Wednesday  the Fifteenth of October, 2003

A good article on that ESP game, saying how much useful work can be achieved if you can trick human users into processing data as part of a "game" (cf. The Spiders); a computer can't tell if a person is hot or not, but its bank of voluntary human slaves can.

From this comes a magnificent countermeasure to CAPTCHA testing (asking a user to read a heavily distorted image of a word before letting them sign up to something, to filter out evil robots):-
"Someone designed a software robot that would fill out a registration form and, when confronted with a CAPTCHA test, would post it on a free porn site. Visitors to the porn site would be asked to complete the test before they could view more pornography, and the software robot would use their answer to complete the e-mail registration."
Human perception is preciously impossible to simulate, but it's also very, very cheap and widespread and gullible. How long before Google ditches PageRank in favour of a bank of goo-filled life-support pods beneath their offices?  ]

Passing Frenzies: Thief II - Kaleidoscope - BlogNomic


 Tuesday  the Fourteenth

"Agree on order of play, Players take turns. On each turn, a player will state a new rule for the game and show an example of it on the board."
I'm not sure how I managed to overlook Lemma before now; it's a very elegant glass-bead sort of game that feels a lot like the embryonic or evolutionary development of an organism, a petri-dish of mutating single-cellulars - progression from simple, meaningless behaviour into fixed and complex patterns.  ]

As 
Above

Brain children. Recent or noteworthy Web offspring.

In the bookpile. Powered by allconsuming.net.

Incidental music. Ohrwurmen or otherwise.

Other weblogs. The ones I make a point of returning to a lot.

Supporting cast. That have Web pages. In alphabetical order.

Weeks beginning. All having ended.
2003: 13.10 06.10 29.09 22.09 15.09 08.09 01.09 25.08 18.08 11.08 28.07 21.07 14.07 07.07 30.06 23.06 16.06 09.06 02.06 26.05 19.05 12.05 05.05 28.04 21.04 14.04 07.04 31.03 24.03 17.03 10.03 03.03 24.02 17.02 10.02 03.02 27.01 20.01 13.01 06.01

2002: 30.12 23.12 16.12 09.12 02.12 25.11 18.11 11.11 04.11 28.10 21.10 14.10 07.10 30.09 23.09 16.09 09.09 02.09 26.08 19.08 12.08 05.08 29.07 22.07 15.07 08.07 01.07 24.06 17.06 10.06 03.06 27.05 20.05 13.05 06.05 29.04 22.04 15.04 08.04 01.04 25.03 18.03 11.03 04.03 25.02 18.02 11.02 04.02 28.01 21.01 14.01 07.01

2001: 31.12 24.12 17.12 10.12 03.12 26.11 19.11 12.11 05.11 29.10 22.10 15.10 08.10 01.10 24.09 17.09 10.09 03.09 27.08 20.08 13.08 06.08 30.07 23.07 16.07 09.07 02.07 25.06 18.06 11.06 04.06 28.05 21.05 14.05 07.05 30.04 23.04 16.04 09.04 02.04 26.03 19.03 12.03 05.03 26.02 19.02 12.02 05.02 29.01 22.01 15.01 08.01 01.01

2000: 25.12 18.12 11.12 04.12 27.11 20.11


Archive search. You never know.
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