Category: General

More and more, I’m having to type in extra info when filling out a form online. Most are a string of digits. But one project, reCAPTCHA, uses words. And not just any words — they use words that a computer has trouble recognizing (using Optical Character Recognition, or OCR) in old print editions of the New York Time and from Google Books. They say

reCAPTCHA improves the process of digitizing books by sending words that cannot be read by computers to the Web in the form of CAPTCHAs for humans to decipher. More specifically, each word that cannot be read correctly by OCR is placed on an image and used as a CAPTCHA. This is possible because most OCR programs alert you when a word cannot be read correctly.

But if a computer can’t read such a CAPTCHA, how does the system know the correct answer to the puzzle? Here’s how: Each new word that cannot be read correctly by OCR is given to a user in conjunction with another word for which the answer is already known. The user is then asked to read both words. If they solve the one for which the answer is known, the system assumes their answer is correct for the new one. The system then gives the new image to a number of other people to determine, with higher confidence, whether the original answer was correct.

Another project, Transcribe Bentham is using the public to do a similar task, although with much less automation. They use “volunteer (who) transcribe previously unstudied and unpublished manuscripts from the Bentham Papers collection.”

I’ve added reCAPTCHA to several websites I maintain. You can find out about transcribing for the Transcribe Bentham here or read more about the project here.

In this 2011 Penguin ad campaign, Meet the Classics, old-fashioned typewriters were planted in the computer sections of bookstores in Brazil, to promote books and classics rather than e-readers. See the typewriters next to laptops here. Too bad they don’t show what people typed! See the other posts about Penguin ads here.

In this 2009 Penguin ad campaign below, nothing fits into the hand like a book — certainly not an e-reader! — and nothing is more satisfying than a book you can’t put down. More examples are here. See the other posts about Penguin ads here.

Used to be, when I did an organized bike ride, I’d get a badge or patch for finishing. These days it’s more likely to be a t-shirt. Those t-shirts eventually end up as rags, but I keep my patches in a box and it’s fun for me to go through them — and included in that box is my badge sash from my days as a girl scout (which always reminds me that I wish I could remember all the wonderful knots I once knew how to tie!)
I quite enjoyed finding the website Nerd Merit Badges. They sell the Printer Hero Merit Badge to the left (that thing under the sword is, apparently, a laser printer) — requirements: You don’t earn this badge by fixing printers and copiers. You earn this badge by being willing to try. (Apparently at the office most people ignore printer paper jams, hoping someone else will deal with the problem.)
While that doesn’t apply to me, as I’m the only one here, the other badges they sell are equally silly — including one called Inbox Zero with the requirement that “You’ve reached an empty email inbox. For extra credit, you maintain an empty inbox from Monday through Friday!” or Homoynms (requirement: “You know how to spell words correctly that sound the same, from the simple: ‘to/too/two’, to the tricky ‘insure/ensure’.”) Check them all out here. { First seen here on Printeresting. }

In this 2008 Penguin ad campaign below, the image encapsulates the story in the book, with little page numbers giving the viewer a hint to the narrative. More examples are here. See the other posts about Penguin ads here.

I got a note from my bookmaking friend, Sharon, the other day, saying she was laid up with a broken ankle. She’s going to use this as an opportunity to “start on a small book I’ve been thinking about forever. Quotidian. Drawings/watercolors of the every day things in my life.” Then I saw a post about the work of Melanie Bilenker. She makes jewelry featuring tableaux of everyday ordinary life. “I do not reproduce events,” she says, “but quiet minutes, the mundane, the domestic, the ordinary moments.” They are jewelry mostly made of gold, ebony, resin, pigment, and hair. I was just going to send the link off to Sharon, but I’ve stopped my haiku writing habit this year, and thought posting it here would inspire me to start again. Check out all of Melanie’s lovely drawings here.