Inspired by this thread.

I could have sworn when I was in highschool (y’know, like 25 thousand years ago) you could order a bag of like 50 3.5mm audio jack plugs but with no wire or connection after the plug. I’m searching for these now, but the closest I’m seeing are legit components designed to be an adaptor or connect to a wire.

It was just a 3.5mm audio plug with matte black plastic cap on the end, so you’d plug it into a TV’s headphone jack and some models of TVs would be permanently silenced until someone unplugged the cap, because it was sending its audio to the ‘speakers’ that were just plugged in. And once plugged in, it just looked like a screw cover cap - nothing protruding. But also didn’t damage anything, so you couldn’t get in any real trouble for doing it.

Shoddy photoshop to illustrate the gist:

…am I just imagining shit? If anyone knows what I’m talking about and figure out the magic search terms to actually pull it up, please drop a link to a product that can be ordered.

Anyway, the TV in my work’s breakroom is one of the culprits, so I’d love to hit it with one of these and see how long it takes for them to figure out why it won’t vomit out the misinformation they’re addicted to.

Audio jack sabotage aside, any suggestions on how to otherwise fuck with it would also be golden.

Thanks all!

  • Fondots@lemmy.world
    4·
    2 days ago

    I remember coming across the thing you’re describing years ago while digging through my dad’s collection of miscellaneous cables, adapters, etc. back in the 90s or early 2000s. It wasn’t quite so low-profile, it definitely stuck out from whatever you plugged it into maybe about a quarter to half inch or so, but otherwise it was a 3.5mm jack with a plastic cap on the other with no wires or holes or anything that muted whatever you plugged it into.

    The shade of beige the plastic was on that particular example makes me suspect it was a relic of the 80s. I do feel like I remember seeing them for sale somewhere at a later time, but I couldn’t begin to tell you where.

    A little googling turned up this eBay listing

    Based off of that and a little more googling I think the term you’re looking for might be a shorting and/or blanking plug or or cap or dummy/dummy plug

    Without too much effort I was able to find “shorting caps” for RCA jacks, various coaxial connectors, and banana plugs, but had no luck finding any more for 3.5mm