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Graham Spookyland🎃/Polynomial

did you know that the default Windows 10 desktop background is a photo, not a digital effect?

it's a Kvant Spectrum laser projector with Saturn 9000 scanners beaming light into a sheet of transparent acrylic with black cardboard masks.

there's even a short video showing an animated show variant of it here: precisionlasers.com/projects/w

51 comments
Tvorsk

@gsuberland Yep, there's been an official behind-the-scenes video on MS blogs at some point.

I think that's gone, at least I can't find it, but if you search "windows 10 wallpaper behind the scenes" on YT you'll find a bunch of really weird reuploads by spammy low-viewer-count channels, some of those containing more of the original vid, some less...

Tvorsk

@gsuberland Found those screencaps for now...

Tvorsk

@tastytronic @gsuberland I think the later "light mode" version was all digital, but don't quote me on that.

Graham Spookyland🎃/Polynomial

@Tvorsk @tastytronic there are at least two versions that were photos, and I think another variant for the lock screen, then they switched to digital recreations.

Jennifer Kayla | Theogrin 🦊

@gsuberland

Did you know the Windows 95 desktop background was an actual field?

All jokes aside, though, this is some pretty awesome photography.

Graham Spookyland🎃/Polynomial

@aagot @theogrin there was no default wallpaper in Windows 95 or 98, it was just a dark teal desktop colour. but the Clouds image did come with the OS so you could set it as a wallpaper if you wanted to.

afaik Windows XP was the first of the Windows OSes to come with a default desktop background image. before then (Me, 2000, NT4, 9x, 3.1, etc.) they just had a default background colour instead.

[:babaKatt:] Cacofren :ironFront:​​:enbyCrossbow:​​:sparkles2:

@gsuberland "When Microsoft decided to release the ultimate version of Windows" that line didn't age well.

Juho Mäntysalo

@katnjiapus @gsuberland

Yes it did. Newest isn't always the best, and win11 is full of ads and can't even move the taskbar to the corners.

Mykola K

@iju @katnjiapus @gsuberland unfortunately they are killing win10 (or fortunately, depending on the viewpoint). I've tried to run win10 on newer laptop but failed to make it work fine. So ended up upgrading to 11. I use Windows just for games, main OS is openSUSE Linux, so not a big problem for me.

Mykola K

@katnjiapus @iju @gsuberland tech/security support, yes. But MS isn't really supporting newer hardware with win10, which is understandable. So from, as you said, consumer side it looks like killing: you can't smoothly install and use it.

[:babaKatt:] Cacofren :ironFront:​​:enbyCrossbow:​​:sparkles2:

@mykolak @iju @gsuberland

To be fair, MS support for newer hardware on "older" versions of Windows has never been great. And since Windows 8 honestly smooth installs been a royal pain in the behind.

Speaking for myself, what made me drop Windows 7 in the end, wasn't end of official support, rather third-party support. When that drops will truly be the final nail in the coffin for Windows 10.

But Windows 11 being so terrible, maybe will be a boon for us to get more folks on Linux.

Juho Mäntysalo

@mykolak @katnjiapus @gsuberland

I wouldn't know. Updated my tabletop about year ago, and was able to move my Win8-licence over and update to Win10 without problems.

But of course I didn't buy latest tech due to premium prices they usually carry. Still unsure why they wouldn't have win10 -drivers, though. The os is supported, after all.

I'm fully commited to moving to Linux once this doesn't work anymore, only hoping that Steam-for-Linux starts to support more of my games that it does now.

Mykola K

@iju @katnjiapus @gsuberland yeah prices are terrible, but my previous laptop was 8 years old, it was ok for some stuff, but...

I don't know why it this way. I've managed WiFi, touchpad to get working, fixed some other minor issues. As for sound, I've spend 2 evenings to get it working but failed. Also FPS wasn't smooth — some hiccups here and there (I think win10 still has problems with E-cores).

Juho Mäntysalo

@mykolak @katnjiapus @gsuberland

I feel for you.

I'm not a technical expert, sad to say, and my skills are limited to some light troubleshooting on hardware and software both. Got audio working on a linux laptop few years ago, which is pretty much my greatest personal achievement on that sector.

Otherwise (which is about once every two years) I rely on the help of my friends, who thankfully are technically competent and willing to entertain questions from an unskilled person like myself.

Juho Mäntysalo

@katnjiapus @mykolak @gsuberland

I checked the list of my Steam library's supported games just last week, and lets say the percentages weren't very uplifting even with probably-ok's included.

But honestly I guess some of them wouldn't have worked on supported windows', either.

[:babaKatt:] Cacofren :ironFront:​​:enbyCrossbow:​​:sparkles2:

@iju @mykolak @gsuberland *nods* tho ProtonDB / WineHQ needs to be taken with a pinch of salt. The testing isn't automatic on either so you'll kinda just have to try to see if it runs. I've noticed tho that sometimes games run fine, but a library that needed to be included isn't so you need to add it after the fact.

But that's also what you do on Windows, so eh :blobCatGooglyShrug:​

Natty :butterflyN:

@gsuberland@chaos.social It was so upsetting when they replaced it with the lighter variant in some later update

Tropical Trevor

@gsuberland I did not, lovely to see it in action. Thanks for sharing!

Nuncio Bitis 🏳️‍🌈 🇵🇸 🇺🇦

@gsuberland So, in other words, they don't trust their own AI enough to do the job.

Graham Spookyland🎃/Polynomial

@Nuncio only if they went back in time and invented GANs in 2014.

Luk

@gsuberland @zak it reminds me of the Studiocanal logo (and a lot of canal+ branding) m.youtube.com/watch?v=Vx7rdH6B

skze

@gsuberland i love that at the end shit just starts smoking

Graham Spookyland🎃/Polynomial

@skye yeah the hazers probably got turned up a bit high. I've made the same mistake while recording lasers too.

skze

@gsuberland you speak to me as if i am someone who knows how this stuff works but in reality i’m just someone who enjoys when strong machine cause smoke

Graham Spookyland🎃/Polynomial

@skye you can't see lasers through the air without particles for the light to reflect off, so you haze the room with a haze machine ("hazer" for short). the machine just pumps propylene glycol, like you find in vape fluid, onto a hotplate and blows the vapour out the front with a fan. you usually try to adjust the output to keep the haze level consistent, but it's kinda tricky to get it exactly right in large rooms and it's easy to get distracted while filming and leave it turned up too high.

skze

@gsuberland ohhh that’s cool ty for explaining

Graham Spookyland🎃/Polynomial

@skye there are a couple bits towards the end of this show I did a while back where you can really see that I left the foggers on a bit too long and everything got a bit opaque and fuzzy!

youtu.be/dIMKlYxcrYs

skze

@gsuberland ohhh you do COOL cool shit omg

Dany

@gsuberland Nice to read something that M$ did ok. Nice share.

Interpipes 💙

@gsuberland @lproven pleased to see that Precision Lasers *also* remember windows 10 being supposedly the final version before ms decided that they were wrong and instead decided to curse us all with w11

easrng

a bold new logo for their final operating system

@gsuberland 🥴

Random Ranger

@gsuberland I prefer Linux myself, but this is awesome. I've definitely a greater appreciation for this art.

/ h13b /

@gsuberland but this is C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time... like tears in rain...

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