Dear Captcha

i find it insulting that you, a code-enhanced program, often stand between me and something i want because you're unsure if i'm a machine.

you're going to ask if i would prefer to be spammed constantly. i know. and you're right: i hate spam. and i understand that you are a robot designed to prevent spam-bots from spamming me. but you know, i still get spam. so now i have robots spamming me, and robots questioning whether or not i'm a robot about to spam someone else.

awesome.

if you were a human, you might understand how awful that feels.

but no, instead you stop me from leaving comments on friends' blogs, or from posting ads on craigslist because i can't figure out what the fuck your stupid scrambled letters actually spell out. half the time your images are either not words, or words i've straight up never heard in my life. and then they're written in this bullshit italic-meets-tornado typeface and i'm expected to know what it says?

fuck you.

there have been times i've failed a captcha four times in a row. and while i respect that you are a computer and therefore have no other option but to be 100% correct 100% of the time, i do promise you i am a human. which makes you a dick.

i've always just dealt with the fact i live in an era when computers get to ask me to prove i'm not a computer before letting me pass. but today i saw this:


it's what some people are calling the "simple math captcha" because the image is no longer scrambled-- it's just a bit of basic arithmetic. 8+5. simple enough.

the answer is thirteen. and if that is correct, i am a human. congratulations me.

but that's utter nonsense. i happen to be world-famously horrible at all forms of math and i can really only remember that 8+2 is ten. sometimes, if i'm particularly focused, i can put my 8+2 logic toward finding out what 8+5 must be-- but usually i get frustrated and annoyed before i just decide not to take your stupid test.

i know most people are a lot better at math than me. that was thoroughly expressed to me growing up in the silicon valley. but that's part of why i feel so insulted. you could've asked me to draw a flower to prove i'm human-- and that's something a robot cannot do.

do you know how i know that 8+5 is thirteen? it's because i checked on my computer's calculator. yeah, i had a robot help me prove i was human. nice.

this is exactly the sort of asinine robot power that terminator was warning us of. first our alarm clocks stop firing off at the right time and we lose our jobs. then the stoplights start taking a little longer than usual.

then spam.

then you, captcha.

i'm on to you and i will be at the front of the revolution when the day comes.

humanpridely,
president wishnack