simplicationitudinalriffic

(4 comments)
2005.07.09
Blast from the Past of the Moment
"Pierre A. von Kaenel" writes:
> "Simplify, simplify, simplify" - Thoreau

Shouldn't that be just "Simplify"?
Dave Sill, I wrote that down in like April of 1998, but it goes with my current attempts at simplifying my life, mostly by means of decluttering...

Amusement of the Moment
Yesterday a co-worker pointed out that, with Windows XP at least, you can set the wallpaper to an animated GIF and it will indeed animate. I don't know how long Windows has been doing this. (For some reason it doesn't work if you just right click on a web image and hit use as wallpaper, my usual method.)

Of course, a stretched or tiled animated image can be VERY annoying, and will use up like at least 1/3 of your processor. Still it can be amusing in small doses. Here's the technique:
  1. Find a suitable image. For something neat but discrete I'd suggest my own small gif cinema. For big fun, the previously kisrael'd b3ta dicussion has a bunch of cool ones.
  2. Right click on the animation and "Save Image As..." to someplace convenient on your local drive.
  3. Right click on a blank part of the desktop, hit "Properties" and go to the "Desktop" tab.
  4. "Browse" to the image and select it. Make sure to select "Tiled" "Centered" or "Stretched" along with the correct color. (white works well with most of those b3ta animations)
Enjoy! It can be very cool, very annoying, or even both!