Wednesday, April 09, 2008

elbisneherpmocnI

For reasons I don't quite understand, about a week or two ago, all pictures on all Blogger web pages stopped displaying for me. I gather it's an Opera thing, because they show up fine when I start up (shudder) Internet Explorer. And it's definitely some kind of problem with Blogger's code, because all other web sites show up fine for me.

Anyway.... tonight, I went to post a comment on someone else's blog, and the Word Verification, being a picture, wouldn't show up. I could have loaded up (hiss) Internet Explorer, but there was a button right there to try an audio form of verification. "Listen and type the numbers you hear." What the hell, I thought... let's see what that's like.

Wow. If you thought it was hard to read those frakkin' letters sometimes, they've got nothing on this audio verification. You have to try this thing. It sounds like about two or three backwards recordings overlapping simultaneously for about fifteen seconds, during which six numbers are dropped in that I could barely pick out.

Obviously, the primary purpose of this audio verification is to provide an alternative password system for the blind, not for my unusual situation. But the Blogger folks have got to be relying on the popular wisdom that says people who have no sight somehow have Superman-like hearing instead.

If they can actually make out these audio verifications, I can believe it.

4 comments:

TMac said...

Get Firefox as your backup browser since you're using Opera. I don't ever have any problems with Firefox. Well other than it not exactly agreeing with adobe. But other than that it is a great browser.

Roland Deschain said...

I've been using Firefox for a couple years now since IE is no longer an option on Mac. (Yay!) I also personally LOATHE Safari, so...Firefox is my guy.

And then put in the little extension AdBlock plus - surfing the web sans banner ads and pop ups and being able to selectively block Flash ads is just bliss.

BLISS, I tell you!!! ;)

And holy crap you are not kidding with those audio verifications. That's like trying to make out the boobies on a scrambled TV channel.

"If I can get just...enough...information..." :P

Roland Deschain said...

For those of you who don't know the world without internet, boobies were not always free. As a kid you'd either find a friend whose parents had Cinemax (Skinemax) or would watch the scrambled feeds of Playboy or HBO looking for nudity.

Damn younguns have it too easy. :D

Sangediver said...

Speaking of boobies. I find it interesting that the link takes you to Quicktime (not installed on this newer machine), where you can see a preview of Zombie Strippers. "They'll dance for a fee, but devour you for free!"

That deserves a high-pitched-Barney, "AWESOME!"

And yes, the audio thing kinda freaked me out. I stopped it before it finished because I was afraid a portal to Hell was about to open...