Just another Aussie in Scotland

Rod Parsley - Christian warmonger

John McCain’s spiritual advisor?!

It’s people like this man who give American Evangelicals the worst name possible. I was shocked, SHOCKED that this person can say things like this out loud and not be publicly ridiculed, much less be taken up on stage by the Republican candidate and lauded before the nation.

I don’t usually come out and talk about politics in such a public arena, but this just makes me sick to my stomach. This man, Rod Parsley, comes out and says horrible, hateful things like “Mohammed recieved messages from demon spirits, not from the Living God” - he’s not saying that Islam is not based on actual events, no, it’s much more insidious than that. He’s saying that Islam IS based on actual events, and that those involved were EVIL. That’s much more scary than merely saying that those who follow Islam are mistaken. He’s saying that they’re being led by evil, each and every one.

How can people be so hateful?

Edited to add: OK, so Kerry has rejected Rod’s endorsement, probably because of this video coming out. Oooh, the spin!

YouTube Copyright Notice

Longtime readers may recall, it was about 18 months ago that I went a little crazy making some videos for YouTube, one of which was a fanvid tribute to Rose Tyler from Doctor Who. After much deliberation over appropriate soundtracks, I chose that classic song by Sting, Fields of Gold.

Anyway, I just got a copyright notice from YouTube, saying that they’d scanned my videos and identified that my vid was using the Sting song as the soundtrack. I knew that they’d been using some of this newfangled tech to digitally match content against copyrighted material, and my hackles went up when I read the following:

This is to notify you that your video Doctor Who - FIELDS OF GOLD - Sting has been identified as containing content that may be owned by someone else. The material identified in your video, the person claiming ownership of the material, and the policy they have designated for its use on YouTube are detailed below.

“Damn,” I thought to myself. “They’re going to ask me to remove the vid that I’d worked so hard on.”

But then I read a little further, and as it turns out, the “policy designated for it’s use on YouTube” was… “ALLOW!”

God bless Sting and his altruistic nature, my favorite vid creation is safe from the copyright police! That is, until the BBC decides that they won’t let me use a mashup of their footage…

NYC, OMFG NYC!!

How can one city be so cool?!

I know, I’m being naughty, skipping ahead of all the blogging about playing Hogmanay and Floriday with the Mark Saul Band, but instead I must share with you all the coolest three days I’ve spent in… in AGES! I give you fair warning - lots and lots of photos, and probably even more text. Just look at the pretty pictures if you like.

So, I was in Florida with Mark, Miss Sweden and the boys, right? But due to some miscommunication with our hosts, accommodation was not the most ideal, so I made the snap decision to cut short my time with the band as soon as we’d played our gigs, and jet across to visit someone I’ve been meaning to visit for ages, who lived in a city that I’ve wanted to visit my whole life.

It was time to visit Yarnmonster Jess (not to be confused with Ubiquitous Jess) in New York City. And what a time it was.

I arrived there with a relatively short list of things in my head that were essential activities that I’d always wanted to do in New York - visit Central Park, view Van Gogh’s Starry Night with my own two eyes, see a Broadway Show, glimpse the Statue of Liberty, and view Manhattan from on high.

But as I saw more things in the city, and discussed things with Jess, that list grew… and grew… and GREW!

First impressions for a geeky out-of-towner who likes to binge on pop-culture? New York is like one big film/tv set. Everywhere you look, there’s something to see that belongs in some stylish flick about sophisticates living it large in the City That Never Sleeps.

I could go on and on and on about all the strangely familiar landmarks that I recognise from films ranging from Day after Tomorrow to You’ve Got Mail, or from TV shows as iconic as Friends and as obscure as Flight of the Conchords… But that would bore you all senseless. Instead, all film/TV references will be in italics, between brackets, for those who care to enjoy at their leisure.

From the very moment I stepped off the plane at JFK, I started giggling about being in New York. I was heading to Jess’s famous flat in Brooklyn (famous because she plays hostess to an oddly high number of itinerant musicians), and my camera was out of it’s case before I’d even finished the cab ride to Brooklyn, as we were driving through Queens (The Nanny).

“Are you kidding? I am Queen’s Boulevard…” (Entourage)

Jess took me for dinner in Manhattan (just a couple of Subway stops away), where we dined near the Rockefeller Center, bedecked as it was in sparkly lights:

The next day saw us breakfasting in a lovely little coffee house in Brooklyn, where the coffees were as good as any Barrista’s in Melbourne. I took one look at Jess’s awesome handbag and coveted it. She could not be persuaded to part with it, alas , but she obligingly took me to the store from whence it came - Brooklyn Industries. You’ll get a photo of our sibling bags anon. Patience.

