A Short Gallery of CAPTCHAs

The following is a small gallery of CAPTCHAs that I've collected over the years. It is far from the total collection now, and what it once was--many having been lost to the iniquities of hard drive failure (another summer, another repairing of the ol' Studio 1535, maybe its time to use an external hard drive as more than just an ever shifting library, not that BarDC++ minds its use so far). Yet, I can guarantee these are the best of the best, so far.

If you are wondering why I collect CAPTCHAs, it is because the appearance of these most minute of texts naturally lends itself to a poetic inspection on two fronts: the juxtaposition of images and the history of the text. The assembly of images might be the most simple in the most mechanical sense--a simple juxtaposition-- but their mysterious nature commands an interpretation be produced for our mind's to find some kind of ease. Our first approach may be to consider the CAPTCHA's origins, but this runs aground fast as we now it is the aether. Rather, we must attack ourselves with the words and find the meaning that resonates in a tripartite manner: with each word against themselves, with each word against ourselves, and then the final transfiguration: the conflict of the totality of the CAPTCHA against its prey: us.

Without only a little more ado, all I ask of you is to imagine!

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I thought I lost this one, but found it digging through my twitter--ms995--and found its twitpic link, and I would suppose I never would have made this entire post without the fact that I love these two words together. The caption I had placed on this CAPTCHA way back when--almost a year ago in fact--was "Bucklers, Eugene; fucking bucklers." Reviewing that note, I can't help but feel inspired to spin that little bit of text into something with just a few more words.

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Another that I want to work with, but I still don't know what the proton says, though I feel that it meant what it said.

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The last two were kind of low hanging fruit, but this may be a bit redemptive:

Fertile words, if ever there were any. The Offer Entombs certainly would make for a good name for a metal band, or perhaps some crossover thrash or grindcore.

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And, that's that. So, if you have some memorable CAPTCHAs on hand, share them in the comments! If not, maybe you'll get a little stranger and pick up the habit for the future, and, if so, return with your finds!

Finally, if you are wondering why I chose some of these, I could begin an explore those thoughts but that would likely produce an entire post for each inquiry, so have some patience.