Further reflections on word verification

At the risk of becoming the web's foremost commentator on word verification, I just had to share this one.

I blog a lot from my phone. It drives me nuts, especially with the whole auto-correct thing making me say things like 'farmed' when I really wrote 'farked'. I end up writing really deep comments like "wow, you should just tell them to farm off" and "The world is really farmed up". Makes me sound like I'm overly supportive of our hardworking primary producers when all I really want to do is use the world's most common adjective to express my distaste without actually writing fuck.

But I digress.

I blog a lot from my phone. It drives me nuts. It takes ages to type out a comment in the tiny little box and then you hit 'send' and the random (but is it?) word verification rolls up. The other night, after struggling along with my one finger typing on the tiny little virtual-keys and trying to read what I wrote in the tiny little font and writing a really long comment because I just can't shut-up even in a tiny little box, well...
This is the word verification that rolled in: hytzyqwbd.

Or was it hytqzybd?

Or hbzyqwmk?

Either way, I just stared at that tiny little mother farmer and thought what the farm?

All that effort and now I have to spend 10 minutes trying to type out the indecipherable word verification while that stupid auto-correct sees you typing 'hbzyqwmk' and suggests things like 'he thinks' just because it's stupid and can't? It's bad enough when you get a word veri with vowels - but what's with these lengthy odes to the constanant? What's wrong with 'cat' or 'sat' or 'mat'? Could a robot read 'cat' and type out 'cat'? Could it?

Aah. So glad I got that out.

Come on, hit me with some word verification stories and perhaps an auto-correct or two?

[Image from here]

Weheartit... sometimes

I've lost my word verification amusement (so many have thoughtfully turned the darn thing off). So, I've had to move onto new pastures to get my 'what tha what?' kicks.

My new pasture is where weheartit grazes.

Anyone who reads the comments I often leave by my picture credits (that would be all none of you, but that's okay) will know that I have a love / hate relationship with weheartit. I love that I can quickly find some beautiful images there; I hate that there is virtually no crediting of any of those beautiful images whatsoever. I love that I can bookmark my faves; I hate that I can't search through my faves. I love that it's like a trip down teenage lane as I wade through all the images of gorgeous girls doing fun things that ordinary girls sitting on their beds at home have bookmarked; I hate that I also have to wade through 27,000 Bieber images, especially ones that have added statements like 'Always remember where you came from and always remember to remain humble* - Justin Bieber, 2011'. (And, for an even funnier Bieber moment, do check out 'Enhanced Bieber'.)

But what amuses me about weheartit is that they appear to have the worst Search-Matching in the entire webisphere. 'Search-Matching' is my own technical term, I don't know what it's actually called. It's where a program uses complicated logirhythms to decide what you might like based on preferences you've shown before. It's why iTunes Genius seems to think my sister would be into Jason Donovan.

So, the weheartit Search-Match clearly needs even more complicated logirhythms. When viewing sweet little images that I found by searching for 'Thank you', weheartit thoughtfully added a 'Similar Images' box. It listed an image of a lion devouring a wildebeest, an image of a woman checking out her non-existent butt in a mirror and an image of a note that said 'So Cry Me A Fucking River, Bitch'.

What tha what?

So, weheartit, I'm climbing more and more out of love with you every day. Seriously, dude, you've got to try harder if you want to keep me coming back for more. I'm complicated like that.

Do you use weheartit or similar photo-bookmarking sites? Do you enjoy scrolling aimlessly through pictures like I do? And what kind of music does iTunes recommend for you?

* I may be paraphrasing here. He may have said something else like 'If me and my girlfriend were fighting, and it got to the point where she started crying, I would just shut up and hold her.' - Justin Bieber, 2011.

[Image of gorgeous girls doing fun things via weheartit - you see what I'm dealing with here? No credit. Some random tumblr page as the reference. Sux.]

Please spam me, I love you too

Talk me through spam. Who writes it? Why? What do they hope to get out of it?

I imagine that if it was a solid marketing message spammed onto carefully targeted blogs... well, it would still piss me off royally, but at least I could understand it. There's always someone who buys that stuff thereby opening the floodgates.

But, really, I don't want to BOYCOTT AMERICAN WOMEN, despite the fact that you've asked me to about 128 times now. Nor am I particularly fond of your broken-English promise to love my blog for all iturnity. And, please, I'm just not that into obscure Russian invitations to... er, what exactly?

Where do you come from? I don't understand.

Don't worry, I'm in no danger of turning back on my word verification. I probably get about six spams a day and they are no trouble to delete. But, ooooooooh, ANOTHER scrouge on the world that I have to almost-read so I know that I don't want to read it. Like a lot of advertising (ssssshhhhh... I didn't just say that... you know I LOVE my advertising industry... but only the really good, clever, entertaining stuff... and I still don't want to buy anything!)

Have you ever responded to an unsolicited email? 

