Captcha

[Tempest]

On Captcha's Contact Page there is this information:

Helping the World One Word at a Time

By entering the words in the box, you are also helping to digitize texts that were written before the computer age. The words that you see were taken directly from old texts that are being scanned and stored in digital format in order to preserve them and make them more accessible to the world. Since some of the words in these texts are difficult for computers to process, we are using the results of your efforts to help decipher them.

I did not know that, and I think it is pretty cool!

[Adultery]

Extremely cool! I'll be less annoyed when I see them now... Ingenuity at its finest.

[hansolo77]

That doesn't make sense. The purpose of Captcha is to prevent automation. It does this by KNOWING what to expect from you to be typing. So, if it knows I'm supposed to type "Dyslexia" for verification, then how is my typing it making that word suddenly become digitized? Also, there are a lot of things like photos of address numbers. Yeah, that's some pretty old pre-computer text right there.

[Adultery]

It's using the known word out of the two for verification, and taking what it knows already and looking for a close match. In other words it doesn't know all the time but it makes an educated guess. Check the learn more link.

[DazzleHP]

I too never knew this! Great info and share Tempest. I'm all for this, the more we can preserve cultures, texts, whatever in all forms of media including digital the better.

@Han i too intitially thought the same thing, but Adultery is correct - the "Learn more" link explains it it also explains how a lot of the "almost english but not quite" words get through, even though you yourself are not convinced you entered some characters correctly

[Sokurah]

I'm a bit late to the party, but if you think the subject is interresting, then you'll probably like this - this is where I learned of the technology behind Captchas first;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=cQl6jUjFjp4

After seeing this I must admit that, like Adultery, it helps my irritation when I get a Captcha...but I still get furious when I have to type words 4-5 times, or keep using that "give me a new Captcha" button, if you can't read what it says.

Still, facinating.

[Tempest]

Very interesting. Thanks for sharing!

[stephen]

Somewhat related: I heard that there are efforts to eliminate cursive reading/writing from the educational system in the US. This doesn't SOUND like a big deal; but without cursive, the next generation won't be able to read many original historical documents: Declaration of Independence, hand written letters, etc.

[Tempest]

The next generation won't know how to go to the library, or how to open a book.

[Adultery]

Sad if you really think about it, although I admittedly haven't opened a book since the kindle.

[hansolo77]

Heh I was about to say the same thing Adultery. It's sad to think where our world is going. I had this posted on my facebook a few days ago:

[Tempest]

Very forward thinking of Einstein.