A short ride over the Manhattan Bridge on the subway saw us in Manhattan again by daylight, where we wandered around Chinatown, and I managed to haggle (in Chinese!!) for an “I *heart* NY t-shirt. I was chuffed at that.

Soon we traipsed into Soho, where Jess introduced me to the tastiest indian food I’ve had in ages - kinda an indian sandwhich/pancake thing, at a restaurant which I’d have never found on my own. This thing was HUGE! I was like, “you expect me to eat ALL that?” to which the YarnMonster parried with her own challenge - she was going to eat all of hers.

Man, that was a tasty sandwich-pancake thing. And Jess did finish all of hers - no mean feat for someone as teensy as she is!

By the time we’d wandered around Chinatown and Soho, it was starting to get dark, and soon our feet brought us to Times Square (Heroes, Zoolander, about a gazillion other movies) - that famous patch of urban landscape where it’s never dark. What got me about it is that you don’t realise from all the movies that it’s actually a narrow X-shaped intersection, not a fork, so the view behind us also exists in front of us (if that makes any sense):

So we were walking around Times Square, and I said to Jess, “Isn’t there a Hard Rock Cafe somewhere in New York?”

“Hmm,” says she. “I think so.”

“But where abouts in the city is it?” says I.

But before she could respond, we look to our left and Lo! there it is!

We decided to go in for a drink and a rest for our weary feet. Our bags said they needed a rest too, and demanded to be photographed at the Hard Rock Cafe:

Are they not the coolest bags you’ve, like, EVER seen?

That evening we ticked another Must Do thing off my list - a Broadway show courtesy of the half-price-last-minute ticket booth. Avenue Q has to be the funniest show I’ve seen in ages. See it if you can. The vision of Sesame Street style Muppets having fully naked sex will be burned into your mind forever-more. In a slightly wrong but utterly hilarious way.

Tuesday dawned crisp and clear, a perfect day for hopping on the (free) Staten Island Ferry to see the Statue of Liberty (Ghostbusters II, countless others). It was CooOOooOOoOOOld on the ferry, but well worth it to gawk at a 200-ft French Lady:

Click on the pic for a closer view…

Then it was on to more serious things - Ground Zero:

For all it happened going on 7 years ago, the scar is still marring the Manhattan landscape, and I doubt that part of town will ever shake off what happened that day. And nor should it. It was a more introspective part of an otherwise jam-packed day.

We comforted ourselves with Cupcakes from Magnolia - a famous cupcake shop where the Olsen twins apparently go (or at least, the non-anorexic one), and where Jess takes all her guests.

Pics of yummy cupcakes and satisfied Charlotte on Yarnmonster Jess’s blog. Also, I’d like to mention now Jess’s incredible knitting talent, and her basket of winter woolies which have kept 2/5ths of my family warm when visiting the Big Apple. You can see all her marvellous creations if you explore her blog a little further.

We continued northwards up the Island of Manhattan until we reached the closed thing they have to my own personal Mecca on the East Coast - 30 Rockefeller Plaza, aka NBC Headquarters.

Seems all my fave shows right now are at NBC or one of its affiliates - 30 Rock, Battlestar Galactica, Heroes, Studio 60, Friday Night Lights, Scrubs… Not to mention old faves like Friends and Seinfeld.

For anyone who watches 30 Rock, the Rockefeller centre is a must. After all, the show’s named after 30 Rockefeller Plaza and is a comedy show about a fictional comedy show on NBC, which gently pokes fun at all things NBC and New York. For anyone who’s NOT seen 30 Rock - WATCH IT! It’s HILARIOUS!

Here’s me basking in my own private Mecca:

Also filmed at the Rockefeller Centre is Conan O’Brien - late night American Comedy show. To be in the audience, tickets are free - you just need to rock up early enough in the morning. Or in our case, get pulled aside by an NBC page inside, and asked if we’d like to see a Conan show.

Like we’d turn THAT down!? Besides, we knew that Bell X1 would be playing, an utterly hip Irish band who my brother has talked about for ages, and I’ve been wanting to catch them since forEVER! Thus followed the Saga Of Waiting To Get Into A Conan Taping. Simon of the Flying Sea Bass has accused me of making my story drag out longer than the actual wait that we had to endure for the show, so I’ll cut it short. As you can see below, we were totally excited at the prospect of a Conan taping:

But no friends, no. Look CLOSER at the ticket:

Squint and turn your head to the side, and you might read the words “Stand-by ticket - does not assure admission”. Well, long story short, there were around 40 people behind us, and exactly 48 people ahead of us in the line, but after about 2 1/2 hours of waiting, the first 42 people in the line ahead of us get seats in the studio, while Jess and I, along with the six people ahead of us in line, are told to have a great day, buh bye now.

