Source: https://bsky.app/profile/funnysnarkyjoke.bsky.social/post/3lmkfwebeuc27
In fact you can use your smartphone to change the channel on nearly any TV. In the comments on that post some people talk about how to do it. Basically you need a smartphone with either builtin IR or use a USB-C IR blaster or if your phone has a 3.5mm headphone jack you can also try one of those but I’m not sure if the 3.5mm ones are as commonly supported.
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I was at a hospital waiting room one night for an ex’s mother’s injury. I’m not family so I had to wait in the waiting room, which had Fox News blaring. They wouldn’t change it. I couldn’t change it. But I could unplug all the TVs.
Nurse ratchet did not like that one bit.
I sometimes (jokingly) wonder if Hospitals show Fox News to try to get repeat business, and I don’t mean repeat business due to people who enjoy Fox coming back, I mean due to health complications caused by the stress of watching it.
Watching fox news does not cause you stress. It causes stress for all the people around you.
My grandpa got a dose of fox news for a while, and it took a long conversation to convince him that there is not a county in Michigan that is more that 50% Somali immigrants.
I think it depends on the person how they react.
These are some interesting articles: https://mhanational.org/resources/negative-news-coverage-and-mental-health/
This joke is super old…
I rember when airports, hospitals, government building all played Faux.
I haven’t seen it out in the wild for like a decade at least tho, what places still actually leave it on in 2025?
SC here, last time at the work boots store 2 weeks ago
Every time I stay at a suburban/rural American hotel they have Fox on in the dining area at breakfast. Last time was ~6 months ago in central California.
Crazy, didn’t think it was still happening
Oh man, I worked at a hotel during overnight shift a few years ago, and the head desk lady would go apeshit if I turned the front lobby TV to CNN. She would throw the most childish fit you could imagine, it was so fun to poke at her. Every morning, even after she told me never to change the TV again, I’d change it. She’d hide the remote, I’d bring my own. She tried taping over the IR sensor, so I’d manually change it with the buttons on the side.
She died of cancer a few years after the hotel was turned into a nursing home.
I guess it makes more sense when the low level worker gets to run it.
But I remember when Obama was president, VA hospitals would be playing it, but they stopped pre-trump and I’ve never seen it since
Me too, I call it a flipper 0. I can also skip songs on the jukebox at the bar, fear me.
The middle school that I went to had a ~14" crt tv hanging from a sturdy ceiling mount in every classroom.
Displayed things like school bulletins and daily morning announcements, there was a couple educational channels, and a vcr input. Every now and again there’d be some sort of presentation instead of hauling everyone into the gym for a school assembly.
Anyway; it didn’t take me very long to figure out the universal remote that came with the satellite receiver at home could be programmed to the school TVs. I’d mess with the one in class, or skip classes and mess with the ones in my friends classrooms through the windows; cranking up the volume and blasting Bill Nye or the announcement channels awful elevator music. Weekends, I’d do a lap of the school turning on all the TVs I could reach from outside and maxing the volume for whoever opens on Monday, or just turning them off again so it blares at whoever turns it on next.
You fucking menace. I love the chaotic energy lol. You pull any more stunts like that one?
Stick a piece of tape on the bottom of laser mice. It stops them from being able to detect motion.
Screenshot your buddies desktop, then save that image to the desktop. Set it as the desktop background. Now right click, select “view” i think, and click “show desktop icons”. In theory, nothing should noticably change. But now you can no longer actually click on the icons on the desktop. To take it further, open task manager. Find “explorer.exe” and kill it. Now, you cant even right click to reshow desktop icons.
Easy fix to that is to reboot the computer, but you can also just reopen task manager, start a new process “explorer.exe”, and then reshow desktop icons.
You can find a website that has fake versions of windows update screens. Load one of those, hit f11 to fullscreen your page, and enjoy as your friend waits for three hours at a bar that has only gone up 2%.
Open task scheduler. Add a new task. Set it to run every day at like 2 pm. Have it set volume to 3/4, then open firefox with the extra command “https://www.youtube.com/watch/dQw…” and you will have a great time.
For a more malicious prank, get a syringe. Fill it with raw egg. Inject this into the seats of some assholes car. Within two days, their car is not able to be sat in without the windows down, and even then it is horrible. They cannot figure out where the smell is coming from, and even if they do, they have to replace the seat. Optionally you can just throw a dead fish into their gutter, they wont find it for a couple days at least, and it will permanantly make their entire yard smell.
