Comments on: Holding Pattern

Holding Pattern

Mwongozi — Sun, 25 Apr 2004 06:16:28 -0800

Holding Pattern is a screensaver for Mac OS X that generates photo-realistic simulations of the view from a flying airplane window.

By: Mwongozi

Mwongozi — Sun, 25 Apr 2004 06:19:40 -0800

OS X users can also run this screensaver, and any other screensaver, as their wallpaper using BackLight

By: stonerose

stonerose — Sun, 25 Apr 2004 06:37:04 -0800

Nice! But note that it is available for Windows, too.

By: atom128

atom128 — Sun, 25 Apr 2004 08:03:30 -0800

Cool! I like this a lot. Can anyone else recommend good screensavers for OS X?

By: _sirmissalot_

_sirmissalot_ — Sun, 25 Apr 2004 09:37:05 -0800

I thought this was nice, but then ZoneAlarm asked me if I wanted to allow Holding Pattern.scr to access the Internet. Hmmm.

By: spacewrench

spacewrench — Sun, 25 Apr 2004 09:43:41 -0800

This is a little fishy...it's obviously not rendering the views a frame at a time on my machine (and yes, it does phone home). Looking closer, I suspect it's just showing a [possibly rendered] background scrolling past some fixed airplane-hardware. I like looking out plane windows as much as the next engineer-turned-lawyer, but I don't think I'll be using this as a screensaver.

By: ulotrichous

ulotrichous — Sun, 25 Apr 2004 11:22:08 -0800

It's not rendering anything other than skewing the photo to give a little perspective as it scrolls. It looks pretty crappy at high resolutions. Cool idea, though.

By: carter

carter — Sun, 25 Apr 2004 13:31:46 -0800

So did anyone land anywhere yet?

By: John Kenneth Fisher

John Kenneth Fisher — Sun, 25 Apr 2004 13:59:59 -0800

What exactly is it passing on in the 'phone home'... anyone know? I'm hesitant to try it before knowing that.

By: troutfishing

troutfishing — Sun, 25 Apr 2004 14:28:09 -0800

I don't like to host programs on my computer which autonomously connect to the net without my knowledge.

By: D.C.

D.C. — Sun, 25 Apr 2004 18:32:53 -0800

Some good OS X screen savers: Fluid - A large program with many customization options. Foam - Simple, but well done. Helios

By: Scoo

Scoo — Sun, 25 Apr 2004 19:09:58 -0800

Can anyone else recommend good screensavers for OS X? I did the graphics for mathews' SnowSaver. It was modeled after a looping QuickTime movie of snow flakes playing on the Macs at the Apple retail stores. Nice year round, especially if you live someplace hot like I do.

By: crunchland

crunchland — Sun, 25 Apr 2004 19:14:43 -0800

Isn't the point of a screensaver to save your screen from burn-in? If that's so, then having the same image on parts of the screen (like the image of the seat and the airplane window, or the wing, or the engines) seems to defeat the whole purpose...

By: crunchland

crunchland — Sun, 25 Apr 2004 19:22:11 -0800

Oh, and if you use zonealarm, and it tells you the program is trying to phone home, why worry? just say no.

By: Down10

Down10 — Mon, 26 Apr 2004 00:37:07 -0800

Screen burn-in is a relic of old CRTs, crunchland. Really, when was the last time you saw a GUI-based PC's monitor with a burnt-in screen? As long as you regularly put a display to sleep when not using it, a screensaver serves only as a novelty. Nothing wrong with that, though. I love novelties.

By: Meridian

Meridian — Mon, 26 Apr 2004 04:14:12 -0800

I love this!

By: the biscuit man

the biscuit man — Mon, 26 Apr 2004 11:46:10 -0800

I like electric sheep. It is available for OS X, Windows and Linux.

By: Mwongozi

Mwongozi — Tue, 27 Apr 2004 09:59:04 -0800

I just got an e-mail from the author of Holding Pattern, which I will paste here: Thanks for linking my screen saver on Metafilter. I read the discussion and was shocked to see that my screen saver (PC version only) was making a TCP/IP request - this wasn't part of its design and there's no functional necessity for this. (also, I develop primarily on a Mac, so it's harder for me to detect PC bugs) Anyway, I am working with technical support for my screen saver development software to try and figure out what's causing it - I hope to have this resolved soon.