Prove You Are Human!

Does anyone else find it somewhat ironic that our computers (human-programmed, but electronic droid machines nonetheless) are demanding that we prove our humanity?

I've had some fun with this. I've noticed that many bloggers and commenters enjoy providing creative definitions for the "word verifications" that test their human status in order to post replies. They often take it to the next level and use the usually imaginary word in a sentence. What a great way to have fun with something that is otherwise tedious!

For example, the zany people reading Cake Wrecks never cease to amuse:

W V - snetasa = a magic word to keep from sneezing at the wrong moment. (ilze)

WV - imast -- virtual ship spar? (Di)

WV: upses -- the direction in which Smeagol/Gollum moves in order to increase his altitude. (ClaireBear)

WV: foripi. I need to stop laughing foripi my pants. (elissa)

Then when I opened an account with BlogHer.com, I discovered that the art of the captcha code in other cyber spheres is even trickier. (And, speaking as a "word person," much less entertaining.)



Oh, they'll tell you how to do it.



But they aren't giving up the answers! That would be cheating your Humanity Test.




All those math teachers who told us that we would need math in the "real world" beyond school... Who knew they'd be right?

Of course, there was another recent occasion when the bots and I battled... and the bots won.

I mistyped my email username, but apparently my error was still someone else's email username, and the system did its thing and asked me why the heck my username and password didn't match up. It had me retype the password.

Several times.

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong again. I was baffled. Finally, I had the option to answer my security question.



At which point I realized that either someone in Russia had broken into my email account, or I had done something stupid.

Thank you, Google droid. My humanity owes you one.