PulseAugur
EN
LIVE 01:46:23

PowerPoint prank sent colleagues into an infinite loop, causing panic

In the early 2000s, a reader named Marcus and his colleagues devised a prank using Microsoft PowerPoint to disrupt coworkers. They would take a screenshot of a user's screen, paste it into a PowerPoint presentation, and set it to loop until the 'ESC' key was pressed. This prevented screensavers from activating, leading to confusion as victims would interact with the frozen image. The group also created variations with fake error messages and even simulated Blue Screens of Death to elicit reactions. AI

RANK_REASON This is a humorous anecdote about a past workplace prank, not a significant AI development.

Read on The Register — AI →

AI-generated summary · Google Gemini · from 1 sources. How we write summaries →

PowerPoint prank sent colleagues into an infinite loop, causing panic

How we ranked this

Signal score
0 / 100
Composite score across the factors below. Higher = stronger signal that this story matters right now.
Newsworthiness bucket
Meme
This is a humorous anecdote about a past workplace prank, not a significant AI development.
Source corroboration
Single-source cluster
Only one publisher covered this so far. Single-source stories can still rank when the publisher is high-authority, but they lack cross-source corroboration.
Topics
other
Editorial topic classification. Feeds into how the story surfaces on /topic/<slug> hub pages and into the per-entity coverage mix.
AI-industry relevance
Low
Off-topic or adjacent — cluster remains reachable but doesn't surface in AI-industry rankings.
Story freshness
152 days old
Aged out of breaking-news scoring windows; ranking reflects the durable signal from the full source set.

Full methodology in our editorial standards.

COVERAGE [1]

  1. The Register — AI TIER_1 English(EN) · Simon Sharwood ·

    PowerPoint punishment sent users into an infinite loop after lunch

    <h4>There was only one ESC from sneaky screenshots and fake BSODs</h4> <p><strong>Who, Me?</strong> Welcome to another instalment of Who, Me? It's <em>The Register</em>'s Monday column that shares your stories of mistakes, occasional malice, and how you came out the other side.…<…