Have you ever bought something from a random telemarketer?

Do you think charities should be allowed to call you even when companies can't? (Just thought I'd throw that one in there!!!)

[Image via Buzzfeed]

A little wish: a little follow-up

My little wish for commenting was really quite a big wish and it came true. So many blogs seem to have changed their comments to pop-up and it's just so much easier to leave a note. I notice this particularly when I'm doing the Grateful rounds. It's fab.

Many of the commenters (and Jane in particular!) mentioned that while we were at it we really ought to get rid of word verification.

So I did.

I've hardly had any spam and 99% of it has been caught by the 'Spam' box. The other 1% has been caught by my 'approval if post older than 3 days' setting. I have always had that setting because I would hate to miss a comment!

So, I highly recommend turning off the word verification and seeing how you go.

Of course, I will miss my strange moments in word verification, but I think I'll live...

[Image picked up at weheartit]

A little wish

I'm a big talker; love, love, love a chat. It's one of the reasons why I'm such a big commenter on your blog. Chatterbox = Commenter = true. Some days I visit and don't have time for comments... but there is something that I think would help me out greatly.

On Blogger blogs, you can change the way your comment box works. Instead of having the comments 'embedded below post', you can have a pop-up box appear.

Why is this helpful?

Well, it simply means that when we comment, the word verification is right there. We leave a comment, do the word veri and hit 'Publish Your Comment' and we're done. If you haven't got a separate pop-up box, we comment, we hit Publish, we wait for your whole blog site to reload and then we do the word veri and then we hit Publish again... hmmmm... takes a lot more time and it's lots of extra page loads to be dealing with. You can still view the comments embedded after your post anytime you click on the actual post.

So, in my dream blogland, we would all go to 'Settings' and then 'Comments' and then change our 'Comment form placement' setting to 'Pop-up window'.

That is my wish.*


* Of course I have much more important wishes to wish than just this little wish. Like, I also wish that world hunger did not exist, that wars were only part of history books and that I had Sienna Miller's wardrobe, but I thought I would start small and build up from there...

[Image via weheartit... please let me know if it is yours.]

♥ Jotting it all down

I need to leave the sadness that has settled over me since writing the post last night (please read if you have a couple of minutes, it would mean a lot to me). A complete change of feeling is needed to get me back on track. I hope that's not disrespectful.

After the fun of sharing Word Verification moments last week, I noticed a pattern in the (witty, engaging, lovely, thank you) comments I received.

So many of us notice things, don't write them down and then quickly they are forgotten.

I'm a jotter. You will have noticed this from my Friday posts. I love to write down everything. Everything I learn, everything I think is funny, everything that's actually funny, everything that's odd. Everything.

It's a habit I picked up working in Advertising. When I was a little Junior Burger, I worked for one of Sydney's most creative agencies. I learned a thing or two from those Big Macs, believe me, and not just about dancing in the white stuff (it was the nineties, after all). The best thing I learned was 'jot it down'. All the Creatives do it. They carry wanky little Moleskins around and write down everything that takes their fancy.

I do the same. Only I carry a wanky little whatever-was-free-on-the-cover-of-InsideOut-magazine. It's amazing what a fun and interesting 'journal' results from all this jotting. In amongst the doodles and Shopping and To Do Lists is a record of the unique, the weird, the odd and the marvellous. I've been doing it so long that these days, I sort of feel naked without a pen.

Do you do it too? What sorts of things do you jot down?

This post is part of ♥ Much Love ♥ Monday

[Image via weheartit]

Strange moments in word verification

I've been jotting down some of my finer 'word verification' (WV) moments as I pop about commenting on my favourite blogs. Strange past time, I know, but you'd be amazed just how... er... psychic the WV tool is.

Hear me out.

It all started a month or so ago when I commented on my sister's blog. She was writing something about the skirt in her younger-self photo being too short. I wrote a standard reply about "nothing is too short when you're 24" and hit send. But when it came to the WV, the word I had to type was 'crach'. So I ended up writing a PS to amend my comment to 'at least nothing is too short when you're 24 unless you can see your crach'.

You see where I'm going with this?
 
Other highlights have been:
 
Emma at Frog Goose Bear posted a Wordless Wednesday shot involving a dining room table and a spilled bowl of cereal. Cereal everywhere. WV response: mesymes
 
And Brenda at Mira Narnie posted a lovely idea for kids using coloured water to investigate cause and effect. WM response: kydfarn
 
My favourite, though, was when Fat Mum Slim posted about being at your most beautiful at 31. I  posted my comment, something about being happy to work on the 'beauty on the inside' bit and not so worried about the 'beauty on the outside' bit and then looked down at my WV: lyerar
 
You see? Word verification is either psychic or a psychotherapist. Either way, hours of enjoyment is ours for the taking!

[Image: my 'lil sis Coo at 24 years. Isn't she pretty!]