Thread

1. swiftcoder · 1790413044 · focus · HN ↗

   Even as someone who lived a long time in the US, I've failed a bunch of these on unclear definitions.

   When you say "stoplights", is that just the lights themselves, or also the poles that support them? Is a tile that contains 1/3 of a bike wheel "bicycle" or "not bicycle"? Is a coach also considered a bus?

   1. lemagedurage · 1790413442 · focus · HN ↗

      Being pedantic about the captcha is the less-human thing to do here.

      1. swiftcoder · 1790413833 · focus · HN ↗

         I think I'm failing the captcha by not being sufficiently pedantic. It genuinely never occurred to me that a coach might not be considered a bus by the algorithm (where "algorithm" is presumably "distilled responses of many thousands of other humans")
      2. kruffalon · 1790413841 · focus · HN ↗

         Ha! I guess I'm less human than expected, and finally I understand why I've failed sooooo many CAPTCHAs over the years :)

         Thanks, I really never knew!

      3. agons · 1790413883 · focus · HN ↗

         This comment doesn't help the pedant
      4. skissane · 1790413909 · focus · HN ↗

         I actually found I had more success with reCAPTCHA when I made myself think less about what the answer was.

         I also learned this trick that a lot of the questions have a standard number of answers – e.g. there are always three buses, or fire hydrants, or whatever – so once I've picked three, I'm done. (There often is a fourth ambiguous case, which it accepts but doesn't require.)

Unofficial Hacker News client; not affiliated with Y Combinator.