| chankstein38 wrote:
| Agreed! mIRC scripting is the reason I am a developer today and
| the reason it's been my career!
| nokeya wrote:
| This site make want to install winamp again. And try skins. Even
| if I dont listen music from local files anymore.
| dakiol wrote:
| Anything similar to winamp for macos? Better if open source
| sawaali wrote:
| https://ionica.app/
|
| Not open source, but it's the closest I have come to Winamp.
| It's really good!
| og2023 wrote:
| It's quite beautiful, thanks for the suggestion! Unfortunately,
| seems to not support FLAC's cue files for track lists, which is
| quite a bummer.
| Thaxll wrote:
| If you need to decrypt old zip file this tool is amazing if you
| know couple of characters in the archive:
| https://github.com/kimci86/bkcrack
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(page generated 2024-07-25 23:07 UTC)