Spinning beachball of death, for real

Circuit-bending dynamo Gieskes created some real-life ammunition for Windows fanboys to use against their Mac-loving enemies with this meatspace version of the infamous beachball of death. If you're in the former camp, you'll want to bookmark this for quick reference the next time an Apple lover starts ribbing you over a BSoD leaving you SoL, OK? Video after the break.

[Via gadget lab & MAKE]

[Drew @ Jan 7th 2008 7:07PM]

But unlike the BSoD, the spinning beachball of death doesn't always mean a restart.



And NEVER means a fucked install.

[Zak @ Jan 7th 2008 7:12PM]

I carry around a little hourglass to hand to Windows fanbois. "Look familiar?" roflcakes, etc.

[OBM @ Jan 7th 2008 7:28PM]

PMSL @ Zak, you sir are a comic genious.

[nerdtalker @ Jan 7th 2008 7:53PM]

Obviously the two aren't even on the same level of abstraction, so the comparison is unfair to begin with.

Windows: Mac
BSoD : OS X Kernel Panic
Hourglass/Ring of Pain : Spinning Beachball of Death

That said, I appreciate your humor.

[Neoprimal @ Jan 7th 2008 8:11PM]

The marble of doom would compare more to the windows hourglass. For a mac, you'd compare a Blue Screen of Death to a Power Button Icon from Hell/Black Screen of Death, err, Kernel Panic.

BSoD to Marble of Doom = Apples to Oranges.

[Dan @ Jan 7th 2008 8:49PM]

Just wanted to point out that BSoD doesnt really mean reinstall. Actually it rarely means a reinstall. If people knew what the errors meant then they could probably fix it. BSoD happens when the kernel or a driver running in kernel mode encounters an error that it cant recover from. And these errors are usually created from hardware going old and/or extreme viruses.

[BladeSling @ Jan 8th 2008 4:57AM]

I got a good 45 seconds of laughter out of this one. BSOD count for this year 0. Spinning mac pointer, 1

[Drew @ Jan 8th 2008 5:03AM]

Dan:


Haha I know, I hate that ignorance. That's why I said a spinning beach ball NEVER means a bad install, but a BSoD can.


Bladesling:


How many hourglass hangs have you gotten? I bet a lot more than spinning beach ball's I've gotten.

[Steve @ Jan 7th 2008 7:36PM]

I call it "The Wizard Wheel" , I own a now antiquated Macintosh, and I see that too damn often.

[Joe @ Jan 7th 2008 7:12PM]

let me be the first one to say: WTF?!?

[Steve @ Jan 7th 2008 7:35PM]

This is truly the stuff of nightmares.

[Grindboy @ Jan 7th 2008 7:13PM]

Ubuntu has neither a BSOD or a Beachball of dearh! Penguins for all!

[jordan / turpentine @ Jan 7th 2008 7:32PM]

but it does have kernal panics.

[jwtrooper @ Jan 7th 2008 9:30PM]

It's the grey screen of non-responsiveness.

[Mark @ Jan 8th 2008 1:38AM]

it also has the horribly pixelated screen of bad graphics card driverness and the black screen of nothingness...

[pete @ Jan 7th 2008 7:20PM]

this post was worthless. give me my 2 mins back

[Das @ Jan 7th 2008 7:24PM]

You watched it for 2 minutes?

[Eric @ Jan 7th 2008 7:31PM]

How does it end?

[Reader @ Jan 7th 2008 7:33PM]

Only reason I watched about a minutes worth is because I'm eating. I'm calling this movie/post out as a ploy to look like an insult to Apple comps, but in reality it makes fun of Windows users if they had to try this for ammunition...

[Taylor @ Jan 7th 2008 7:13PM]

this video blows...
-Taylor

[Guzzie @ Jan 7th 2008 7:16PM]

Anyone else seeing this?

http://xs223.xs.to/xs223/08022/uh.png

[Galang @ Jan 7th 2008 7:53PM]

yes and it crashes firefox everytime!

[DarkLightConnection @ Jan 7th 2008 8:05PM]

Opera FTW!

[Hung @ Jan 7th 2008 8:31PM]

That's what I'm getting in Opera, my main browser. I'll take your word for the Firefox crash—no point is beating a dead horse.

[Taylor @ Jan 7th 2008 9:25PM]

nope, i saw the video (sadly). I'm using firefox, and i've never seen anything like that before - do you have all the plugins you need?
-Taylor

[Ramifications @ Jan 8th 2008 2:30AM]

Looks normal to me. I see the video.

