I just upgraded Google Community vBulletin. I thought they had better ways to fight spam, but not so: they use image verification, no matter how complex it is. The more weird-looking the images get, the harder it is for real humans to read them. Sometimes, computers can even read images (using OCR) better than humans…Continue Reading…
Mark came to give a Google Tech Talk at USC today. It was really good. It’s 1:41 AM, so I don’t have time to write about it extensively. But it was about the Google Ajax Search API, and I am looking forward to messing with it when I have time. Specifically, it would be cool…Continue Reading…
I heard this puzzle at lunch today as I ate with Philip T. and Sam. Supposedly Sam figured it out while we were there, but now that I’ve found the solution, I don’t think so. Philip explained it to me, and told me not to tell him the answer because he wants to figure it…Continue Reading…
It’s great when things go according to plan. A few months back, I messed up my computer when playing with the partitions with PartitionMagic (never use it!) Now I have a different open source package that works much better. Anyway, my computer was messed up, so I reinstalled Windows on a second hard drive. From…Continue Reading…
An interesting comment from Slashdot: Electronics are “dumbed down” for the american consumer…The Sharp Zaurus was pulled from US markets because it’s too “hard” for americans. Yet the Zaurus is a raging success in Japan and they are on their 6th version that blows anything you can buy in the states out of the water….Continue Reading…
I was checking my Gmail Spam folder for false positives when I came across a bounced email from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). It said: This message was created automatically by mail delivery software. A message that you sent could not be delivered to one or more of its recipients. This is a permanent error….Continue Reading…