Gizmodo: office space

We Want to See Your Best Office Pranks

Mark Wilson — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 14:00:00 EDT

Technology was meant to empower us—to clothe us, feed us and enable us to be more than chimps slinging poo from the trees. But it's been misused. Offices are filled to the brim with technology where it plays a role of oppressor. Fluorescent lights, computer monitors, fax machines, copiers, cellphones—these things are all great tech, but they can create world that's nearly intolerable to most people who work there. Yet a majority of our readers manage to sit in these places all day, every day, with no end in sight. These readers are heroes.

And it's in that spirit that we'd like to see your best office pranks.

We shouldn't have to wait for 3M to sponsor office fun when it's all around us already, copying its drunken rump, launching airplanes anonymously from cubicle bunkers and playing pick-up paper basketball on company trophies.

So if you've pulled a grand office prank and have the pictures, video and prose to back it up, let us know in an email labeled "Office Pranks" sent to our tips line. Of course we'd never condone mean-spirited attacks covered up as a joke, but we'd really like to bear witness to the little guy triumphing over the corporation, if only for a day.

Spaniards Take the Movie Office Space Very Seriously

John Herrman — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 19:20:00 EDT

Destruction therapy has been around for a while now, but is only just starting to hit its stride. On June 21st, a large group of variously frustrated individuals converged on Castejon, Spain to launch the town fiestas with the coordinated destruction of an entire field of appliances and cars. Mainstream medicine has yet to recognize the efficacy of destruction therapy, but hey, I'm sure frontal lobotomies took a few years to catch on too. Gallery after the jump. [Reuters]

Hacker Pulls an Office Space, Steals $50,000 Worth of Pennies from Google, Paypal

Adam Frucci — Wed, 28 May 2008 15:10:00 EDT

In a move reminiscent of schemes seen in Office Space and Superman III, a hacker has exploited a loophole to weasel himself over $50,000 from services such as Google Checkout and Paypal by taking pennies at a time. Unfortunately, he was caught, and is in all likelihood heading to pound-me-in-the-ass prison.

The loophole involved the tiny payments that online payment services and brokerages send to new user accounts to verify that they're real. While getting four cents from PayPal might not seem like a big deal to you, Michael Largent decided to create a script to automatically open 58,000 of these accounts. Unfortunately for him, the companies caught on to his scheme and he's currently out on bail on charges of wire, bank and mail fraud.

The funny thing is, he's not in trouble for taking the money. It was being given out freely, after all. He's in trouble for using fake names and social security numbers to open the accounts.

If only Milton would go burn down the Googleplex in retaliation for Sergey Brin taking his stapler, destroying the evidence of your crime, you could escape these charges! [PC Pro via Slashdot]