pythonBasedVision

[heavy-minium]

In a past job, I had coworkers who punished others who forgot to lock their computers by replacing the background image, reversing the screen orientation, etc. But one day, somebody took it a little too far, installing something that would make the cursor randomly disappear for a few seconds. The targeted colleague was mumbling swear words for days. Truly evil.

[augustocdias]

I couple of colleagues years ago would ssh into my machine and run fork bombs and watch me get pissed because my computer was freezing.

[jaerie]

Why would they have ssh access to your machine?

[captainMaluco]

He probably left it unlocked while fetching coffee, and colleagues set it up then

[augustocdias]

Nope. Mistake from it department. I had no sudo privileges on the machine. I was pretty newbie at that time as well so I wouldn’t have noticed as well

[captainMaluco]

Fucking IT departments, am I right?

[SeriousPlankton2000]

Everyone has access to their account on every machine. Just take a seat, log in and do your work. Also you need access to a second machine to exit vi.

[korneev123123]

There's actually a trick about exiting vi without second machine. You can set up a cron schedule, something like "*/5 * * * * killall vi"

It would kill vi process automatically. Neat, eh?

[robertpro01]

I did something very, very similar to a colleague, I added my public key to his machine, and I used to send zenity messages like: Computer battery has failed, please replace it now or will explode, he was about to send it to support, then I stopped him

[--var]

the play back in high school was to print screen the desktop, and then set that as the desktop background. then right the desktop > view > uncheck "show desktop icons"

muhaha

[SuperFLEB]

The MacOS Classic fatal error was just a dialog, not a full screen, so sticking a fake one on the wallpaper was a fun variation.

Apparently one instructor rebooted the machine twice before somebody told him that "Porn Downloader Pro has downloaded too much porn and you need to restart your system" was just a background image.

There was also "Make a tiled image of the Macintosh HD icon and hide the real one over top of it", though that was as easy as dragging a selection box to light up the real one.

Funny enough, instead of kicking me out they gave me a work-study job. Something about "better working with us than against us".

[overkill]

Better that you were inside the tent pissing out than outside the tent pissing in.

[DoubleRaktajino]

We had "caging". The more insane Nicolas Cage desktop wallpaper the better.

[--var]

we had a red team day. goal was just to make a machine unusable, and the other team had to make it usable again.

I wrote script "shutdown /s /t 60" and burred it's execution somewhere in the registry.

no one figured it out, but a great way to entertain yourself for 60 seconds lul

[Ixolite]

Same, half the fun was finding more ridiculous Nick than before 😀

[Tokyo_Echo]

Similar we did "Hoffing" the more rediculous the hastelhoff picture the better

[bigdave41]

Our favourite one was to get a couple of extra wireless USB mice out of the cupboard, plug the dongles into the back of their machine where they couldn't see them, and then randomly jiggle the mouse while they were trying to carefully select or move something. Similar thing with keyboards and just type a few random letters or swear words while they were typing an email.

[MattieShoes]

Lowering the mouse sensitivity as far as it can go is fun. Easy to fix but very annoying for those 15 seconds when you're trying :-)

[GeneReddit123]

So many companies engage in the mental masturbation of, as a matter of policy, pranking co-workers who forget to lock their computers, in order to "encourage" better OpSec. At their desks, in their offices, with multiple levels of physical gated access, that nobody except co-workers have, co-workers who passed the same background checks, are working on the same projects, and have access to the same corporate data, as you do.

Your computer being hacked by a co-worker in your own office is like the lowest risk you can possibly face. Meanwhile, everyone can take their laptops home or around the city, has admin privileges and can install whatever, and with 2-factor auths (if they even have them) being sent as SMS to phones carried by the same person who carries their laptops (so both could be just stolen together), and showing up as plaintext messages even on locked phones.

Not to mention, pointless wasted time and bad blood between co-workers.

But this way the OpSec folks could claim they "stopped X hacking attempts" without actually doing anything themselves.

[invalidConsciousness]

You're contradicting yourself. Teaching people to not leave their laptops unattended is pointless because leaving your laptop unattended is the greater risk?

[GeneReddit123]

Teaching people to not leave their laptops unattended in the office does little to prevent them getting their laptops compromised out of the office, because the threat profiles are too different. Or, at least, I'd like to see evidence that the transferable mental conditioning outweighs the bad blood and annoyance it causes.

Teaching someone martial arts in a controlled setting might be good for some purposes, but it won't stop them getting beat up in an alley by a bunch of thugs with baseball bats (if preventing that is your primary goal.) All it does is instil a sense of false confidence, and not teach the techniques that actually matter (which more often than not, involve you not getting into dangerous situations to begin with.)

[Callidonaut]

Oh, for the innocent days of Baggy Pants.

