You must have come across the security device shown above. Very often, I have to keep clicking the curly arrow thing until I find a verification combination I can actually make out. If you don't get it just right you end up repeating the process. Why can't the numbers be clear and why do the letters often merge together so that you can't quite work them out? To paraphrase the great British Olympian - Sir Steve Redgrave - whoever invented this form of verification needs shooting!
If they really do want me to prove that I am not a robot, I can think of other ways of doing so. For example, I would be happy to send them a small plastic bag filled with toe nail clippings or even a stool sample. Failing that, I could take a scalpel and carefully cut in to my abdomen to fish out one of those unnecessary organs that wobble inside us - a spleen, the second kidney or the appendix for example. But that seems rather drastic - perhaps there are other ways of proving I am not robotic.
I know, I could send them a photograph, examination certificates and fingerprints, perhaps poems I wrote as a boy or the panda that shared my cot when I was a baby and which still sits next to our bed. Written depositions from upstanding members of the local community who are happy to testify that I am not a robot? A small vial of my blood? A bank statement?
But the thing is - who is actually asking me to prove I am not a robot? I have a strong suspicion that it is probably and ironically a robot - sitting in Blogger Control in front of a massive computer screen with coloured lights flashing on its sheet metal head. Maybe it's known as Robot Brague! Should I bounce a question back, asking the sender to prove that it is a robot? Perhaps requesting a bolt or an electrical circuit?
YP, They are called CAPTCHAs. I believe the Blogger ones have numbers from Google Street View and the distorted writing is generated automatically by an algorithm.
ReplyDeleteIf you want to get your pound of flesh from these intensely irritating and time consuming verifications, click on the speaker icon. It's put there for blind people.
They are also very useful to writers of science fiction....they provide an endless list of silly names for characters.
My best friend is a Robert. He would be grateful if you desisted from demeaning Roberts, they aren't as daft as Kevins or Lees.
CAPTCHAs...algorithms? Good heavens Adrian, why can't you communicate in English? As for Kevins and Lees, they are infinitely more sophisticated than Shanes and Mathews (with the essential single "t")
DeleteHate them and often feel like storming off and not leaving a comment but don't want to offend so I put up with them. Luckily fewer and fewer bloggers are using them.
ReplyDeleteYorky, what you are proposing is in fact what has become known as the Turing test for artificial intelligence developed by a British mathematician called Alan Turing, published in 1950. I share your frustration and echo Adrian's advice to use the audio. Try and avoid any conscious self removal of organs ~ it might end up being a little disastrous.
ReplyDeleteCarol, you shouldn't have reminded me of Alan Turing. I loved pure mathematics whilst at school in the middle sixties. He was an icon to me and two of my fellow sixth formers so much so that we all studied pure mathematics but he was an 'uphill gardener' persecuted and prosecuted and then committed suicide after being chemically castrated. He died aged forty two. Killed by our state, the same government that let the late Duke of Devonshire shag butlers and little boys. All his papers that I and a fellow student had collected were removed from the school library. I still don't know why, what as being the other way got to do with mathematical genius and a bit of original thinking. The world has changed thank god. The daft thing is that whilst Alan was gay and being persecuted my brother was being tampered with by the choir master in Bakewell Church. Not for long when I found out.
DeleteYP, I know you are an expert in English and he was a Adder Upper but feel free to delete this comment. I just read what carol said and it struck a chord from years ago. Even at grammar school we were not encouraged to know more than was good for us. Or more than the learners knew.
Adrian, I had forgotten this sad fact about Turing's life.
DeleteA stool sample?? Ugh!!!
ReplyDeleteYes "Ugh!!!" Jenny - but robots don't S**T!
DeleteDon't waste your organs. If you are contemplating removing them from your own body, perhaps you might consider donation?
ReplyDeleteI have a reply to that comment Katherine but it is rather rude so I have censored myself to avoid legal action!
DeleteYou have censored yourself? Astonishing!
DeleteƢỖ℥☈☮❡Ỷƥ 68 ¿
ReplyDeleteLLX
Yes Lettice, I thought the same!
DeleteRobot Brague here. I don't have to prove that I am a robot. Isn't it obvious?
ReplyDeleteYes it is obvious Robot - those flashing lights on your head are a giveaway clue!
DeleteSo far as I know they're made less legible so automated programmes can't read them and thus stuff your blog full of spam advert comments. So think of it as the lesser of 2 evils...
ReplyDelete