Bruce the Wonder Yak

This entry was published at least two years ago (originally posted on February 10, 2006). Since that time the information may have become outdated or my beliefs may have changed (in general, assume a more open and liberal current viewpoint). A fuller disclaimer is available.

Someone discovered a fun easter egg in Apple’s Final Cut Pro 5:

Open up “Final Cut Pro.rsrc” (/Applications/Final Cut Pro HD/Contents/Resources/Final Cut Pro.rsrc) in any text editor and you will stumble upon this hidden message:

If we can’t ship this puppy by then, we might as well be herding yaks. I’m glad it’s getting weird again. I didn’t understand it when it wasn’t weird. The C switch statement: Mmmmmm! Chock full of nooses! That would be like crossing the streams or something. Mmmm… Chicago style pizza! I’ve got my blankie, I’m good to go. A lot of this job is mental. “Mostly clockwise, sometimes reverses…” What’s the sound of one luma clamping? I just wanna be in the app! Oh, rough and woeful music which we have! Cause it to sound! The Yak is a delightful creature… rather like a visit with a bovine Confucious…

There’s a lot more there, I’ve snipped it for the sake of brevity. I think it’s a hilarious little random screed — and my guess is that they just took every little “in-joke” from the FCP programming team and tossed them all semi-randomly into a single text file. That’s what it reads like to me, at least — with the recurring Yak theme and the general random silliness of what’s in there, reading it reminded me a lot of some of my old brainstorming sessions with friends.