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

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

#331

Post by chithanh »

nottorp wrote: post #195

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…

That the laptop shuts down when below minimum operating temperature is a Good Thing™. For example, the battery performance changes greatly (reduced capacity and discharge rate), and the battery may even take permanent damage when charged at low temperatures.

Also it is a very bad idea to bring a laptop indoors from the cold and immediately turning it on. Condensing water can cause short circuits (people who wear glasses can probably relate). Always let it warm up to room temperature first.

This is not a MIL-STD 810G rugged outdoor device. If you want that, buy a Thinkpad.

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

#332

Post by wiredfool »

dkdbejwi383 wrote: post #28
wiredfool wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are pelicans too. Because pelicans have bright yellow flashing balls and ...

My favourite is the Toucan crossing. They are a lot wider, with two sets of buttons at pedestrian height, and a cyclist height. Named as such because "two (types of road user) can" cross it.

How different are the heights of cyclists and pedestrians when they're waiting for a crossing light?

I think it's time for a vast menagerie of crossings.

1) The AARdvark crossing. When you hit the button it sings the aardvark song. Also useful on talk like a pirate day.

2) The Abalone crossing. It's under the water and quite endangered.

...

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

#333

Post by School-Cotton »

yread wrote: post #160
dkdbejwi383 wrote: post #14

To add some balance, they should include "identify all the roundabouts" so that folk from the USA are equally disadvantaged.

[flagged]

Apparently Europeans are bad at this too. Or do you think the French “socialist” party whose members have done things like lead the IMF is really socialist?

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

#334

Post by _jal »

School-Cotton wrote: post #318
nottorp wrote: post #195

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…

Example from NYC: my iPhone used to constantly give me nag messages to turn on “driving mode” when in my car. I don’t have a car; it assumed I was driving while I was actually on the subway. Apparently, Californians think if you are moving a certain speed, you must be driving. Luckily, that has been fixed.

I remember that, it was really annoying.

A prime example of arrogant engineering - they were wrong both about what was going on, and for writing dickish software.

Don't write nagware. Not only are you not as smart as you think you are, software is still very, very stupid and the world is much bigger than you think, even when you think you are taking that in to account.

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

#335

Post by chithanh »

kodisha wrote: post #263
MaxBarraclough wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Possibly condensing water caused some transient short circuit. If your laptop survived, you were lucky.

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

#336

Post by dijit »

School-Cotton wrote: post #318
nottorp wrote: post #195

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…

Example from NYC: my iPhone used to constantly give me nag messages to turn on “driving mode” when in my car. I don’t have a car; it assumed I was driving while I was actually on the subway. Apparently, Californians think if you are moving a certain speed, you must be driving. Luckily, that has been fixed.

I used to get that in Sweden when riding a bicycle.

Not to mention that maps at that point (and still) doesn't understand cycling directions. It could often steal focus from google maps. Very annoying and I nearly forgot about it until you mentioned it here.

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

#337

Post by bfgoodrich »

_jal wrote: post #334
School-Cotton wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Example from NYC: my iPhone used to constantly give me nag messages to turn on “driving mode” when in my car. I don’t have a car; it assumed I was driving while I was actually on the subway. Apparently, Californians think if you are moving a certain speed, you must be driving. Luckily, that has been fixed.

I remember that, it was really annoying. A prime example of arrogant engineering - they were wrong both about what was going on, and for writing dickish software. Don't write nagware. Not only are you not as smart as you think you are, software is still very, very stupid and the world is much bigger than you think, even when you think you are taking that in to account.

I really doubt that had anything to do with arrogance or thinking they were smart. They knew that everyone would just turn that annoying "feature" off, but presumably some lawyer thought it was a good idea to ensure people didn't blame car crashes on Apple, particularly in a court of law.

e.g.

https://www.cnet.com/news/apple-blamed-for-accident-sued-by-...

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

#338

Post by theshrike79 »

chithanh wrote: post #331
nottorp wrote: post #195

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…

That the laptop shuts down when below minimum operating temperature is a Good Thing™. For example, the battery performance changes greatly (reduced capacity and discharge rate), and the battery may even take permanent damage when charged at low temperatures. Also it is a very bad idea to bring a laptop indoors from the cold and immediately turning it on. Condensing water can cause short circuits (people who wear glas…

> This is not a MIL-STD 810G rugged outdoor device. If you want that, buy a Thinkpad.

Or a Panasonic Toughbook. I've always wanted one. Modular, work from -20 to +60, in the rain etc. Expensive as all hell though.

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

#339

Post by pmachinery »

jorvi wrote: post #310
thinkharderdev wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the owner of the site is getting a free service from Google to try and prevent bots from using their site. If you don't like CAPTCHAs then your problem is with the site owner, not google.

Google's CAPTCHA is specifically engineered to gaslight you though. Often it will ask you to identify fire hydrants or bicycles, and despite selecting all of them (and it being easy to recognise them as they are fairly unique objects), it will still give you an error, and give you a new set of images to try again. If it is feeling really malevolent it will even give you a third round. Hell, it happens regularly on th…

The only good thing about hcaptcha - what's better than one page of images? - is it doesn't seem to care what you click, but then neither does Google if you're using Chrome.

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

#340

Post by zeepzeep »

Normille wrote: post #272
quietbritishjim wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is some ingenious bait for HN readers! Of course everyone is going to passionately defend their favourite. (Mine is, of course, tree style tabs - I could never manage without it.)

Go on then. I'll play. My 'must have' half dozen which get installed first, on every browser on every device I use: * Bitwarden * HTTPS everywhere * Privacy Badger/Possum/Other Furry Animal * uBlock Origin * uMatrix * Windscribe

> HTTPS everywhere

Not anymore, firefox has it by default now, just gotta turn a setting on.

> uMatrix

Sadly this is dead, I guess I'll switch to a fork once I have time to figure out who does what.

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