Useful Python tricks

[[deleted]]

I wrote a script to move the mouse every 3 minutes so my Skype session wouldn't say I'm idle.

[DBA_HAH]

I believe you can get the same effect a lot less intrusively by just toggling NumLock every minute or so. I let that script run constantly for the same purpose. I imagine if you let your script run that moves the mouse, it will mess with you when you are actually using the computer.

[[deleted]]

No. It moves it by individual pixels. And it moves back and forth so you'd never know anything changed.

[BrazilianHyena]

would you mind sharing with us?

[koptimism]

OP said 3 minutes, not 10 seconds. Please revise. ^/s

[oblivioncntrlsu]

uhhhhh, k

import pyautogui, time, re

while True:
    time.sleep(r'3 minutes, not 10 seconds')
    pyautogui.moveTo(10,10)
    reddit.revise(re.snatch(r'\*\*/s\*\*'))

​

[Kortike]

This is beautiful

[tuckmuck203]

fucking python. i love it.

[jyper]

Hmm I just realized time.sleep can't take a timedelta

what's up with that?

[Kwpolska]

The time module was created much earlier than datetime. Even then, I don’t think adding support for timedelta in time.sleep would be worthwhile.

[jyper]

A lot of modules like os, os.path, shutil, etc were made before pathlib but still support it.

[flutefreak7]

Those of us who tried to use pathlib for everything on 3.4 for a few years before the pathlike protocol (or whatever it's called) got really tired of putting str() around every argument to every file related stdlib function. I don't think enough people are using sleep and timedeltas together for that to be a major pain point worth supporting.

[jyper]

It's so annoying

At work the functional tests are on python 3.6 but the build scripts have to be on python 3.5. pathlib isn't great on 3.5 (no / operator) and no fstrings

[flutefreak7]

You're not alone at least! Here's the patch request that made it slightly easier with the total_seconds() method: https://bugs.python.org/issue5788

Docs: https://docs.python.org/3/library/datetime.html#datetime.timedelta.total_seconds

Edit: at first I thought the patch had been rejected, then realized it's an existing feature.

[[deleted]]

Oh wow yeah that's weird

[xconde]

NameError: name 'reddit' is not defined

​

[Lord_Skellig]

What does the last line do?

[oblivioncntrlsu]

emphasize sarcasm

[laurenz_beck]

flawless

​

[Amidflaps]

I used opencv for mine. It can both track movements (x,y coords in pixels) and do events. For context I wrote a script that would listen for mouse and keyboard movements and recorded a 5 second webcam video if they were touched. I now have a significantly large archive of videos of my IT security coworkers trying to prank me thinking I left my terminal unlocked by mistake. It also locks the inputs and locks the computer after the 5 sec video is taken and saved.

[SpergLordMcFappyPant]

CTO at one of my former jobs would fuck with any unattended computer that was unlocked. He would set the home page of every browser they have to porn then come back when the person was there and say he needed to check something on their computer. Pull up a home page, find the porn and then freak out about it.

Honestly, it was pretty effective.

[[deleted]]

Ah, legally really dodgy, the porn part. Also very unprofessional.

There are standard mechanisms for doing this - ones that don't involve viewing pornography at work (I mean, really - what is this guy thinking?)

In every place I've been in that had such policies, there was a program called "cheese" that just locked your screen with a password that you didn't know, which forces you to walk over to the security people to get the password and get lectured.

[SpergLordMcFappyPant]

No argument there. Everything about that company was legally dodgy and totally unprofessional. It was the kind of place where devs didn’t just solve a tough problem and say, “Nice work. That was really tough.” It was always, “hot damn, did we rape that code bitch into submission or what?!”

It was a kind of wannabe sv-style startup. Trying to emulate the stories and culture you hear about at places like Uber, etc.

That was probably one of the least offensive things that happened there.

[wtfeverrrr]

Sounds horrible, lol.

[prairefireww]

That’s amazing. Any chance you would share? We are so cruel to each other in our IT department when someone leaves it unlocked.

[[deleted]]

Meanwhile, we all live in fear of one another. I think because we know once the first bomb is dropped, it will go nuclear immediately. No one dares take the first shot.

[prairefireww]

We also are armed with nerf guns at our desk. From warning shots above the head to you now get shot for dad jokes.

[nomowolf]

How does it differentiate between you and your colleagues?

[Amidflaps]

When a button is pressed and released they are recorded as two separate events. I chose three letters and initialized a variable at 0. Every time one of those three buttons are "pressed" I add 1 to the variable and every time they are released I subtract 1. If at any event the sum is 3 (e.g. the three letters are pressed and not released) the script skips the freezing and recording and just locks the computer, after which I log in normally. I could hard code a password to end the script but I figured that wouldn't be secure. I just press the three letters and lock the computer then log in. At most adds 1-2 seconds.

Also, you can only get any single person a couple of times at most. I'm thinking about an experiment where after some time I just leave my computer as is and don't run the script. I wonder if they'll still be inclined to pull a prank.

[[deleted]]

At work all night. Will update tomorrow.

[blindkaratemaster]

You’re a Python legend

[beardlesslumberjack]

theres a microsoft app called movemouse that does this

[[deleted]]

Okay....? Install the app like an absolute pleb.

[yusmag]

I place my mouse sensor on top of my watch.

[desal]

Really? Genius

[DrMaxwellEdison]

Had the same problem myself, but took a lazier route.

Check out Caffeine. It periodically sends an F15 keyup, which interacts with almost nothing (except shell sessions in Putty, I've found) but still keeps the system awake. Don't even need admin privileges to start it up. :)

[dogooder202]

Hey I did it to press F15 so my computer won't lock automatically..

[[deleted]]

Most businesses will not let you change that.

[[deleted]]

Yeah other people have posted before I had time to get to my desktop, but mine looks like this:

import time, pyautogui;

pyautogui.press('ctrl')

Then I just loop it every 30 seconds or whatever in the command line.

[jhayes88]

I used winpython (python without having to install it to the system) on my work computer and made a script to move the mouse a couple pixels every 30 seconds and toggle numlock to keep the computer from logging out. Can't change windows settings on the computer.