Filed under: Odds and ends, Holidays
Our Favorite Easter Eggs
Happy Easter to all our Christian TUAW readers! To help you celebrate, here's a list of some of our favorite OS X Easter eggs for you to discover and enjoy.
A "Python" audio clip. Navigate to the following folder: /System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.3/lib/python2.3/test. Open the audiotest.au audio file you'll find there in QuickTime and play it back.
A hidden picture in Mail. In Finder, open your Applications folder. Select Mail, control-click (right-click) it and select Show Package Contents. Navigate down to Contents, and then Resources, and then open Senders.tiff by dragging it onto your Preview application icon.
Cool dates in history. In terminal, type open -e /usr/share/calendar/calendar.history
More after the jump.
An appeal to goodness. On an Intel Mac, navigate to /System/Library/Extensions and you'll find Don't Steal Mac OS X.kext. Open this up (right-click/control-click then Show Package Contents) and navigate down into Contents/Resources/English.lproj. Check out the message in InfoPlist.strings explaining why this kext file exists.
Built-in songs. [Via Mac Rumors] In terminal, enter say -v Good oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
or say -v Bad oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
or osascript -e 'say "Dum dum dum dum dum dum dum he he he ho ho ho fa lah lah lah lah lah lah fa lah full hoo hoo hoo" using "Cellos"'
or osascript -e 'say "Dum dum dee dum dum dum dum dee Dum dum dee dum dum dum dum dee dum dee dum dum dum de dum dum dum dee dum dee dum dum dee dummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm" using "Pipe Organ"'
or osascript -e 'say "Dum dum dee dum dum dum dum dee Dum dum dee dum dum dum dum dee dum dee dum dum dum de dum dum dum dee dum dee dum dum dee dummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm" using "Hysterical"'
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Ahmad said 2:04PM on 4-08-2007
totally don't have the folders that you guys listed.... but it sounds like it would be funny
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Scott said 2:17PM on 4-08-2007
"Noooobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!" hahaha that's awesome!
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Alex Brofsky said 2:40PM on 4-08-2007
What about Bruce from FCP?
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Maha10k said 3:09PM on 4-08-2007
What's the deal with all the Lord of the Rings references in the This Day in History easter egg?
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cisstak said 3:42PM on 4-08-2007
The history of LOTR on Terminal:
cat /usr/share/calendar/calendar.history | grep "LOTR"
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Mr. Clean said 3:45PM on 4-08-2007
I believe the April 14th reference to the Titanic is only half right. It hit the iceberg on the 14th, and sunk early morning April 15th.
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Tice said 4:02PM on 4-08-2007
See pictures of the most popular eeggs screens here:
http://blog.tice.de/ostereier.php?sprache=englisch
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JeffDM said 6:08PM on 4-08-2007
What part of those "say" commands is supposed to be an easter egg? The thread linked points out that "say" is a standard feature of OS X, that person just wrote out their song to say what the writer wanted it to say.
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Antti Kupila said 7:19PM on 4-08-2007
Haha, the spanish inquisition clip was awesome :)
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philip said 8:28PM on 4-08-2007
nice. i did enjoy those. especially the spanish inquisition and the calendar text file. i don't mess around with terminal much, so i found the music thing to be quite entertaining.
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phlyingpenguin said 12:42AM on 4-09-2007
I found a neato easter egg a while back in the Cisco Aironet drivers. It's probably software that nearly nobody uses anymore, but still fun to randomly find a treat from developers. Especially from a company as large and "important" as Cisco.
http://phlyingpenguin.net/2005/10/20/cisco-aironet-easter-egg/
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Rafe H. said 2:13AM on 4-09-2007
Using osascript from the command line like this is silly, silly, silly. Just issue the "say" command like you did in the first two examples, changing the voices accordingly.
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Jérémie said 5:57AM on 4-09-2007
I slightly modified one of the terminal eggs : enjoy!
osascript -e 'say "oh This is a silly song silly song silly song this is the silliest song ive ever ever heard So why keep you listening listening listening while you are supposed to work to work to work to work its because i hate my job hate my job hate my job its because i hate my job more than anything else No its because youve no life youve no life youve no life and you better go get one after forwarding this crap" using "cellos"'
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claytron said 8:28AM on 4-09-2007
python is full of eggs ;)
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Mark said 3:11PM on 4-09-2007
ROTFL I went to "Go to Folder" in the Finder and the path to the "Spanish Inquisition" clip was already there from the last time someone posted that Easter egg.
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R031E5 said 8:00PM on 4-09-2007
There are lots of hidden mac games, check this instructions
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/357218/mac_os_x_hidden_games/
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Jon H. said 2:45PM on 4-15-2007
I must say... "Well...
I didn't expect some kind of Spanish Inquisition."
;-)
And yes, the speech-related things have been in the OS for at least 10 years now. I remember typing stuff into SimpleText and having it speak to us was all the rage back on the Mac Performas we used in middle school.
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