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Anything which requires me to use a Google captcha or hcaptcha. I generally don't get annoyed very easily but spotting fire hydrants and traffic lights just to

Anything which requires me to use a Google captcha or hcaptcha. I generally don't get annoyed very easily but spotting fire hydrants and traffic lights just to login into a site to which you are a paying customer is plain nonsense. I've actually decided to move my entire infrastructure from Digital ocean to AWS because of this captcha before login nonsense (thankfully DO reverted it just in time)

mch82 6y ago
Yes! Captchas are terrible. Does the support pole count as part of the traffic light? How much of the bus needs to be in the square for that square to contain a bus? What counts as a street sign? And on top of all that, the frustration that I know I’m not a robot the entire time.
etrautmann 6y ago
On top of being incredibly annoying, I find it insulting to be put to work training algorithms by clicking on the 5th iteration of spotting bikes and cars. Infuriating
errantspark 6y ago
I can't agree more, the idea that google derives an economic benefit from my work makes my skin crawl.
Kiro 6y ago
What's the alternative? Why does DO have a captcha to begin with?
- jabroni_salad 6y ago
  captchas make sense when you want to keep spammers out of your comment section. For logging in to an account though, the best alternative is really to just do nothing. Maybe rate limit connections that send bad logon attempts.
  - Kiro 6y ago
    That's why I'm asking. Why did DO implement it for their customer logins?
ColanR 6y ago
I've started intentionally making my answers subtly wrong. E.g., if something might look like a fire hydrant, but isn't, I mark it positive. I usually have to do it a few times anyway, and it makes me feel better to think Google's AI datasets are inaccurate.
- quicklime 6y ago
  Hah nice, I thought I was the only one who did this! I've noticed that in the more extreme edge cases, it lets me through anyway. Maybe other people aren't paying enough attention to notice that there's actually a difficult-to-see street sign in that particular square. Sometimes I feel bad that one day, a Waymo car is going to miss a stop sign because of me. But then, I also resent being used as a free mechanical turk, and they should know better than to rely on random people from the internet to build safety-critical systems.
- mastazi 6y ago
  In my experience, when I do it slightly wrong it actually takes less steps to get through. I guess in the age of Yolo v4 and such, doing it “too well” actually makes you look like a robot?
  - robotnikman 6y ago
    I've noticed this too. If you do the captchas too quickly you get more of them as well. If I 'dumb' myself down a little I usually only just get one of them
  - xaedes 6y ago
    I suspect doing it too well marks you as a valuable contributor and tries to get the most out of you. Abuse.
- drusepth 6y ago
  I never understood the mindset that finds joy in throwing off the datasets being trained on these kinds of captchas. Is it related more to the "rush" of cheating on a test in school (i.e. figuring out a way to "cheat" on the captcha), or rooted more in rebellion against Google/whoever?
sinsterizme 6y ago
Completely agree, but I must hand it to whoever came up with this idea. Absolutely brilliant. "Folks, we need an absolutely massive data set to train our text recognition algorithms. We need people on the internet volunteering this data." "Impossible! What could we possibly offer them?"
- mdaniel 6y ago
  It may not surprise you to learn that his Ph.D. was on "on Games With A Purpose, which are games played by humans that produce useful computation as a side effect" and is same person behind Duolingo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luis_von_Ahn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luis_von_Ahn
Freeboots 6y ago
I usually dont mind too much, but my god i cant stand the slow.... faaaaaaaaaaade........ iiiiiiin.
dukeofharen 6y ago
This is so true. And the bonus is, it works terribly on Firefox, to the point that when I am forced to use it, I just skip the site altogether.
- jodrellblank 6y ago
  Ebay's side project Gumtree throws up captchas if you so much as open two links in new tabs, for "moving through the site at superhuman speed".

mch82 6y ago

Yes! Captchas are terrible. Does the support pole count as part of the traffic light? How much of the bus needs to be in the square for that square to contain a bus? What counts as a street sign? And on top of all that, the frustration that I know I’m not a robot the entire time.

etrautmann 6y ago

On top of being incredibly annoying, I find it insulting to be put to work training algorithms by clicking on the 5th iteration of spotting bikes and cars. Infuriating

errantspark 6y ago

I can't agree more, the idea that google derives an economic benefit from my work makes my skin crawl.

Kiro 6y ago

What's the alternative? Why does DO have a captcha to begin with?

jabroni_salad 6y ago
captchas make sense when you want to keep spammers out of your comment section. For logging in to an account though, the best alternative is really to just do nothing. Maybe rate limit connections that send bad logon attempts.
- Kiro 6y ago
  That's why I'm asking. Why did DO implement it for their customer logins?

ColanR 6y ago

I've started intentionally making my answers subtly wrong. E.g., if something might look like a fire hydrant, but isn't, I mark it positive. I usually have to do it a few times anyway, and it makes me feel better to think Google's AI datasets are inaccurate.

quicklime 6y ago
Hah nice, I thought I was the only one who did this! I've noticed that in the more extreme edge cases, it lets me through anyway. Maybe other people aren't paying enough attention to notice that there's actually a difficult-to-see street sign in that particular square. Sometimes I feel bad that one day, a Waymo car is going to miss a stop sign because of me. But then, I also resent being used as a free mechanical turk, and they should know better than to rely on random people from the internet to build safety-critical systems.
mastazi 6y ago
In my experience, when I do it slightly wrong it actually takes less steps to get through. I guess in the age of Yolo v4 and such, doing it “too well” actually makes you look like a robot?
- robotnikman 6y ago
  I've noticed this too. If you do the captchas too quickly you get more of them as well. If I 'dumb' myself down a little I usually only just get one of them
- xaedes 6y ago
  I suspect doing it too well marks you as a valuable contributor and tries to get the most out of you. Abuse.
drusepth 6y ago
I never understood the mindset that finds joy in throwing off the datasets being trained on these kinds of captchas. Is it related more to the "rush" of cheating on a test in school (i.e. figuring out a way to "cheat" on the captcha), or rooted more in rebellion against Google/whoever?

sinsterizme 6y ago

Completely agree, but I must hand it to whoever came up with this idea. Absolutely brilliant. "Folks, we need an absolutely massive data set to train our text recognition algorithms. We need people on the internet volunteering this data." "Impossible! What could we possibly offer them?"

mdaniel 6y ago
It may not surprise you to learn that his Ph.D. was on "on Games With A Purpose, which are games played by humans that produce useful computation as a side effect" and is same person behind Duolingo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luis_von_Ahn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luis_von_Ahn

Freeboots 6y ago

I usually dont mind too much, but my god i cant stand the slow.... faaaaaaaaaaade........ iiiiiiin.

dukeofharen 6y ago

This is so true. And the bonus is, it works terribly on Firefox, to the point that when I am forced to use it, I just skip the site altogether.

jodrellblank 6y ago
Ebay's side project Gumtree throws up captchas if you so much as open two links in new tabs, for "moving through the site at superhuman speed".