I guess I get to say it.... IE7 ftw!

[Crazylink @ Jan 7th 2008 7:18PM]

What's the source of the music?

[PGP-Protector @ Jan 7th 2008 7:27PM]

What Music

[Baz @ Jan 7th 2008 9:33PM]

Hey, Leopard has the BSOD - only Apple rather coyly calls it simply 'Blue Screen' and apparently does what it can to remove threads on it in their Forum...

Then, of course, there's the more 'insanely cool' Beach Ball of Death.

Heck, its been years since the OS was as stable as the hype. There's a reason they moved the power switch from the rear to the front of Macs...

[Oyarses @ Jan 9th 2008 7:48AM]

What the hell is this crap doing on Engadget? this isn't funny, and it was actually pretty confusing...

[IndiaTech @ Jan 7th 2008 7:20PM]

That's Ryan way for getting back at Engadget readers for hitting on his girl...
Giving them freaking seizures...

[serus @ Jan 7th 2008 7:22PM]

I don't get it..?

[YoJIMbo @ Jan 7th 2008 7:57PM]

Talk about desperate for ammunition... what the hell... the actual sequencer is rather cool but honestly... stop throwing flame bait up just for kicks Endgadget. With CES running THIS is what we get???

[caubeck @ Jan 7th 2008 7:27PM]

Surreal, but can it blend Doom?

[Ryan @ Jan 7th 2008 7:34PM]

Pathetic. Simply Pathetic. Not very funny either. They couldn't have been animated either? Seriously

[Jason White @ Jan 7th 2008 7:38PM]

after watching that video, i'm glad i'm not epileptic!

[Hawkeyexb @ Jan 7th 2008 7:42PM]

WTF? Firefox 3 Beta 2 crashes on this page with...you guessed it, a spinning beachball. Now it's the virtual world emulating meatspace.

[Hawkeyexb @ Jan 7th 2008 7:42PM]

WTF? Firefox 3 Beta 2 crashes on this page with...you guessed it, a spinning beachball. Now it's the virtual world emulating meatspace.

[Drew @ Jan 7th 2008 7:52PM]

Beach ball of death like in the prisoner "I am not a number I'm a free man" whoever poseted this must have also been regularly gassed.

[matt byrne @ Jan 7th 2008 7:53PM]

At least the beachball is pretty and not really a PITA when you can go into another program and wait for the other one to sort it out, rather than locking up the whole computer, Windows style.

[pt @ Jan 7th 2008 7:57PM]

hey barb - i sent this in via the tips this morning (wired later posted it up, check the via...) we did an interview with the artist today.

http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2008/01/make_interview_modding_co.html

[DRoseDARs @ Jan 7th 2008 7:59PM]

Spin, you bastard, SPIN! Now with sound... :-)
http://spinningbeachballofdeath.com/

[Carl Vitullo @ Jan 7th 2008 8:08PM]

my school uses old macs, the ones that were still thick as hell but has OS X, and they can't do anything without freezing. open a browser page? that's a beachball. print something? that's a beachball. Turn it on? yep, that's a beach ball.

[sk8rpro @ Jan 7th 2008 8:25PM]

I'm a Mac user (who still loves his iBook) and finds this video hilarious!

[John P @ Jan 7th 2008 8:29PM]

Ironically, as I watched this video my friend IMs me saying "dammit, I have to restart. Fucking safari." That was worth a chuckle.

[Sam Zebian @ Jan 7th 2008 8:45PM]

Oh, so you want us to link to this everytime someone mentions the BSOD as a comeback with the spinning beachball?? I wonder how much more $$$ you make from ads after that... Smart and easy way of getting some easy hits, but I won't fall for the trap. No, I'm jk, I will link off to you guys, you're one of my favorite blogs, why would I not let you expand.

[Brad @ Jan 7th 2008 10:05PM]

Engadget's worst post of the year by far.

[Blakamin @ Jan 8th 2008 1:10AM]

Glad it crashed then ;P

[XGM @ Jan 7th 2008 10:36PM]

The next windows beta ? Wait im supposed to see that while apps load on my Mac ? Hmm I guess its to fast for me to notice it.

[Ed T @ Jan 8th 2008 1:56AM]

I watched this crapola attempt at video art - on a 9-year old G3 Powerbook running OS X.3. Maybe I was expecting humor, satire, or God forbid, some kind of statement of purpose. The spinning beach ball dispalyed on my old clunker laptop (sometimes 10 sec or so) is infinitely more entertaining than this tripe.