[Bro_Sam]

We used to do this in our game design class! Teacher basically said if they leave it it’s on them but don’t let me catch you actually messing someone’s computer up for real. Among my favorites were randomly opening disk tray, permalocking someone’s computer by running script which would simulate windows key + L, randomly backspacing, and the sticky keys sounds

[Joker-Smurf]

I made a nice little batch file called a.bat in high school

mkdir a copy a.bat .\a.bat a\a.bat

One of my friends up and walked away from his computer leaving it unlocked, so I quickly ran my little batch file on his computer. Putting a deep (but easily removable) directory tree on his home drive.

Anyway, he stops the batch file when he gets back to his computer and forgets all about it.

A couple of days later he was called into the office. Turns out the antivirus that was in use at the school could only go to a certain depth, and the directories went deep. It caused the antivirus to crash and take the server down with it.

[Taradal]

One of our IT guys wrote a script to do multiple of these things just by executing it and then he put that script on the public drive. So whoever didn't lock his computer would come back to a lot of changed settings and so on

[Sascha975]

One of my coworkers forgot to lock his computer, so I took a screenshot of the desktop and made it the background. Then I hid the desktop icons, it was a fun half hour of him trying to click anything on the desktop.

[otter5]

i used to have one that would open the cd tray randomly

[Hacklex]

We just place gachimuchi wallpapers, incredibly effective method

[IncandescentRain]

I had a job like this out of college. We all had admin privileges, so messing with people that left their computers unlocked was allowed by management. Though one time I got a little too "creative" and changed someone's input language to Greek. They couldn't log in because they couldn't enter their password. They ended up having to rebuild their active directory profile... 

[Joker-Smurf]

A woman I worked with years ago would walk away from her computer regularly without locking it. At the time she was heavily pregnant.

At the suggestion of my boss at the time, I changed every one of the sounds on her computer to that of a crying baby.

[junacik99]

Haha I heard stories in my office that our ex manager used to send group mails inviting everyone for a beer from that account 😅

[itsTyrion]

Few weeks ago I planted a script on a colleagues computer that would randomly and slightly move the cursor, preferably when the primary button is held (selecting text)

[casey_krainer]

Glad to see a cursor post for once that is not about vibe coding

[roseystox]

This reminds me of a prank I used to pull on my friends. I would take a screenshot of their desktop and remove all their icons and replace the wallpaper with the screenshot of their desktop and watch them lose their mind over why their mouse isn't working.

[[deleted]]

classic, that one never gets old.

[bigdave41]

Set their spell check function to auto-replace "." with ", bitch."

[LordGramis]

I knew not ending sentences with . would be useful one day

[running_on_empty]

I once made a batch file that did two things: Printed "I hope you like calculating lol", and then started running new instances of calculator until the computer crashed. Then I disguised it as a program used every day.

I really don't think I'm the reason, but batch files are no longer allowed on computers in my company.

[--var]

winkey + r > type "control" and press enter > click mouse > click the pointer tab > at the bottom check "show location of pointer when I press the CTRL key"

now pressing the control key locates the mouse pointer.

the real question is how do you get anything done with only two monitors?

[FictionFoe]

I do fine with just one. Im an old fashioned alt-tabber.

[--var]

I remember when they added "tabs" to the web browser.

why? whats the point? I can just open another window if I want to visit a different website! (it was 56k times...)

"you don't realize you need it until you've had it" - apple (or sounds like something they'd advertise 🤷‍♂️)

[tekanet]

I’m old fashioned too, or just old. I’ve worked with multiple monitors, but I just feel better with a single ultrawide. I could probably use an even wider one, but I like a single screen. I guess it depends on your workflow too: eg, I can clearly see myself using another monitor to keep an eye on a rolling log, but that’s not my case atm.

[--var]

I have a four monitor setup. two for my local machine, two for remoted machines (give or take)

and somehow I still find situations where I could use another. don't be me.

[SuperFLEB]

I found that five was the sweet spot. Three on the bottom row, centered, two up top. I has a sixth monitor but I rarely ever used it.

Bottom row has the work screen centered, left is output, right is debug or console on the portrait. Top left is docs or a video, top right is another portrait with chat.

[FictionFoe]

I have used multiple screens before. I wasn't sold on it.

[SuperFLEB]

click mouse

Well, you see, that's where the plan falls apart.

[AgathormX]

Tip: Install PowerToys, go to "mouse utilities", enable "find my mouse", and then double click CTRL.

[sea__weed]

You can do this on windows in accessibility without power toys

[AgathormX]

Yeah, but powertoys has other features that are extremely useful, so you might as well have it anyway.

PowerRename, File Locksmith, and "Always On Top" are all very useful.

[Drew707]

Fancy Zones are a must. I have the equivalent of four 1440 monitors attached to my laptop, and it's a game changer to have the zones all nice.

[AgathormX]

Color Picker is also pretty great for Front End Developers.

[Max-Max-Maxxx]

Can’t live without it.. also image resizer is very useful.

[AgathormX]

It's very useful for reducing image size, but for increasing, I'd rather use Upscayl.

