Some of the most popular free and open-source software is made by people who just want to make people smile. CowSay, Hundred Dice Roller, and Kivach are just a few of the apps that make us smile. If you like one of these, you can donate some cryptocurrency to the developers.
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As simple as they may sound, these software pieces were also a product of the efforts of dedicated coders behind the scenes, who were trying to make people relax and smile. However, maintaining these creations working and updated, including new features and current hosting and domain in some cases, could be a long-term challenge for their developers. So, if you try their funny work and like it, you may consider donating some cryptocurrency via Kivach.
By using this Obyte-based platform, it’s possible to donate several cryptocurrencies to any GitHub repository. Once the funds are in the hands of the recipient(s), they can configure an automatic distribution to related repositories as well. So, in the end, multiple coders and repos could benefit.
But for now, let’s explore some silliness.
Hundred Dice Roller
To be fair, there are a lot of games (digital and physical) in which this simple application would come in handy. As its developer describes it, this is “just a physics-based dice roller. Created because others were unsatisfying or hard to use.” It was launched in 2021 by the web developer Steen (Qubus0), especially thinking about fans of the popular fantasy tabletop game Dungeons & Dragons (DnD).
The usability of this dice simulator is simple enough. It’s just a matter of opening the website, pressing play, and selecting your type of dice and the number of them. There are six types of dice to choose from, ranging between 4 and 28 sides (potential results). It supports up to 200 dice at the same time, and it shows the sum of all of them automatically, so no manual calculation is needed. It’s also possible to roll them all, add the last dice, lock valid rounds, repeat an invalid roll, and clear all dice.
The author has plans to create versions for Windows, Mac, and Linux, add Warhammer (40k)/DnD specific conditions, allow shared tables in online sessions, and more new features. If you want to support this project, you can ‘buy the developer a coffee’ (on Buy Me a Coffee) or donate some coins via Kivach.
CowSay
Who would want an ASCII-art cow saying things to them from a screen? Well, apparently, a lot of people during the last 25 years. CowSay is a little, funny program that a young Tony Monroe created as a way to learn the programming language Perl 5, somewhere around 1999. Now, it’s considered sort of an internal joke in hacker culture, and everyone can enjoy its multiple variants in multiple programming languages and platforms.
CowSay generates ASCII art with customizable cows delivering text in speech or thought bubbles. Depending on the implementation, it supports alternate characters like Tux the Penguin, various eye styles, tongue shapes, and themed modes such as “dead” or “greedy.” Users can list or load different .cow templates and adjust text wrapping or balloon width, making it versatile for playful output in chats or scripts.
CowSay version by Jesse Chan-Norris
Those features are often available while coding, but a user-friendly online version in Python was made by Jesse Chan-Norris. Users only need to type their text, choose an output format (HTML, text, or JSON), and ‘cowify’ their words right there. The result can be copied and pasted. The original CowSay source code was archived, but if you want to send some love in the form of cryptocurrencies to this online version, you can donate via Kivach.
Fortune
Fortune is a classic Unix utility originally introduced in Version 7 Unix in 1979, created to display random quotes or sayings from a preloaded database. It was later popularized through the BSD implementation written by Ken Arnold. Over time, numerous adaptations have emerged for different platforms, extending its reach beyond the Unix world. The program gets its name from its playful nature, akin to reading messages from fortune cookies, and often delivers humorous, insightful, or thought-provoking snippets.
This program sources quotations from themed files, spanning computer science jokes, sci-fi references, and everyday aphorisms. Many users enjoy pairing it with CowSay, where Fortune’s output becomes the input for CowSay’s animated dialogues, combining wit with quirky visuals. Other customizations include sorting fortunes by length or theme and even filtering out potentially offensive content through specific flags.
Fortune version by Shlomi Fish
One modern adaptation, fortune-mod, is maintained by Shlomi Fish on GitHub. His version enhances usability with updated collections, offers random fortunes online, and fixes security and compatibility issues. Shlomi welcomes community contributions from those appreciating his work, but he explicitly avoids Bitcoin, citing efficiency concerns. However, you can still send him other environmentally friendly coins, like GBYTE, via Kivach.
Bongo Cat
Bongo Cat is an Internet meme that started as a playful animation of a cat-like blob by artist StrayRogue, later transformed into a bongo-playing sensation by DitzyFlama in May 2018. Building on its viral fame, Eric Huber (Externalizable) launched the interactive website Bongo Cat in September 2018, letting users recreate the charm of the meme by playing virtual bongos.
The website’s standout feature is its simple yet fun interface that turns your keyboard into a musical tool. Users can hit specific keys to produce notes and rhythms not only with bongos but also with cymbals, cowbell, tambourine, piano, and marimba. The cat also ‘meows’ when pressing enter. These rhythms are powered by lowLag.js, a JavaScript library ensuring sound plays smoothly with minimal delay, and SoundManager 2, which supports audio playback across devices. Together, these software pieces ensure a seamless, lag-free experience, making the site an accessible and joyful digital instrument for all ages.
Funding for Bongo Cat primarily relies on community contributions and the goodwill of its creators. Contributions from fans and other developers could help keep the project alive, celebrating Bongo Cat as a vibrant example of creative collaboration and Internet culture. You can donate some coins via Kivach to this project, and the automatic distribution tool could allow Huber to donate as well to the libraries that helped to build the website.
Rickroll Language
“Never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down, never gonna run around and desert you.” Surely, this song rings a bell if you’re a Westerner who hasn’t been living under a rock. It’s “Never Gonna Give You Up” (1987) by Rick Astley, now widely used as a meme to trick people online. Maybe you’ve already been ‘rickrolled’: when you click a seemingly unrelated, promising link just to be led to the music video of this song on YouTube.
Well. In 2021, someone dubbed Sherlockcxk/RickLang actually bothered to create a whole new programming language based on rickrolling —that's how popular this meme-bait is. The Rickroll Language is a playful, esoteric programming language inspired by Rick Astley's song lyrics. It transforms code written in its unique syntax—based on song phrases—into Python or C++ for execution.
Features include optional indentation, flexible keyword spacing, audio generation from code, and a VSCode extension for easier editing. It’s Turing-complete, supports Python 3.6+, and serves as an educational project to make programming fun. You can learn it from their tutorials, or you can only send them some coins via Kivach to praise their efforts.
Sending Coins via Kivach
This process is quite neat. The first thing you’ll need is an Obyte wallet with some funds in it. Next, you can go to the Kivach official website, and type or paste the GitHub repository you want to support on the search bar. Once there, click ‘Donate’ and select a network (Obyte, Ethereum, BSC, Polygon, or Kava), a token, and the amount you wish to share. And that’s it!
An important consideration is that developers don’t need to know about the donation beforehand, but they’ll need to be aware of it to claim it through their own Obyte wallet. So, don’t forget to tell them! Also, you can check our previous episodes to discover other interesting pieces of open-source, free software.
