Comments on: Ballpits as office furniture

Ballpits as office furniture

nthdegx — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 14:09:47 -0800

The Last.fm guys really wanted a ballpit, inspired by the xkcd blog. Pictures.

By: drezdn

drezdn — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 14:34:05 -0800

On one hand, I think this is really cool. On the other hand, I think it's going to be easy to buy ball pit balls cheap on ebay in a few years.

By: fandango_matt

fandango_matt — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 14:40:01 -0800

Now we know why their customer support is so terrible. They're all goofing off in the ball pit.

By: srboisvert

srboisvert — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 14:41:19 -0800

I'd prefer the guys on Last.fm work on simplifying their UI design so it makes some sense.

By: mathowie

mathowie — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 14:42:06 -0800

That's awesome, I love the shot of someone somersaulting into it.

By: mmrtnt

mmrtnt — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 14:43:02 -0800

Ball pit pit bulls? Ball pit pulpit? Papal Bull from the Ball Pit - that's it! Now I'm 337 tired.

By: PercussivePaul

PercussivePaul — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 14:44:16 -0800

Something about seeing such unrestrained joy really makes me feel warm and mushy. It reminded me of a story I would like to tell. Professional athletes get to jump and holler and cry and hug each other when they win, but poor stodgy regular office workers never do. Microsoft once had a series of ads showing office-types celebrating wildly in super-slow motion, and it was kind of charming, but also a little off because it looked so stupid. Who would ever jump up and down upon completion of a software deployment? But is that a function of corporate culture and what it means to be grown up, or is it simply that software deployments lack the tension and excitement of a sporting event? So anyway, when I was working at Honeywell I saw a video about the development of the Joint Strike Fighter. Two test planes were commissioned and built, one from Boeing and one from Lockheed Martin. The two radically different designs competed head to head in a dramatic series of test flights over the course of a month. The winner would win the lucrative contract to develop the JSF. The loser gets nothing. The two test programs were analyzed exhaustively, with the results sent to an evaluation team with company names removed to make it a fair evaluation. Finally, the moment of truth came. The camera cuts between a spokesman making an announcement, a Boeing exec sitting nervously at his desk, and a team of Lockheed engineers standing nervously on a factory floor. The announcement comes: "Both test programs were very good... ... cost effectiveness, both very good... ... overall performance, both, very good ... " (pregnant pause) "... but on the basis of the overall evaluation, it is the recommendation of this committee that Lockheed Martin be awarded --" and pandemonium breaks out on the factory floor. Lockheed engineers wearing their slacks and button-down shirts are throwing clipboards in the air, leaping and hugging each other, and even crying. They just won the superbowl. What a moment. They'll probably remember it for the rest of their lives. Just like I remember winning the city softball championship when I was 13. And I bet the last.fm people will remember the ball pit, too.

By: Shotgun Shakespeare

Shotgun Shakespeare — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 14:45:03 -0800

Sooo -- No-Beverages rule in the ball pit then? Because clean-up would not be fun.

By: nomisxid

nomisxid — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 14:46:52 -0800

Yeah, this is another nail in the coffin which is my despisement of last.fm's developers. They took a wonderfuly simple product, and have made it less and less useful with every change. It used to scrobble internet radio tracks just fine, but they disabled that, because they want you to only use their radio system. It used to scrobble tracks you played off of network drives, but not anymore. They used to have a working plugin for itunes, but they replaced it with one that crashed itunes, then just gave up and said they weren't going to bother with itunes. Don't get me wrong, I hate itunes too, but it's insanely popular, and not that hard to write plugins for....what's hard is figuring out how you can force people to see your ads, if you don't force them to use a craptastic piece of junk.

By: cortex

cortex — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 14:47:31 -0800

Matt, we need to have a talk about our HQ facilities.

By: gwildar

gwildar — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 14:48:12 -0800

Ah web 2.0, just like web 1 but with balls!

By: docpops

docpops — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 14:51:45 -0800

This ought to greatly reduce the spread of respiratory and intestinal viruses at LastFM.

By: LobsterMitten

LobsterMitten — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 14:54:35 -0800

Eeeennnnnnnnvvvvvvvvvvvvyyyyyy...

By: eyeballkid

eyeballkid — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 14:55:19 -0800

I've always wanted to do this. Well, this or packing popcorn, a big fan and a strobe light. They used to have a working plugin for itunes, but they replaced it with one that crashed itunes, then just gave up and said they weren't going to bother with itunes And yet I've been using it with iTunes-- 30,577 tracks and counting.

By: xthlc

xthlc — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 15:09:21 -0800

The CEO of my former company did this to his entire office in 2000. Where every single ball was printed with the company logo. He also dutched his office door about 1/3rd of the way down, so that the balls would not escape. I remember walking past one morning at 10 AM and seeing the CEO, CTO, a couple of directors and two clients up to their chests in balls while going through a presentation.

By: grouse

grouse — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 15:19:42 -0800

The best thing about this story was that it introduced me to Euro-Matic, one of the largest manufacturers of hollow plastic balls, and their parent company Weener Plastics. I never knew there were so many things you could do with hollow plastic balls!

By: PercussivePaul

PercussivePaul — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 15:19:52 -0800

Christ, forget about xkcd's ball pit. He solved Ghost! warning: if you ever want to play Ghost (the word game where you take turns spelling words one letter at a time) again, don't read that article.

