Music festivals are back in the UK. So is the background bork
- Reference: 1631276111
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2021/09/10/bork/
- Source link:
On show is an example from Register reader Roffy, who was spending a sunny weekend taking in the delights of the Brixton Wide Awake Festival at London's Brockwell Park.
[1]
Click to enlarge
Can it really be more than two years since [2]Windows XP flaunted its boot screen behind popster Neneh Cherry at Glastonbury? Indeed it can. In 2021, however, the version of Windows on display looks to be of a considerably more recent vintage. It would seem to be an accidental appearance, unless funksters Squid were seeking to play the ironic card with a broken PowerPoint presentation to accompany their set.
It is every AV tech's nightmare, and it's unclear if the intent was to open a file from a removable drive or if the wrong source button has been jabbed. Either way, we can but hope that no potentially revealing filenames were on show. At least the band (or festival) appears to have moved on from XP or Windows 7, judging by the style of the Explorer window.
[3]Spraying a boot error up the bathroom wall
[4]Lost in IKEA? So, it seems, is Windows
[5]Borking on the corner, watching the world go by
[6]A Whopper of a bork for seekers of pre-flight nosh
That is, however, one impressively packed taskbar.
We contacted Squid's management to find out what the band made of Windows' impromptu appearance but have yet to receive a response. Possibly because this ever-so-square hack's idea of cutting-edge music is more along the lines of John Cage's 4'33" .
As for Squid, the quintet's post-punk debut album Bright Green Field is rather good, even if the tracks draw from a variety of influences, like an overexcited toddler in a toy store.
[7]
Windows was eventually shunted to one side in favour of the band's name as the performance continued (in case the audience was wondering who was making all the noise). It's a shame, because while Squid is undeniably an impressive live act, we can think of [8]other performers more suited to the unexpected appearance of Microsoft's finest . ®
Get our [9]Tech Resources
[1] https://regmedia.co.uk/2021/09/07/bork.jpg
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2019/07/01/microsoft_round_up/
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2021/09/06/bork/
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2021/08/25/bork/
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2021/08/24/bork/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2021/08/17/bork/
[7] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/bootnotes&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YTuBO-bhkQsO3sTI7B@65AAAAFA&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[8] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4AZB64VBJfA
[9] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Squid
I heard they're just in it for the ca¢he.
Clippy: It looks like you're performing live. Would you like help?
My android phone has a MUCH more annoying feature. There's this thing that keeps activating every time I accidentally press a button on the side of the phone that wants met to say things like "How to make banana bread" and such.
Some years ago I was takng an airline flight and before we pulled away from the gate somebody decided to reboot the entertainment system. Apparently it was set up so that the default mechanism fed the computer console video to ALL the seatback screens. So we all got to watch a Linux bootup process scroll by. I don't think it revealed any secret stuff...
It is every AV tech's nightmare
They could alleviate that nightmare to some extent by setting up their local screen and remote huge screens as extended screens instead of mirrored. At least that way, when it goes Total Inability To Support Usual Psychedelia, all the audience will see is the wallpaper, which could be something suitable to match the gig ambience on that display. Meanwhile, the AV technician can be frantically clicking stuff on the local screen where the windows and icons are still showing.
It may not solve the boot process display, but that depends on the hardware at the start of the boot process and the OS defaults during the OS boot phase, which may default to mirroring until drivers and settings are loaded.
Re: It is every AV tech's nightmare
Large or small, a good idea.
Our church does exactly that with their Mac. The extended desktop is a nice shade of black with an unfortunate (but barely noticeable) dark gray bar along the top in the menu bar position. When the usual app (ProPresenter) has "output enabled", it overrides even that bar and defaults to black. (Sometimes we also use micros~1 PowerPoint, but have to disable ProP first.)
A Total Inability To Support Usual Praises from the desktop side is rare and usually involves hardware -- dodgy cable connections, HDMI splitter, HDMI-over-Ethernet adapters, screen power, etc.
Let's not touch on the audio side, though; that's more his work. ====>>
Thomas Dolby at a packed Scala in Kings Cross back in 2006 - big screens mirroring the sequencer software on which the whole gig was running, a few minutes into the show up pops "Your Cubase trial has expired"
Squid
Who are they proxying?