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CAPTCHAs don’t prove you’re human – they prove you’re American (2017)

shkspr.mobi

261–270 of 700 posts

Re: CAPTCHAs don’t prove you’re human – they prove you’re American (2017)

#261

Nonsense. I've never been to America but never had a problem recognizing any object on a captcha (except some indistinguishable letters on letter-based captchas occasionally). Everything is obvious even if it looks somewhat different from its European counterpart. I don't know how much exactly is a nickel or a dime but it's obvious to me these are coins. Everybody I know (and most of them have never been to America)…

> I don't know how much exactly is a nickel or a dime but it's obvious to me these are coins.

That's not all that helpful if you're asked to do calculations with them.

Re: CAPTCHAs don’t prove you’re human – they prove you’re American (2017)

#262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Identify free healthcare”

"Identify the best spot in the classroom to hide from the shooter"

Tangentially, we've been having fun with this recently. "Why haven't you completed Active Shooter Training?" "I'm busy, prioritising my time, and this training is irrelevant to me." "But what if there's an Active Shooter in the office?" "I've been working at home since April, and I've already been told to expect 6 months more." "It could still happen at home!" "What country do you think we're in?"

Head Office seems to be really struggling to grasp that this training might be less relevant to other countries, other offices, let alone remote workers.

Re: CAPTCHAs don’t prove you’re human – they prove you’re American (2017)

#263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Around 2015, or so I was visiting Boston during some really cold winter (was -10 outside) We were at the office, went out to wait for a bus, waited for 15 minutes, and since it was freezing we decided to go back inside and get uber/taxi. I pulled my laptop out of the backpack, tried to turn it on - it was dead.

Lithium batteries don't like extreme temperatures. Is it possible to make a laptop that copes ok with extreme temperatures? edit Apparently the Toughbook is able to cope with -16°C. Wonder how they do it. https://business.panasonic.co.uk/mobile-solutions/more-about...

Nope, the entire laptop was dead. Booted into some black screen of death, with glitches.

I never saw something like that before or after that.

Re: CAPTCHAs don’t prove you’re human – they prove you’re American (2017)

#264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Around 2015, or so I was visiting Boston during some really cold winter (was -10 outside) We were at the office, went out to wait for a bus, waited for 15 minutes, and since it was freezing we decided to go back inside and get uber/taxi. I pulled my laptop out of the backpack, tried to turn it on - it was dead.

Lithium batteries don't like extreme temperatures. Is it possible to make a laptop that copes ok with extreme temperatures? edit Apparently the Toughbook is able to cope with -16°C. Wonder how they do it. https://business.panasonic.co.uk/mobile-solutions/more-about...

Some Toughbooks go to -25 C.

https://www.fieldenvironmental.com/assets/files/Literature/P...

Re: CAPTCHAs don’t prove you’re human – they prove you’re American (2017)

#265

Here's a different but similar whine. Probably worth its own blog post except I don't blog. Dear Apple, can you test your products outside California? I just left my laptop for 10 minutes on the balcony because I had to get a delivery. Because I'm not in California, the temperature on said balcony is 3 Celsius. Yes, I'm not american and I don't understand Fahrenheit. Guess what, when I came back the laptop was shutdo…

Yeah, this is a pain with Apple - instead of trying to understand the business and consumer culture of the particular country, Apple tries to impose US business model everywhere.

Some of the things I have observed in India:

- Apple tried to entice and sell iPhones through the carrier, where as Indians largely have a cultural apathy to buying expensive phones on loan / credit and locked to a network.

- Apple still doesn't allow you to update your phone on cellular data even if the indian user wants to - most of the cellular data plans in India offer anywhere from 1GB / day to 5GB / day on 4G. So even if we have the speed and bandwidth, Apple insists you can only update on Wifi. (Obviously nobody wants forced, silent updates through cellular data - but Apple should atleast allow update on cellular data if the user initiates it. It's irritating that you can watch large HD videos, but not update your phone.)

- Apple still doesn't seem to have any data centre in India, and sends an expensive international SMS to the US everytime iMessage or Facetime has to be activated. (And when anybody complains about this online every "helpful" suggestion blames the carrier for this rather than Apple - because apparently some carriers in the US don't charge for this "activation SMS". Obviously since US carriers are sending a local SMS, they can afford to absorb the cost of an iPhone they have sold and profited from. Why would indian carriers absorb the cost of an international SMS for Apple for no obvious profit!? If it was local, it would be free too in India as many indian carriers offer free SMS in their plan. See https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/390275/how-to-avoi... for more details on this SMS activation.)

- My iMessage was blocked many times because the amount of messages I sent because Apple didn't recognize that social networking in India had moved from Orkut and FB to mobile messaging (that's why FB bought WhatsApp, and it is the number one messaging App in India even on iPhone.)

- Apple still insists on a credit / debit card for use on App store in India, despite India having better online payment solutions that protect our privacy better. Also, cards of India's payment processor (RuPay) is not accepted, and you have to invariably use a Mastercard or Visa card.

Re: CAPTCHAs don’t prove you’re human – they prove you’re American (2017)

#266
post #10

The crosswalks Captcha provides the most difficult cultural discrepancy for me. Some US crosswalks look like European "forbidden for all traffic" road markings. Pretty much the opposite of a crosswalk. I always have to do a double take on those.

And in India, they are commonly refereed to as "Zebra Crossing". No one refers to them as cross-walks and most have no idea about that term.

we call them "strisce pedonali" (pedestrian stripes) in Italy, no one refers to them as crossing, and usually we just call them stripes.

Re: CAPTCHAs don’t prove you’re human – they prove you’re American (2017)

#267

Here's a different but similar whine. Probably worth its own blog post except I don't blog. Dear Apple, can you test your products outside California? I just left my laptop for 10 minutes on the balcony because I had to get a delivery. Because I'm not in California, the temperature on said balcony is 3 Celsius. Yes, I'm not american and I don't understand Fahrenheit. Guess what, when I came back the laptop was shutdo…

Seems like an issue with the technology itself more than Apple.

Snow mobiles and winter jackets are expected to stand cold weather. Electronics not so much.

Re: CAPTCHAs don’t prove you’re human – they prove you’re American (2017)

#268
post #247

Being an African born & bred in Nigeria, I particularly find this appalling. Captcha usually asks users to identify fire hydrants, crosswalks & other objects with design patterns that are not common here, in everyday living. There's a big question on whether these approaches work well for onboarding the next billion users to the internet, especially since the demographics are much different from existing internet use…

My prediction: This will lead to new users being turned away from established products from the anglosphere and develop their own alternatives.

Maybe after a while the big companies will notice and adapt, which might already be too late by then, or maybe they just buy the smaller ones directly, who knows.

Re: CAPTCHAs don’t prove you’re human – they prove you’re American (2017)

#269

Here's a different but similar whine. Probably worth its own blog post except I don't blog. Dear Apple, can you test your products outside California? I just left my laptop for 10 minutes on the balcony because I had to get a delivery. Because I'm not in California, the temperature on said balcony is 3 Celsius. Yes, I'm not american and I don't understand Fahrenheit. Guess what, when I came back the laptop was shutdo…

Seems like an issue with the technology itself more than Apple. Snow mobiles and winter jackets are expected to stand cold weather. Electronics not so much.

It's the batteries more than anything else, most phones will loose their battery capacity in cold weather.
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