Friday Apple Fun

It's the weekend, and it's Friday the 13th (depending on when you read this), so have some fun making your Mac windows unusable and buying copyrighted (and copy-protected!) silence from iTunes Music Store. Read on for details. Crazy Window Effects ZackSchil writes "Open a terminal window and type on the prompt: killall Dock. Don't press return. Position a large window behind the terminal window, then shift-click on the large window's minimize button (so it goes slowly). While still holding shift, quickly hit the return key to execute the command and kill the Dock (it comes back right away). As soon as the dock's process is killed, the window will cease minimizing, leaving you with a working, draggable, active window halfway through the warping animation! While the system is at a loss how to translate mouse clicks to the window, you can still move bits that haven't changed location too much. After having some fun, just press Command-M to get the window all the way into the Dock and click to get it out again."

I had a similar experience with iChat the other day: I somehow caught a chat so the window was transparent. And more fun: open System Preferences, click on Network, and before it loads, move the window; when Network opens, the whole window moves back to where it was when you first clicked on it (this isn't new, but it annoys me).

Paying for (Copy-Protected) Silence wayneh writes "As the Apple Turns turned out a great story about several silent tracks available via the iTunes Music Store. They are all subject to the same digital copy protection as tracks with actual sound and at least one has a thirty second preview. Interestingly, a number of them are listed as explicit and have alternate clean versions available as well. Next time you need a few minutes of quiet time, consider purchasing it from Apple."

Comments

Silence

[El]

I hope the estate of John Cage is getting royalties for the silence... they would all seem to be infringing on the copyright for 4'33".

Re:Silence

[X-wes]

4'33", otherwise as the Silent Sonata, was written by composer John Cage. A pianist would enter onto the stage and sit at a piano for a timed interval of four minutes and thirty-three seconds. During this period, the normally insignificant ambient noise of the audience and environment became the music itself. Of most interest, while there were no written notes for the piece, the performance produces a different sound each and every time.

On an amusing note, it would be interesting to simply sit down at a computer and click the stop button on WinAMP to listen for four and a half minutes to the noises that are habitually ignored at a computer workstation. And besides--what kind of a world would we be in if silence becomes patented?

Re:Silence

[Mononoke]

I hope the estate of John Cage is getting royalties for the silence... they would all seem to be infringing on the copyright for 4'33".

Someone has already 'lost' (settled out of court) in a copyright lawsuit over this piece of "music."

Re:Silence

[Anonymous Coward]

This is all true. In fact, there is actually printed music to the 'piece' that simply has movement numberings and instructions like so:

I

(tacet)

II

(tacet)

III

(tacet)

as you can see, the piece is in three movements. For you non-musicians, 'tacet' simply means that you do not play in this section of the piece. This term is usually used in a orchestra/band setting where certain instruments would not play in a movement.

For my own safety, we'll call this an analysis so that I don't get sent to jail for copyright infringement. :oP

Re:silence

[gqgreg]

Claude Debussy said "Music is the space between the notes."

The Sounds of Piracy

[elmegil]

Next time you need a few minutes of quiet time, consider purchasing it from Apple.

Nah, I prefer to pirate my silence.

I don't have a sound card!

[CowboyNick]

...you insensitive clod!

Re:I don't have a sound card!

[Anonymous Coward]

I got the tracks to play through the system speaker on a PC.

Re:I don't have a sound card!

[NanoGator]

"But then how would you know they were silent? "

Because there's an animated icon of a tree falling in the woods.

Re:I don't have a sound card!

[Endive4Ever]

I can't get my sound card to work. I run Linux.

(ducks)

As funny as that is

[Anonymous Coward]

It ought to be plainly obvious why those silent tracks are there.

If you think it's dumb, you really should be laughing at the artists who think low enough of their fans to put silent tracks on their records.

That's the beauty of the 9.99/album dealy thingy.

If an album has a bunch of bs silence, and you're one of those people that has to buy the whole album (not a bad thing, I'm the same way), you aren't paying 99 cents per silent track.

Albums like Tool's AEnima have 4 or 5 BS tracks that nobody could possibly consider music, or need (not want, need). That albums comes out to less than $10 (and far less than an hour) when you buy the tracks individually.

Re:Silence is golden (or green)

[Anonymous Coward]

There have been many, many times at the office that I would've paid good money for a minute of silence.

mimizing bug

[Hes Nikke]

at least give credit where credit is do! (me) :)

in case you want proof, here is my 1st publishing of the above directions (including an example)

So whats better? AAC, WMA, MP3 or OGG?

[naelurec]

Which format is best for my silent recordings?

Re:So whats better? AAC, WMA, MP3 or OGG?

[Webmonger]

FLAC.

USA maybe?

[Anonymous Coward]

And besides--what kind of a world would we be in if silence becomes patented?

USA?

Movies!

[Ambiguous Coward]

Actually, if you want to see a *really* cool effect, trying doing this minimize/kill-dock thing with a movie in the Quicktime player. Since it plays the movie even while it's minimized in the dock, it also plays it on the way there...so you can catch it half way, and watch the movie all skewed up. Quite interesting. :P

Here's the one I got... I'm surprised it doesn't even seem to have an effect on the framerate, either. Strange stuff. :)

-Munki

4'33'', zero Kelvin

[claudebbg]

Strangely, I think the article doesn't explain the 4'33'' meaning, which was 273'', as -273 Celsius, aka Absolute Zero (0 Kelvin). Like the deep calm that ends this piece representation.
The conceptual aspect of the performance is still the fundamental of this piece and I don't believe WinAmp (or iTunes or mpg123) can't do the trick as well as a full concert hall. But perhaps the buying act can do a little, but should be organized, theatralized, like a performance.

"crazy window" screenshot

[e1en0r]

if anyone is interested, here's a screenshot of a partially minimized safari.