[Bonanzoid]

I haven't missed that "humour" of yours, Toph.

[Andy B]

It's a well known fact by those that know it well that peantus are not, in fact, nuts. They are legumes closely related to peas hence the name PEAnut.

I'm great at Trivial Pursuits me.

[MK Chris]

I bet Kevin Ashman would beat you.

[Andy B]

He IS the fountain of all knowledge.

[Ezza]

My assignments are annoying me. I didn't realise how much work I had to do.

[Yudster]

I bet Kevin Ashman would beat you.

I am - through a mix of brilliance and a little luck - lifetime unbeaten at Trivial Pursuit. I have literally never lost a game ever. I'm almost scared to play now because one day it'll all be over.......

[MK Chris]

I bet Kevin Ashman would beat you.

[Yudster]

Lots of people who should have beaten me have gone away losers. He might just be another one, its a strange phenomenon I tell you.

[Andy B]

I always win at Heads or Tails and Scissor, paper, stone. I'm a bloody champion I tell ya.

I do sometimes cheat at heads or tails though.

[Johnny 1989]

My SE K800i, which I have had for 11 months & for the last 3 months has started playing silly buggers, today especially where it was slow reacting & kept popping up the games menu for no reason at all.

Still I'd still get another SE, best phones I've ever used, however never another one with a joystick, they just break too easily.

[thenamesarnold]

The fact that the Cornish Internet Connection seems to have hit snail pace, ok exageration but the local speed seems to have plummted to 56kbps in the past two hours. (normally get 1mb max speed)

[foot-loose]

The fact that the Cornish

Sorry, what?

The last half of your post seems to be missing. I blame your connection.

[Munki Bhoy]

I once beat Kenny Deuchar in a Maths Quiz at school. He went on to play in the Scottish Cup final and score goals against Rangers in the SPL before jetting off to play in the MLS for Real Salt Lake while also getting a great gig as a doctor.

I think the moral here is that you can win at certain things, but in the end you're still a big loser.

[chrysostom]

A bit like winning an online argument?

[thenamesarnold]

The fact that the Cornish

Sorry, what?

The last half of your post seems to be missing. I blame your connection.

That cheered me up thx for that

[foot-loose]

The fact that the Cornish

Sorry, what?

The last half of your post seems to be missing. I blame your connection.

That cheered me up thx for that

Did it? I thought it was pretty poor to be honest.

Ah well, as long as yer happy!

[Andy B]

Bloody spam bots. Stupid things. Can something not be done about them? How do they get accounts? Isn't there a weird distorted picture thing to prevent this type of thing?

[Sunny So Cal]

Bloody spam bots. Stupid things.

No shit! Anytime you come on past midnight your time there's an issue. Bloody arseholes!

[Console]

Can something not be done about them?

Actually, there's very little that can be done.

How do they get accounts?

How did you get an account?

Isn't there a weird distorted picture thing to prevent this type of thing?

There is a weird, distorted CAPTCHA, but that only serves to stop the Spam-bots without a decent OCR plugin.

[Yudster]

A bit like winning an online argument?

I wouldn't know, I can't even do that.

[Andy B]

Console - hang on if you're telling me that a simple spambot can read those distorted picture thingys then surely this is a sign of artificial intelligence as I often get those things wrong.

Mark my words people, this is the beginning of the end. It'll be Terminator and Battlestar Galactica all over again I tell you! Smash the machines before they get you!

[MK Chris]

They've been able to read them for quite a long time and it's not artificial intelligence. The more distorted the letters, the harder it is for a machine to read them, but you have to get a balance between making them hard for machines to read and easy for humans to read - and that is difficult.

[Console]

Console - hang on if you're telling me that a simple spambot can read those distorted picture thingys then surely this is a sign of artificial intelligence as I often get those things wrong.

You don't need artificial intelligence to do OCR, just a neural net that has been trained to recognise the 36 (or 62 if case sensitive) distinct characters that the CAPTCHA's use at numerous angles - it's based on the same technology that the postal systems use to read the address on an envelope.

[Andy B]

I didn't think they could read envelopes? Far too many different and confusing hand writing styles.

Could they not just add loads of squiggles and things over it and add unneccesary bits to letters.

Ooh what about a really easy set of rotating questions, like what is Chris' last name? Who reads the news? What time does the show end? Somewhat slightly elitist but worth it surely. Surely a computer couldn't answer those?

[Console]

I didn't think they could read envelopes? Far too many different and confusing hand writing styles.

A lot of envelopes are typed, however they can read a lot of hand-written ones - they only need to get the Post Code and the door number.

Could they not just add loads of squiggles and things over it and add unneccesary bits to letters.

A lot already do - in most cases, the computers are better at recognising the altered letters than the humans.

Ooh what about a really easy set of rotating questions, like what is Chris' last name? Who reads the news? What time does the show end? Somewhat slightly elitist but worth it surely. Surely a computer couldn't answer those?

The problem with that idea is that you'd need hundreds of thousands of question/answer pairs, or someone would just go through the sign-up process a few times and get them all - it also doesn't stop the human element of bot sign-up. What time does the show end, by the way? 10:00? 10 AM? Ten AM? Ten o'clock?