Names for the spinning pizza cursor

[R94N]

There have probably been hundreds of other threads about this, but I wanted to make a fresh one. What names do you have for the spinning cursor you sometimes get when your Mac's working really hard? I usually call it the 'spinning pizza', although I know there are others. Most inventive wins!

 

[MrCheeto]

The Apple Human Interface Guidelines officially refer to it as the "spinning wait cursor".

It hardly looks like a pizza...

 

[R94N]

I just like the name, I 'spose.

 

[stridemat]

I call it the beachball.

 

[anjinha]

The spinning beach ball of death.

 

[Sankersizzle]

i call it the gay pinwheel!

 

[andalusia]

The spinning beach ball of death.

+1. It's the most appropriate name.

 

[Melrose]

Beachball or pinwheel.

 

[maflynn]

I usually call it the spinning beach ball of death.

 

[R94N]

Thanks for your replies everyone

Together with the startup chime, they're two things that I find intriguing about the Mac.

 

[cube]

It's none of the above. It's a spinning magneto-optical disc.

 

[cosmokanga2]

The "Oh my god don't you crash x" colourful thingy.

 

[obeygiant]

I call it "OMFG! ISN'T 4 GIGS OF RAM ENOUGH?"

 

[Xavier]

The spinning beach ball of death.

Heard it like this for as long as I can remember

 

[steve2112]

I call it "OMFG! ISN'T 4 GIGS OF RAM ENOUGH?"

No kidding. I curse at my Mini all the time with that same statement. "WHADDYA MEAN YOU'RE USING 4GB OF RAM??"

It's even worse on my Mac Pro at work. I foolishly thought having two Xeons and 16GB of RAM would be enough.

 

[renewed]

 

[MrCheeto]

Dude...

Until FSB's are wider than eight-lane freeways, memory latency is naught and storage media has a lower read-time of light speed, the ball will be there... it's how computers work!

All it means, really, is that somewhere down the line is a bottleneck. For most, that's their hard drive. But even the snappiest SSD's can sometimes not appease the ball...

Beachball of death? Great, give the MS fanboys something to ***** about.

Since when does a beachball mean, "GET TO THE CHOPPA!!!" All it means is somewhere down the pipeline a process is waiting... for what? Who knows. Sometimes formulae simply get caught in an infinite loop <8O It's inherent of programs designed by fallible humans, so get used to it.

Besides, it happens to be a magneto-optical disk. In the same way Microsoft copped the idea and displays a disc icon beside the cursor when accessing optical media. Then again, what hasn't Microsoft blatantly taken? They haven't had an original thought since MS-DOS. OOPS NO! Hahaha.

 

[Peace]

That thing really exists ? WOW. I thought I was tripping all this time.

 

[Melrose]

Thanks for your replies everyone

Together with the startup chime, they're two things that I find intriguing about the Mac.

This is a fascinating (if only from the geek & nerd standpoint) look at the history of the startup chime. on Vimeo.

 

[aethelbert]

What names do you have for the spinning cursor you sometimes get when your Mac's working really hard?

I call it Charlie.

 

[KeriJane]

Dude...


Then again, what hasn't Microsoft blatantly taken? They haven't had an original thought since MS-DOS. OOPS NO! Hahaha.

Even MSDOS wasn't an original idea!
MS BOUGHT "MS"-DOS (aka "Quick and Dirty OS") from Seattle Computer Products!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS-DOS


About the only "Original" ideas Mr. Gates has had was to be the first "Capitalist Pig" in the computing world.
and even that had been done before.

Oink Oink!
Have Fun,
Keri

Oh... "Spinning Beachball of Doom" for me.
"Death" is just a little much for a Mac. "Death" belongs in PC-land Blue Screens.

 

[MultiM]

I call it the "I've got too many @#$!%! photos on here" thingy....

 

[R94N]

This is a fascinating (if only from the geek & nerd standpoint) look at the history of the startup chime. on Vimeo.

Yay for geek and nerds! Seriously though, that vid is pretty interesting.

 

[kainjow]

Related:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqKM3SCEmAw

For those interested in the technical reasons behind the SBBOD:
http://developer.apple.com/mac/libr...ponse.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/20001868-97479

The SBBOD usually shows up when a developer fails to properly multi-thread their app, or is trying to load too many resources at once. Either way, 99% of the time it's the developer's fault

 

[MrCheeto]

Even MSDOS wasn't an original idea!
MS BOUGHT "MS"-DOS (aka "Quick and Dirty OS") from Seattle Computer Products!

Do I have to define what "OOPS NO!" means? Do I?!