The egg one… My god… Remind me not to piss you off
Forgive my ignorance but how does fish in the gutter make the entire yard smell
When you let fish rot, it creates an absurdly pungent smell that tends to stick around. Afaik its what gives rivers and lakes their distinctive smell.
I get that part but why specifically the sewer? Is that the best place for it? Just fearing it will get washed away.
Im guessing we have different types of housing here. In my area, each house has a gutter system so the rain doesnt drip iff the sides of the house. There is a chute somewhere in that system that allows water to contrallably fall to the ground. But thar hole is too small for the fish’s skeleton, so only bits of rotten flesh will slowly drain into the yard.
Now rotate the screenshot of the desktop 180 degrees before setting as thd desktop, then rotate the display output 180 degrees. Now the mouse also appears to go backwards. If they step away after having a go, add a screenshot of display settings to the background image so they click all over that when they get back.
Pull the tab off of a pop can. Turn off the switch on the power bar that the teachers computer is plugged into. Unplug the computer, slip the pop can tab over the live+neutral prongs, plug it back into the still off power bar and wait.
The teacher goes to use their computer, finds it’s not turning on and looks at the power bar.
Switch flips, ‘BANG’, scream, lights go out (breaker popped).
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Na, the aluminum acts as a fuse and breaks the circuit almost immediately. It makes a bright flash and a loud sound, but it’s over in a second with no real harm.
That’s not to say I’m recommending this at all, it’s definitely a pretty stupid prank; just that it doesn’t cause nearly as much damage as you might think.
Kids have lots of stupid ideas and saftey isn’t exactly the first thing they consider…
At least I never heated the handles of the tool cabinets with the blow torch in shop class. Had two separate classmates pull that ‘prank’.
it doesn’t cause nearly as much damage as you might think
That is horrible advice and could start a fire. Remember that children and idiots are reading.
To act as a fuse, the tab needs to reach 660 degrees celsius, and if the breaker pops, that means the breaker acted as the fuse.
To act as a fuse, the tab needs to reach 660 degrees celsius, and if the breaker pops, that means the breaker acted as the fuse.
I can tell you from experience; both occur.
Such a thin piece of aluminum across 120vac super heats so quickly that it basically vaporizes, faster than the breaker can react. That metal vapor allows an arch to form still passing excess current which is what finally trips the breaker. (standard breakers take time to trip, longer than fuses in many cases; this is intentional design. GFCI breakers are a different story.) Sometimes this arc doesn’t form and the breaker doesn’t trip; but it usually does.
Once tripped, the vapor has time to dissipate so the short clears and the breaker can be turned back on.
None of this is advice. Someone asked about dumb pranks I’ve pulled in school. I’m just discussing the past; not making recommendations for the future.
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Just a small Canadian town with very little else to do…
This school used to put students on detention in the office where the secretary + principal could keep an eye on them (so the teachers actually got a break instead of classes then detention supervision). For some reason the room they’d put you in also had a display for all the cameras in the school, just slowly flipping between each one.
Just meant all the school bullies, pranksters, and general troublemakers knew exactly where to stand so they weren’t caught on camera XD
No it would make contact before the computer is even switched on. Edgelord over here is making shit up. I bet he’s wearing a fedora too.
Flipper Zero ftw
Really expensive for the use case.
I considered it recently but then the flipper zero community was like “Spend $15 bucks for a universal remote man.”
haha im in the middle of switching careers into IT/CS and I figured it would be a good investment for the future or at least to tinker with. I’ve just had to focus on other things for certs I need, so no time to really dive into it.
I have one, for a year now or so. But haven’t use dit much really. And now the flipper one is announced. So I wished I waited and bought that one instead.
I really need to get one.
I’d wait a bit. The flipper one is announced.
Citation needed. All I can find are YouTube videos from random accounts that aren’t Flipper Devices. Nothing in writing and especially not from the company.
Apparently it was announced but later removed from their website. See this article
That article is over a year old and was itself referring to events a year before that.
If I am to believe this youtuber, the flipper zero creator shared info with him on the flipper one. I know, it’s thin, but it’s also not a hoax imo. It’s just impossible to guess where the development currently is.
