A brief rant about CAPTCHA's and ReCAPTCHAs

To me this is a good case study in and of itself, but since I'm neither an academician, nor do I get research money to do so, I'm going to briefly say why optical-obfuscation CAPTCHAs, in general, should be mercy-killed.

1. It's mainly an anti-OCR measure, but, the smarter OCR clients get, the more convoluted the challenge words get. Soon enough, it'll be so convoluted that a human won't be able to discern the characters.

2. It's a bad user experience if just about everywhere they go, they have to type CAPTCHA codes (specially if they're annoyingly obfuscated)

3. There HAS TO BE a much better way to tell humans and computers apart. I refuse to believe that OCR (for web UIs) is the most optimal solution to combat automatons. Humans have the emotional and cognitive abilities to be able to respond challenges that even sophisticated AIs cannot, so why not use that to develop a solid system that doesn't involve brute-force obfuscation of optical characters?

/rant

A Humble Proposal to the Tech Industry (and its Buzzwordsmiths)

The Tech world, apparently, thrives on buzzwords and cliches. The one buzzword  that's been pervading all conversations and most articles is "Cloud".  "Cloud" is a particularly hazardous one because it's both blurry and nebulous (both puns intended). Unlike many other buzzwords, "Cloud" has many different meanings to different people (and not in a good way). Marketing folks sure LOVE this one because it's so metaphoric and evocative yet intrinsically meaningless, but what about your product and project managers? Your non-technical directors?   Your developers?  Your Operations personnel? How do they define and understand the word "Cloud" (in the technical context)? Do they see it a Holy Grail or panacea? Do they see it as a "nice to have, but not required"?  As a threat to their jobs? It is precisely why this buzzword can be and is dangerous.

So, my humble proposal is to get rid of it, in as much as possible, from our technical vocabulary. Instead, I humbly suggest, you use words or phrases like Utility-Priced Scalable Computing (UPSC)? Or more simply Scalable Virtual Computing (SVC)? How about the existing phrases like IaaS or SaaS or PaaS (wherever appropriate) ? Or use phrases or words that have a very specific, to-the-point meaning. Everyone in your organization, your customers, associates, etc. should unequivocally understand the same terminology. The less ambiguity in buzzword semantics, the better decisions can be made, better conversations can be had and, ultimately, the simpler it'll become to think, talk and do something about it.