I've been using the new StackOverflow.com web site a lot. One of the less attractive "features" there is a CAPTCHA that crops up every so often. This CAPTCHA is based off reCaptcha, which is a project that pulls problem text from book scanning projects. It uses words that the scanners couldn't handle for part of the captcha. It's a great concept: if the the legitimate scanners were unable to recognize the word, it's likely that attempted cracks will have the same trouble. Additionally, as a user at least I feel like the annoying captcha has some extra purpose.
One of my personal character traits is that I nitpick my writing. I'll probably edit this blog post at least a dozen times after I post it before I move on (9 or 10 of those edits will fix dumb typos). I therefore hit the StackOverflow captcha fairly often. That's where it happened; I completed a routine edit, received a captcha prompt, and typed what I saw without thinking. Except this time what I typed wasn't exactly what the captcha showed. The captcha had a typo, and I subconsciously entered the word correctly. I realized my "mistake" a moment after I submitted the response, and mentally braced for the rejection. But instead of a rejection, the captcha passed.
Now I have to believe that the captcha requires more than one "opinion" on each snippet before accepting it into the final work. But I wonder, how often does this happen? Could this system actually be correcting spelling or typesetting mistakes in old books via some human psychological phenomon? Probably not: most often the captcha will be entered as shown. But the possibility is at least intriguing.
I've been using SQL Server Management Studio almost since it came out, and before we even had a SQL Server 2005 database for it to talk to. I know a lot of people don't like it, but most of the negatives just didn't apply to me. The two biggest are probably the .Net framework requirements and that it can be very slow. I already had the .Net framework installed, and while it is a little slow to start up the first time after restarting windows, after that it's been fairly responsive.
So I've been watching the SQL Server 2008 launch and patiently waiting for the Express Edition of the management studio to come out. And waiting, and waiting. Every once in a while I'd go back and look for it, only to find the 2005 version instead. Today, I finally found it. I'm still downloading it, so I can't tell you how it does, but here is a partial list of new featuers. And here is a link to try it for yourself. Note that it now requires .Net 3.5 and Windows Installer 4.5.
