Hate those Captchas? Try cats and dogs

Captchas are an idea whose time has come. As soon as new ways of disguising words are found, so are new ways of cracking the code. It seems that words that can be deciphered by humans are also (and quite unfortunately) decipherable by silicon chips known as computers.

Fortunately, the world of technology and security is always full of innovation. The folks at Microsoft Research have developed a new kind of Captcha that does not use a single word. In fact, it uses two common household pets, cats and dogs. According to their website:

Asirra (Animal Species Image Recognition for Restricting Access) is a HIP that works by asking users to identify photographs of cats and dogs. This task is difficult for computers, but our user studies have shown that people can accomplish it quickly and accurately. Many even think it’s fun!

Furthermore, the images are selected randomly from a HUGE database of cats and dogs up for adoption at Petfinder.com. In fact, on every image, there is a link to the pet on Petfinder.com, and if you find a pet that you like, you can adopt it. How cool is that?

One of the disadvantages of this system is that it takes considerably more time than a word Captcha. But it is a very effective way of blocking out spambots and automatic account creation.

Philosophy gone wrong

If 5 o’clock sharp and 5 o’clock flat mean the same thing, then why isn’t a sharp the same thing as a flat?

and

If going UP to Seattle means the same thing as going DOWN to Seattle, then why isn’t UP the same as DOWN?

Or maybe UP is the same as DOWN, which means:

What Facebook really needs: Grouped notifications

I went to the store, and I bought paper, I bought pens, I bought pencils, I bought snacks, I bought a book on why Deathgleaner has the best blog of all time…

Doesn’t that sentence sound so tedious to you? Why can’t we just say “I went to the store, and I bought paper, pens, pencils, snacks, and a book…”?

Oil spill orbs

Here’s an idea for you: what if we go out in the Gulf of Mexico, begin collecting all the oil that’s been leaking from the Deepwater Horizon, inject it into glass orbs, and sell it on the market?

You might think “why the heck would we do this?” This idea is a double-edged sword:

1. It directly helps with getting the oil out of the gulf; and
2. Proceeds from sales of the glass orbs can help fund the disaster relief in the Gulf Coast.

Why bother collecting the oil? The Deepwater Horizon spill is by far the largest spills in U.S. history, so this is a rare opportunity for the public to own a piece of history.

The glass orbs would be about 4-6 inches in diameter, contain crude oil from the oil spill, and come with a base. The base would have something that reads:

On April 20, 2010 the Deepwater Horizon exploded, subsequently spilling tens of millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf, endangering wildlife and the Gulf fishing industry. This orb contains the crude oil spilled from the largest oil spill in history.

It would be a worthwhile souvenir, considering that the money from each purchase of a oil spill orb would go to clean-up and restoration efforts.

There’s nothing to lose except the oil in the Gulf!

…And THIS, is why you should ALWAYS finish your thoughts!

So a guy named David was listening to the teacher about foods in Japan. The teacher said “on Monday, students, please bring shitake mushrooms so we can sample them.”