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A Christmas Easter Egg in iPhoto?
GodotJr writes "Early Christmas morning I downloaded some digital pictures into iPhoto on OS X 10.2.3. My trusty iBook began playing what sounded like a repeating Irish jig. I thought I had accidentally started iTunes, but no, only iPhoto was running. The 'jig' continued until I quit the application at which point a childs voice said something I didn't quite catch (!) and then a choir belted out 'Hallelujah!', once, and was silent. A restart of iPhoto did not get me an encore performance. Has anyone else experienced this?"
According to this pdf:f (or view as HTML with Google)
http://www.dvmug.org/ApplePRESS/ApplePRESS1002.pd
"Apple has strictly forbidden engineering staff to create Easter Eggs in software created at Apple's campus"
Can anyone confirm?
Well, honestly (and this is no troll) I hope you're right : because if you are, /. editors will perhaps finally be forced to READ the stories that are submitted, which is perhaps the best thing to happen here.
:-) so that the readers can give some feedback except thru trolling !
Lately I have the impression that the editors don't even read the submission itself, only the title ! I understand that there must perhaps be a zillion submissions every day, but comeon...
Taco : as much as an innovative moderation system was needed for comments as the userbase grew exponentionally, you also need to have a brilliant concept to moderate the editors (except you and Hemos offcourse
When will I end this grieving ? When will my future begin ?
This is the the kind of mindset I'm in, right now. I'm sorry it doesn't jive with yours, but I don't think it all that impossible that Apple would code an easter egg in iPhoto for Christmas, and figured it would be interesting to see if anyone else ran in to this kind of behavior.
Heck, this is a sectional story, so I figured it was appropriate. How else are you going to know what is going on around the computing world without polling your peers?
No troll here. The whole thing happened as stated. At first I thought I was still half asleep so I called my fiancee in to hear it. She did (thus, at least hopefully shooting down the crack, egg-nog, involuntary hallucination theories) As I said in my original post, I couldn't get it to repeat... but didn't go as far as resetting the clock. Time was about 7:00am Christmas Day morning.
History doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes quite often. -- Mark Twain
iPhoto includes two .mp3s in it's bundle:
iPhoto/Contents/Resources/Music/Jesu, Joy Of Man's Desiring.mp3 (3 MB)
iPhoto/Contents/Resources/Music/Minuet in G.mp3 (1.7 MB)
It is elsewhere reported, and previously known, that a control click (right mouse button to Windoze freaks) on iPhoto reveals:
:)
iPhoto:Contents:Resources:Music:two files
J.S. Bach's Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring, for six and twelve string guitars, performed by well know Leo Kottke (likely a copyrighted song in MP3 format), 3MB, (approx 3 minutes) can be found.
Also Mozart's Minuet in G, no artist, album, etc. recorded, also arranged for guitar, 1.5MB (approx 1:30 minutes) is present. In OSX Finder both will look like two iTunes (or other MP3 player) in the Finder.
Simply option-drag to desktop to copy and play in iTunes (or other MP3 player)
Neither of these sounds especially like an "Irish jig," although if the listener is unfamiliar with them and due to being played by acoustic fingerstyle guitar, it's conceivable they might be thought to be an "Irish jig." (long shot)
Neither MP3 has anything remotely sounding like a child's voice. The fact that the person reporting this occurrence did not see iTunes launch is irrelevant. He would have to run 'top' or the Apple Process Viewer, etc. to verify this as it could have been launched in "hidden view" like any other application launched by the Login preference pane, as an example, no difficult task for a programmer.
It does *not* appear, however, that these are the two files being played based on the initial description which, if the observer was in a state of surprise, hung over from a bit of eggnog containing alcoholic spirits et al & etc., may not have noticed.
"Disguishing" an Easter Egg something like the two files noted is not going to be an easy task. File size is going to be a giveaway in some other resource even if an attempt is made to hide it. Further examination of resources in iPhoto, which appears to have triggered this (was iTunes already running in "hidden" mode and the user forgot this fact?) etc. etc.
There are many possibilities here aside from a hoax if one uses a little (or lot) of imagination. Or it could just be a hoax.
So what are those two MP3 files, both featuring classical music arranged for guitar, doing in iPhoto?
Beats me. I'm not a programmer, just a dumb end user who knows that "inexplicable" things, AKA bugs, do happen, are made to happen, and may be triggered by some phase of the moon or the amount of snowfall on Christmas day (or lack thereof) which our reporter experienced at his location.
Happy Holidays!