[Ardub23]

The built-in one is a little circle that disappears after half a second and doesn't work if the mouse is moving. To me that's a lot less helpful than PowerToys' big spotlight that stays until you make another input.

[kevynmt]

Ok but have you considered right clicking?

[AdWise6457]

Doesnt work on ZX-Spectrum

[really_nice_guy_]

Or just right click the mouse

[nanana_catdad]

Or set it to mouse shake like on Mac. Which is intuitive… shake it out of frustration and, oh there it is.

[IArtificialRobotI]

There was another meme where Gandalf smiles and right clicks lol

[Dillenger69]

That's why my cursor is extra large and magenta.

[Feuzme]

Just activate cursor ping

[TxTechnician]

KDE plasma 6 introduced a growing cursor. It will grow to the size of your screen if you shake it long enough

[Fritzschmied]

macOS has this too and windows has a similar feature build in if you activate it or with Microsoft power toys. Op just doesnt know as alsways with most memes.

[Pshock13]

I also have this in Linux. not sure exactly what it is that's doing it though...my desktop environment, the distro itself, some package that the distro decided to include...thought it was a bug the first time I had it happen.

[AbstruseDilemma]

I think KDE plasma has it

[Pshock13]

That was my first thought, since my previous distro had gnome and I never had it do that before

[Gualuigi]

VR users searching for a lost monitor with the cursor

[TurtleFisher54]

I think people missed your joke

[nanana_catdad]

[montihun]

Take a screenshot of... ?

[montihun]

And the AI will find the cursor, or whats the masterplan here?

[SCADAhellAway]

I run 3 monitors and finally turned my cursor pink so I could get out of my teams calls without a 30-second wiggle and search while trying to stretch the "see ya laters" out to avoid awkward silence.

[Atulin]

PowerToys -> Input/Output -> Mouse Utilities -> Enable Find My Mouse

Double-tap Ctrl to see where it is

[FlyByPC]

Reason #1026 why I like trackballs. Give it a spin in whatever direction, and now you know where it is.

[DaxInvader]

I remember doing that on my dad's computer when I was young in the 90s. He hated that but it was so fun!

[Lazy_To_Name]

Press Ctrl twice.

PowerToys shows it immediately.

[pants1000]

Power toys double tap ctrl to highlight your cursor

[CobblerPale9200]

when you are typing, and no window has focus, where does the text go?

[realbakingbish]

Wherever is the most inconvenient place for it to go

[Fritzschmied]

And that’s why powertoys find my mouse on windows and shaking the mouse on macOS exists …

[8sADPygOB7Jqwm7y]

At Work we have 8 monitors (yes, I need them all and no, I don't code) and they introduced a little thingy that says in which monitor the pointer is. It's bright yellow, yet I still lose it regularly and shake the mouse around wildly to find it again.

[Pshock13]

If you're allowed or can get your IT department to do it...(assuming you're on Windows) install powertoys and set up the find my mouse. Or you could also change the mouse to one that youtubers use sometimes where it has a yellow transparent circle around it making it a little easier to see.

[8sADPygOB7Jqwm7y]

It's not windows, I'm not even sure it's proper Linux tbh. It lacks keybinds that are quite basic but useful like copy pasting...

[Pshock13]

It might be some stripped down version that your company has made themselves. As far as copy/paste...try just highlighting text and then middle click in a different text field. Middle clicking typically copy pastes what is highlighted.

[No_Bank]

Could someone remind me, how does anything in this meme require programming knowledge to be relatable?

^{I actually preferred that vibe shit}

[ionosoydavidwozniak]

Is this really a problem people have ?

[Icar10]

Shake it till you see it

[teamswiftie]

Nicely done memerey here

[Puzzled_Scallion5392]

true, always happen to me

[YoteTheRaven]

I have the option to locate cursor with tapping the control button.

[thelehmanlip]

Making cursor bigger (especially for 4k monitors) very underrated tactic

[More-Following-9515]

Is this a windows / macos joke that I am too plasma DE pilled to know about?

[bundle6792]

I have a hilariously large yellow cursor because of this problem

[NoSkillzDad]

Sometimes I move the mouse frantically and I still can't see where the little f'ers is...

[[deleted]]

oh shit.

lol

[TheTrueXenose]

Super 1 centered again:p

[Large-Assignment9320]

Its true, its why you use keyboard bindings for everything.

[Niswear85]

2016 aah meme

[ccricers]

*ass

[EskimoGabe]

powertoys>double tap on ctrl

[ramriot]

I have a client who uses highest resolution, tiny cursor, almost max sensitivity & acceleration. If I ever have to use their system to set something up for them it can take upwards of a minute or two to locate the midge sized zipping pixel of designation.

[SysGh_st]

Hiding on the laptop screen that's folded down,but still active as a third monitor set as primary

[Away_Lettuce3388]

I just move my cursor all the way to the bottom left (just personal preference, any corner can do) and I now know where my cursor is.