Captchas (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAPTCHA) are getting impossibly difficult to read. Captchas are those images with words and numbers that are wavy, have lines through them and are skewed. You frequently encounter them at login pages, registration pages, and other pages requiring human user verification. They used to work great, but they’ve been slowly becoming more difficult to read. I assume that “bots” are getting smarter and determining what the Captchas are. The problem now is that the images distort the words/numbers/letters so badly I can’t tell what they are. I’m sure I’m not the only one.
At what point does it become a hiderance and not a security mechanism. At the moment its starting to border on security theater. Ok yes it helps keeps bots out, but surely there are better ways? I mean when I have to reload the page or captcha 3 times before, me, a human, a sentient being with a brain unparalleled by any thing else on the planet, can figure out what it is… its time to call it quits on catpchas and find a new mechanism.
So I decided to take a look at flock, the browser. And well its rather well put together. I must admit it is quite a good UI from a design standpoint. I’ve not found a way to utilize its functionality, but I’ll keep playing with it and see what happens.
I’ll have to check out chrome soon. Very good architecture they employed. Basically what someone should have done from the start.
Here’s a pretty awesome view of the history of computing languages. Yay for O’Reilly. Very cool chart indeed. Its kind of scary how old C is now. And its still kicking around doing big jobs.
Keeping in the language vein, here’s a blogger who says you can learn (but not master) any language in the short space of time of an hour. To me his suggestions seem obvious, but maybe its because I’m inherently analytical about things. Still the author poses an interesting argument. As to whether it can be a method repeatable by anyone is yet to be seen.
Since man could first draw on the walls, he’s never stopped marking his territory and telling tales of times gone by. Today, the markings on the wall constitute of, what some consider, art, others, an unsightly menace. Either way, graffiti is here to stay and will always be present as long as man can draw. This site, called Graffiti Archeology, catalogues graffiti from several locations in the US and allows for an interesting view of the changes that occur.
CMU (Carnegie Mellon University) has a lecture series called the last lecture, where professor are encouraged to give a lecture as though it were their last. A really interesting idea to say the least. Well for one professor, it really is his last. Randy Pausch was diagnosed with terminal cancer, and doctors said he only had a few months left to live. His last lecture was one of the most brilliant, insightful, and inspirational lectures I’ve ever seen. While it is lengthy, clocking in at about 1 hour 30 mins, its definitely worth the while.
So, more and more we are inundated with images that are altered using digital imaging tools. At times, its hard to determine which images have been altered and which have not. Now thanks to a new technique, its going to be even tougher. The technique is so clever because is so relatively simple. Aptly named “seam carving“, this new method produces some very impressive results.
You can now get your hands on a Windows based application for doing this technique. I haven’t tried it out myself, but if you give it a whirl, let me know how it goes.
Stumbled upon this Google talk recently. It is entitled Supersymmetry, Extra Dimensions and the Origins of Mass. However, the subtitle more appropriately describes the talk: Exploring the Nature of the UniverseUsing PetaScale Data Analysis. Its not a physics talk, though it contains some elements of physics. Its more of a talk about handling extremely large amounts of data and performing analyses against that dataset.
This idea generator is pretty spiffy. It will keep you entertained for a few minutes. Two points for presentation. Two points for the idea.
If that doesn’t get your mashing mojo going, try Mashable.com (for all you cooky Web 2.0 kids out there). Its a combination social networking site and mashup (think Web 2.0 content mashing; not entertainment mashups) enthusiast blog.
