
Show HN: Genact – A nonsense activity generator - Svenstaro
https://github.com/svenstaro/genact
======
Svenstaro
Hi HN! I built a completely useless tool that just pretends to do work. It's
written in Rust and compiles to Linux, OSX, Windows and the web all from the
same code base. The web version uses xterm.js which is a JavaScript ANSI
terminal. Windows version only has proper colors on Windows 10 because that
has finally gotten ANSI support.

I would be extremely surprised if anybody found a productive use for this.
Enjoy!

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petertodd
Can you make a mode where it pretends to be compiling genact?

~~~
Svenstaro
That already pretty much exists! If you run `./genact -m cargo` it will look
pretty much like compiling genact itself.

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willvarfar
The online version -
[https://svenstaro.github.io/genact/](https://svenstaro.github.io/genact/) is
absolutely excellent!

Hopefully its the beginning of a trend with more apps being available in a
browser-window without install because of compile-to-WASM.

It makes me wonder if there is any nice version of C stdio you can use that
lets your C program access the 'local filesystem' which is actually a folder
on the webserver etc so programs that have resource files etc can be cross-
compiled.

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audiolion
Whenever I watch movies featuring "hackers" I always wonder who writes the
code to do the random terminal noise to make it look like they are doing
something.

This is really cool and I could see this making it into a movie (esp
considering it is free).

~~~
bluetidepro
This one is my favorite: [https://hackertyper.net/](https://hackertyper.net/)
haha I've actually seen it used in a few videos before. Cracks me up.

~~~
akerro
[https://www.facebook.com/sos.o.sosowski/posts/10151947287917...](https://www.facebook.com/sos.o.sosowski/posts/10151947287917825)

That's from a national TV.

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mar77i
This could be something for the movies industry... It's at least better than
your average Hollywood OS.

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JepZ
Another use-case:

If you boss doesn't want to grant you that cool new high performance rig,
maybe you can convince him by showing just how much time you spend waiting
with your current slow-as-hell machine. ;-)

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jbattle
Back in the old days, before computers could run multiple programs and
switching between them was easy, some games had a built-in "boss mode". You'd
hit a function key and the game you were playing would be replaced with
something serious looking like a spreadsheet. As Jeff Goldblum once said -
gamers ... uh, find a way

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boss_key](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boss_key)

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sarreph
This may be a stupid question, but I can only see linux / win binaries on the
releases page.

Do I need to compile for OS X?

~~~
Svenstaro
Sadly travis has some problems right now and that is what's supposed to be
compiling my OSX binaries. See here:
[https://www.traviscistatus.com/](https://www.traviscistatus.com/)

They should be there soon.

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pkd
Extremely similar with multi-window support
[https://github.com/dustinkirkland/hollywood](https://github.com/dustinkirkland/hollywood)

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nerdponx
This seems like a great tool for
[https://reddit.com/r/unixporn](https://reddit.com/r/unixporn) users.

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fredley
I literally didn't notice when it stopped building and when it started
running. Good show.

~~~
ohmichel
Same here.

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innot
Need a generator of nonsense activity for humans. Structured procrastination!

