Halloween Computer Question: What is the oddest unexplained thing your computer has ever done all by itself when you were at least 10 feet away?

Night before last I was streaming a television show on Amazon, and binge-watching, when suddenly google opened a second window all by itself, on top of the window from which I was streaming. I was sitting about ten feet away, and there was nothing near the computer, nor was there any vibration or movement. Explanations?

Last week I was working on my free family tree website, and my cursor "stuck" in place. I rolled the mouse across the mouse pad to see if I could unstick the cursor, but that didn't work, so I took my hand off the mouse, and suddenly the cursor started moving by itself. It travelled UP to the tool bar, (when I tried to unstick the cursor I moved the mouse from left to right, NOT UP!!!!) and then it travelled straight across the toolbar from left to right without my touching the mouse.

Can you think of any explanation for something like this?

Is there a ghost in the machine?

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puck61

I've had mine 'read my mind' several times. I hate that. I'll be thinking about something, and an advertisement related to my thoughts would come up even if I did not express those thoughts on the keyboard.

4meAndyou · F

@puck61 OMgosh...that's spooky!

puck61

@4meAndyou Great base plot for a novel!

puck61

@4meAndyou I know what happens. The system knows that you have specific interests and it plays to them. The rest is strictly coincidence. I like guitar porn. I look at guitars I could never afford a lot, so I just happen to be thinking about fine guitars when the systems spits out something that it knows I am interested in, and it seems like it's reading my mind.

4meAndyou · F

@puck61 I have the opposite happen. I get a little upset at times, because my computer advertising is supposed to be geared to ME. I have ads pop up in Spanish all the time, once I had a pop up in some squiggly language, and another time I had an entire ad in..um..Russian? (Something similar). And WHY are half my ads coming up showing me mens clothing? It makes me wonder if I really have been hacked.

puck61

@4meAndyou Russia created a facebook account for me. It was my name and I had full use of it, but I deleted it . It was just too weird. It had me born in 1985!

4meAndyou · F

@puck61 Now that is creepy!

puck61

@4meAndyou Yeah, I used it for a few months but I told everyone that the account was not mine. I was the third time I was "used" by someone in Russia. I could do everything with it as if I had made the account myself. I think it was a "sleeper". A nice potential spark of divisiveness if things started getting real hot politically. I had an account five years ago, but facebook always breaks my heart, so I can't handle it.

4meAndyou · F

@puck61 You can still report that. There is an active investigation into Facebook and the use of false accounts by the Russians.

puck61

@4meAndyou Oh, I reported it. No acknowledgement. I might have been able to raise a pretty big stink I guess.