By: nomisxid

nomisxid — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 15:36:12 -0800

eyeballkid, not to hijack this into my own tech support thread, but how? Are you on a mac?

By: nomisxid

nomisxid — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 15:39:10 -0800

oh wait, nvm, it's mp3tunes.com that wrote the itunes crashing plugin, it was the refusing-to-scrobble tracks from a network drive bug that made me give up last.fm, and that was a windows media player plugin issue. d'oh.

By: Stunt

Stunt — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 15:40:42 -0800

RIGHT THEN. Trying this another goddamned time, THIS time in the right post: This is the greatest thing I have ever seen (today). Sadly, I do not suspect this will at all help me convince my girlfriend that we TOTALLY NEED ONE.

By: misha

misha — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 15:42:20 -0800

Microsoft once had a series of ads showing office-types celebrating wildly in super-slow motion, and it was kind of charming, but also a little off because it looked so stupid. My sis did some contract work for Microsoft, and one day there was this huge ruckus outside, so she looks out her window. They had just finished some major project, so they brought out all the office chairs, the ones with wheels on the bottoms, and were having chair races up and down the street. [Not MICROSOFTIST. I am all about the Mac.]

By: hangashore

hangashore — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 15:42:24 -0800

cortex: Matt, we need to have a talk about our HQ facilities. I understood that the cafeteria at One MetaFilter Plaza served a mean plate of beans; what more would you want?

By: cortex

cortex — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 15:43:46 -0800

Some beans with tenderness in their hearts, mostly.

By: XQUZYPHYR

XQUZYPHYR — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 16:11:48 -0800

By: XQUZYPHYR

XQUZYPHYR — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 16:15:22 -0800

I was actually talking about this xkcd strip with a friend last night. She works at Google. I swear to god this conversation was true: Me: So I suppose you guys have tried this, right? Her: Yeah, a lot of Google people read xkcd. Me: So you've built the ball pit in a cubicle? Her: Well, we already have one. Me: (pause) Me: You already have a ball pit. Her: yeah. Me: (pause) Me: you fuckers are spoiled rotten. You know that, right? Her: (pause) Her: yeah.

By: artifarce

artifarce — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 16:26:55 -0800

Thanks for the pictures of the cute nerdy guys! Ballpits are overrated. My kids seem to think so at least.

By: artifarce

artifarce — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 16:34:33 -0800

And the comments on the last.fm page are just awesome. And slightly creepy.

By: Pope Guilty

Pope Guilty — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 18:34:19 -0800

How does this relate to Ron Paul?

By: fandango_matt

fandango_matt — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 19:27:05 -0800

posted by Pope Guilty How does this relate to Ron Paul? Ron Paul would write an essay accusing the green balls of being responsible for more crime and violence in the pit, and then he'd deny writing it, and then he'd insist that ball pits are unconstitutional and that every state should have its own ball.

By: middleclasstool

middleclasstool — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 21:37:48 -0800

[Not MICROSOFTIST. I am all about the Mac.] Hate on their products and anti-competitive practices all you want (and I've done my share), but all indications are that MS is one hella good company to work for. My wife has a friend who works for them who has a very young autistic child. Their doctor recommended therapy for the boy to help him become a more responsive and normal kid. This therapy would cost five figures a year (I recall it being at least $20,000 a year, but don't hold me to that). MS's corporate health insurance? Covered it. Standard policy. Their out-of-pocket was a bare fraction of the total cost. Still a few grand, but nothing like the full cost. And their child is becoming a much more interactive, responsive, and well-adjusted kid as a result. If it weren't for my lack of coding chops (curse you, laziness) and desire to be near family, I'd be trying like hell to go work for them. Or Apple or Google, but of course they've got a bit more hipster geek cred than MS, so everyone wants to go there.

By: monocyte

monocyte — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 22:00:09 -0800

I once filled my dorm room with three feet of fresh autumn leaves. PROTIP: unlike balls, leaves quickly turn into a dry, fine dust which you will hack out every morning from your sinuses and upper bronchi in a brownish pancake of mucus.

By: drstein

drstein — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 06:36:56 -0800

"I remember walking past one morning at 10 AM and seeing the CEO, CTO, a couple of directors and two clients up to their chests in balls while going through a presentation." How long before they were out of business? ;-) That fits right in with the now-defunct "spend it while you've got it" mentality of 1999.

By: ObscureReferenceMan

ObscureReferenceMan — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 09:46:02 -0800

Very cool. Best quote: "It's been decided, in future, all interviews will be held in the ballpit."

By: Kadin2048

Kadin2048 — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 11:09:58 -0800

Re: Microsoft; I think a lot of "un hip" companies compensate by being particularly good to their employees in other ways. I know some folks who work at IBM because of the really excellent family health benefits (one of them also has an autistic child). A lot of small companies are started by young people who don't make extensive use of their health plans and to whom one plan is basically as good as another; I've watched a lot of companies whose founders have gotten older change their benefits/cash-compensation ratio dramatically. In the beginning it's all cash and stock coupled with the cheapest health plan available; then suddenly it'll change to being all about fully-funded dependent healthcare and retirement plans. Oh, and the ball pit story was pretty cool (I'm neither here nor there on ball pits in general); every once in a while it's fun to just go all-out on a project for the hell of it. I admit to occasionally pulling an all-nighter on some personal project just because I like knowing that I can.