And I need to learn to use mine better. All I got is a couple of neat magic tricks like turning off TVs or scanning people’s cats lol
Just been too busy learning other things lately I guess
scanning people’s cats
… Pardon?
haha some people have their pets microchipped so they can be scanned and returned to the owner if lost. If you run the flipper over the right spot (and in the right mode), generally between the shoulder blades, it’ll tell you if they’re chipped and read out some of the data.
if chip == True: print("is cat") else: print("might not be cat")
Yeah same here. Not really using it for anything other than that. Oh and opening tesla charge ports.
This is the second best thing I do with my Flipper Zero after reading pet RFID chips
Yep I keep it in my pocket with just the IR sensor sticking out and use the app on your phone to control it and it keeps people from ever suspecting me as the one who just turned off that annoying noise.
I read about the Flipper Zero and it seems really awesome! I even saw some high power LEDs for it that could in theory change the channel from a long distance.
Instead of the TV-B-Gone, there should be a TV-1-Channel-Up device that just changes the channel. If the TV in the doctor’s office turns off, it will get noticed by the reception desk and probably be turned back on in a few minutes. If the TV is on a different channel, the desk is much less likely to notice any time soon (at least not before you’ve been called back into the exam room).
TVs at my local doctors office took the prescription commercials to a new level and now just run an ad feed all day.
Easier to just unplug the TV.
With scissors.
There are pros and cons to that.
Advantage is of course you get peace and quiet like that. No TV might feel more relaxing.
Downside is someone might plug the TV in again which will turn it back on to Fox. Changing the channel means you can show unbiased news and maybe if for example you change the station to PBS, people will get educated. People might leave it on the channel you changed it to due to apathy. A TV that’s off is more noticeable.
I’d recommend if it’s possible especially if you’re the only one in the room at the time consider going into the channel editor and removing Fox News and other propaganda stations from the channel list.
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Have you tried a TV-B-Gone?
my universal remote ✂️
Samsung Android phones use to include an IR blaster. I use to install a universal remote app on my phone and change the channels anywhere Fox News was on and nobody could tell because nobody suspected the smart phone.
How do you know if your phone has built in IR?
GSMarena has specs for most smartphones including infrared (listed under connectivity).
Here’s a link to a search showing all phones in their database with IR: https://www.gsmarena.com/results.php3?chkInfrared=selected note I haven’t checked accuracy or completeness, it might be best to check the specs for your phone or search if your phone supports it.
If you got an old phone or an old PDA it might have IR if your current one doesn’t.
Check the specs or look for the blaster with another phone
edit: forgot that it’s only visible when on, so just check the specs/apps
In the early 2010s some flagship Android phones came with IR blasters built-in. You could turn off any TV anywhere, simply by pulling out your phone.
I miss the days when smartphones were fun.
I have a 2024 OnePlus 12 that had an IR blaster, just FYI
It was really handy.
I had power, source selection, and volume controls for my TV as a widget on my homescreen.
My Jelly Star (tiny cellphone) had an ir blaster. I had a lot of fun with it until the screen on it stopped working. It still is a decent phone, and I would consider getting another except the warranty process was kinda crap.
There’s no reason we can’t make IR stuff a phone accessory. Let’s make a flipper zero phone accessory. Control it with a webUI so that Apple and Google can’t block companion apps by claiming “oh noes, teh Hakurz”
You can still get Androids with them. My phone has one. Only a year or two old.
Nice, which one is it?
Poco F5
OnePlus 13 came with an IR remote app, but I haven’t tested it.
I would but I made the mistake of giving a foldable a try (got myself a used Samsung Fold 4 for $400). I got too used to having a tablet in my pocket and now I can’t go back.
Problem is that foldables are still niche and a fold with an IR blaster is even more niche. Doubt that any exist but I’d love to be proven wrong.
Apparently my honour V3 fold has one. Have yet to try it though
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I use the kit-built one of these: https://www.tvbgone.com/shop/ – They gave a bunch of them away at the end of a makefaire I was a part of years ago.
The TV-B-Gone is really cool especially because it’s so small but of course it just shuts off the TV. I’ve seen a few keychain sized universal remotes that have buttons.
I just wrote a comment in reply to someone suggesting unplugging the TV: https://lemm.ee/post/65246982/20771041
Basically it’s nice that you get peace and quiet but turning it off is more noticeable.
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These are amazing. I regularly use mine to shut off the “CP24” channel (news +ads +weather +ads +traffic +more ads, in the Toronto area) anywhere I go. I think nobody actually likes that shit but we all tolerate it because we think other people do.
