So I do a regular Zoom session with a group of writers. Zoom has a share screen function, which, I guess, just captures video card output and shares that with attendees. Today I was looking at a shared screen - and spotted a tiny fruit fly crawling around. So I reached out and flicked at it, only to have my finger pass right over because it was actually pixels n' stuff!!!!

Bear in mind that the other attendees are a bunch of middle-aged elderly (must be honest) ladees, to whom Zoom is a kind of magic. Not fair, but basically there's no hoaxing involved.

WTF?

Sounds like a bug.

I'll set them up....

Reminds me of the time I think Andy Black had termites living inside his monitor.  

It is very odd. I know that various different captures and overlays, mainly from webcams are going on, in order to present participants alongside the shared screen, but I still can't think what happened. If a fly, even a tiny one got onto a camera lens, I'd expect it to a) appear huge and b) be on the feed/overlay of whoever's camera it was.

An insect *inside* your monitor does actually seem plausible...

Found out what it was. Feel a bit daft.

Elderly lady writer who was using her daughter's laptop. Daughter has animated cursor. A little fly. 

Them thunderbugs get into everything.

Hahaha. To be fair, I don't think I would've guessed that in a million years.

That sounds very early Internet days

Much like those signatures that were so popular once. You know, where people demanded at least half a screen of blinking, flashing animated gifs. 

And the era of flash signatures! Some of the oens here were mad, I think Xen had some with games embedded

I had a little game of blackjack with an owl dealer that remembered your score and stuff. Flash was great for whipping up little toys in a semi-visual way, never found owt to replace it.

I loved Sulkpot's sig. It was just the letters of his name in rainbow colours but it swooshed in a very pleasing way when you rolled over it, always satisfying. 

The signatures of teh were, and are, models of taste and common decency. The signatures of those who have bathrooms equipped with Italian marble and gold taps, drive 8 litre V12 trucks to Tesco, and employ signatures created with Frontpage Express by MY MATE KEV (or Tarquin, or Brian), are another matter.

Oh for sure. 

I like the ones that listed all their gear (yes, mouse and keyboard too), including model numbers, logos, specs, benchmarks and game stats. If you have encountered such.

Oh yes.