by Dave Foy on May 25, 2007
A fantastic concept: kill 2 birds with 1 stone by having web users help to digitize old texts whilst they decipher online CAPTCHAs.
About 60 million CAPTCHAs are solved by humans around the world every day. In each case, roughly ten seconds of human time are being spent. Individually, that’s not a lot of time, but in aggregate these little puzzles consume more than 150,000 hours of work each day. What if we could make positive use of this human effort? reCAPTCHA does exactly that by channeling the effort spent solving CAPTCHAs online into “reading” books.
Digitizing Books One Word at a Time
by Dave Foy on May 21, 2007
As you might imagine, given my inability to relate to the rest of the human race on even the most cursory level, I’m somewhat socially inept. Slide me between two strangers at any light-hearted jamboree and I’ll either rock awkwardly and silently on my heels, or come out with a stone-cold conversation-killer like, “This room’s quite rectangular, isn’t it?” I glide through the social whirl with all the elegance of a dog in high heels.
I’m socially inept, but I joined Facebook anyway
by Dave Foy on May 17, 2007
We’re having our hideously grotty hallway carpet pulled up to reveal the 100-year-old pine floorboards underneath. Generally, they look great, and with a bit of intense industrial sanding down have “come up lovely” (as my dear Nana used to say). Never mind that said intense industrial sanding has covered the entire house in a thin layer of dust… read more »
by Dave Foy on May 17, 2007
If you can slow down when all around you are speeding up, then you’re one of us. Be proud that you are one of us and not one of them. For they are fast, and we are slow. There are those that would urge us to speed. We resist!
We shall not flag or fail. We shall slow down in the office, and on the roads. We shall slow down with growing confidence when all those around us are in a shrill state of hyperactivity (signifying nothing). We shall defend our state of calm, whatever the cost may be. We shall slow down in the fields and in the streets, we shall slow down in the hills, we shall never surrender!
Why? Because if a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing slowly. Some are born to slowness—others have it thrust upon them. And still others know that lying in bed with a morning cup of tea is the supreme state for mankind.
http://www.slowdownnow.org
by Dave Foy on May 2, 2007
It’s funny that when people reach a certain age, such as after graduating college, they assume it’s time to go out and get a job. But like many things the masses do, just because everyone does it doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. In fact, if you’re reasonably intelligent, getting a job is one of the worst things you can do to support yourself. There are far better ways to make a living than selling yourself into indentured servitude.
No, please, not that! Anything but that!
