Tag Archives: CAPTCHA
A very brief post about CAPTCHAs
I don’t know if anyone is still hanging around, and I don’t want to start off the break by writing some long technical post, so I’m just going to mention that I found it strange after talking about CAPTCHAs a class ago I happened to come across not one but two different CAPTCHA related pictures. I thought they were pretty amusing, however I’m low-maintenance that way. Your mileage may vary.
The first is a very detailed and well-illustrated cartoon about the odd pairings of words CAPTCHAs often present. It was after reading it that I came to the realization that I laugh at the stupidest things:
I didn’t go there, but it sounds like fun.
The next image is what has to be the most unfortunate word-pairing ever made in a CAPTCHA (Actually, this one is a lot worse, but I just couldn’t bring myself to post it as an image). Word pairings are random, however that also means you get these unintentionally amusing phrases. I got a huge yuk out of this one too, but at least it’s readable!
Ouch.
Google raises Turing Award prize to $1 million
So much comes together with this announcement. The Turing Award, created by the Association for Computing Machinery (of which I’m a member, full disclosure) is the equivalent of the Nobel Prize for computer science. Founded in 1966 and valued at $250,000, it has been awarded for advancements and developments in all areas of computer science, from programming achievements to hardware to OS design and development, although it tends to skew towards methodologies and programming, which is understandable; it is a computer science award after all.
Previously jointly-funded by Intel and Google at a value of $250,000, Google has taken over the award funding after Intel ceased involvement and raised the value to $1 million. Considering the impact technology and computer science have in our lives (and the Alan Turing-based Google Doodle they created for his 100th birthday; do those numbers look familiar?), I think it’s about time, and it puts the Turing Award in league with the Nobel Prize, although the financial award for that fluctuates.
