You are currently browsing the daily archive for August 8th, 2007.
They have compiled a great list of nutty captchas caught in the wild. The best is certainly the Russian one, as many others have agreed. Captchas are particularly interesting to me since it looks like I’m going to be working with Dr. Luis von Ahn next semester on the GWAP project (games with a purpose).
Ok, I feel the need to plug a Facebook app. First of all, most apps suck. They chew up space on your profile and are largely useless because for them to be any good you need like a dozen friends using them, which never happens. There are a few exceptions, like Books, which is cool on its own (though I wish adding new books were a little easier). However, one app that really impressed me is Dogbook. Dogbook lets you create profiles for your dogs. Your dogs can have their own friends (other dogs and people) and pictures added from your profile. Also, you can search for dogs in your area, so if you were ever wondering who owned that dog you met in the dog park, now you can (assuming they use Dogbook too). This is especially useful since people hardly ever exchange names at a dog park and you only know them by the names of their dogs.
And surprisingly, a large number of people seem to use it.
Now here is an interesting word. The Language Log has a few examples of its usage and a couple of theories as to how it came about. The first is that the archaic word howsomever, which was an alternate form for however, changed through metathesis to howmsoever. I’m more inclined to the theory that it is derived by analogy from whomsoever/whosoever. I can imagine a scenario where someone wants to drag out however to make what is about to be said more significant (or some such scenario). It seems like howmsoever would fill that need nicely. But who knows..
