is the word 'diary' better than the word 'blog'? probably not.
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RE: captcha
You know how when you comment on someone's blog or news article you often have to go through the rigamarole-ish step of typing two words into a Captcha system to verify that you are not some kind of bot? Sure you do. Did you know that Captcha means "Completely Automated Public Turing System to tell Computers and Humans Apart"? Maybe. But then there's ReCaptcha, which is what you find in most of your spam-resisting comment-moments now. Did you know that when you type your two words into ReCaptcha you are also helping to assist in the process of digitizing books?
That's right. Those words you see in the box after you make a comment on this or any other blog are words that appear in texts that are currently being digitized but weren't recognizable by optical character recognition software. Any unrecognizable word is submitted to ReCaptcha automatically. Then, human beings procrastinating by commenting on blogs type in what they see, the results are sent back to the library in question, and a consensus forms on what that word is, because there are some things that human beings do better than computers. So the ReCaptcha system simultaneously blocks spam and contributes to getting more books available in digital format. I think that's pretty cool. It's also free to use.
Maybe my sister will have something to say about security concerns with this program that I don't understand, like why she won't use Facebook, and why, when I was using Dodgeball, she said, "The Man Thanks You For Helping Him Keep You Under His Thumb." All I know is that she is trained by the military, and works for a computer security organization. When she was in school still, I looked at her course catalog and asked whether she was going to take some crazy-sounding class like Underwater Attacks Using Butter or something, and her reply was that she doesn't have some level of government clearance for that, and so I advised her to enroll and then say, "but I LOVE going to clearance sales," and so on, because I am hilarious. However, it is possible that she is bionic. We all have secrets.
10:37 a.m. - October 02, 2008
natalie - 2008-10-02 23:54:19
Margarine is a much better attack vector than butter.
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js - 2008-10-03 18:47:12
That's why you are the highly paid professional.
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