*sigh*

But we shrugged, because the (long) version of the story is probably better than the actual Conan taping itself. And besides, it put us back on track for our original plans for that evening - another Broadway show.

I had two shows that I really wanted to see before I arrived - Wicked, and Avenue Q. Getting tickets at short notice for Wicked these days is harder than poaching an egg on Pluto, so I gave up on that one pretty quick. Avenue Q was sorted the night before. So my 3rd choice took a bit more research. The moment I read that a wee show called The Farnsworth Invention had been written by Aaron Sorkin (of West Wing and Studio 60 fame) I just HAD to convince Jess that this was the show to see. And Jess, being the most gracious host a New York Noob could hope for, kept me company for one of the finest shows I’ve seen in ages. Snappy dialogue, classic Aaron Sorkin tempo, with humour that’s not comedy per se, but rather intelligent wit. If you fancy watching the trailer (I didn’t even KNOW that they did trailers for Broadway shows!!) you can catch it by clicking here.

And yes, the handsome guy in the striking dark suit is the lovely Hank Azaria who, if you recognise from NO other film, you’d recognise his voice from countless Simpsons characters - Moe, Chief Wiggun, Dr Nick, Apu, and too many others to name. The guy’s a legend.

But best performance hands down came from young Jimmi Simpson (in the waistcoat above, right) in the eponymous role of Philo Farnsworth, the arguable inventor of the Cathode Ray Tube (AKA Television). I dunno, there’s something about the way stage actors have to deliver their lines side on to face the audience, that I find somehow appealing - it makes all the dialogue seem more forceful and passionate… Does that make any sense at all?

The show was also fitting for My First New York Experience, cause it featured events like the founding of NBC and the building of of Radio City:

Anyway, back to reality for a moment (it’s tough, I know). If you’re not interested in any kind of television, of the NBC or Broadway varieties then the Rockefeller centre will offer you something more tangible - some of the best views in New York. It’s a tall building, after all:

And unlike the Empire State Buliding, you don’t have to wait 2 hours in a queue to go up. PLUS if you’re for some reason obsessed with the Empire State Building (Sleepless in Seattle, countless others), you’ll get a much better view of it from Rockefeller:

And looking the other way, you’ll see Central Park. It’s just a little patch of grass really… Not so big… Ahem:

Central Park was definitely a must, though it was SOOO cold that we didn’t spend long there, just walked through and took in some of the sights:

Above - the lovely Jess showing off another oft-featured New York landmark.

Anyone seeing a Dr Who episode spring to mind? “Don’t turn around, don’t look away, don’t even BLINK!”

Alice in Wonderland, a delightful bit of whimsy in a city of whirlwind action…

By this stage, we were about ready for the ground to turn into a soft warm fluffy pillow and bear us into the land of blissful cupcake dreams, but we still had one very important thing on our list:

Words cannot describe.

Speechless.

A Picasso, just hanging on a wall, no glass over it, no rope around it. I felt like I was in the land of my mother’s youth, where you were allowed to walk amongst the rocks at Stonehenge. I got up so close to Starry Night I was practically nose to nose with the iconic cyprus tree - I’d never realised before how much blank canvas is in that picture. I even felt a little weird snapping a photo, though you can take as many pics as you like in MoMA - so long as you forgo the flash.

One more pic to share, before I leave you - the Reading Room at the New York Public Library (Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Day After Tomorrow, Ghostbusters):

Stunning.

I wish I could have spent more time in New York, it was truly breathtaking. My sincerest thanks go to the wonderful Yarnmonster Jess, who was the most enthusiastic and generous hostess and tour guide (and friend!) I could ever have hoped for. I can tell you, we felt pretty proud of ourselves by the time my hour of departure befell us. We’d done New York City VERY well.

So for now, New York, goodbye. I shall return.

After 18 months…

… FINALLY some rockin out!

My boys have arrived in town! Yay! Slowly trickling in from around the world, from Melbourne to Saigon, Mark’s cabal of rock gods have arrived in town.

Mark’s been helping to keep 50-odd high school girls in line during a European Music Tour with PLC (a girls school in Melbourne where he teaches) but you’d not recognise any hint of wearisomeness when you hear his playing. Simmo’s sick as a dog, but you’d not know it to hear his Rock God impression in rehearsals. Dave’s still a bit jetlagged, I suspect, but again, from the rockin-out that’s going on in rehearsals, you’d not know a thing about it. Eighteen months since our last gig together, eighteen months since I last SAW these lads, and the music’s still about as tight as it was last year (OK, so I may have forgotten a solo or two, but hey, it HAS been eighteen months!).

My living room has become a massive tangle of wires wrapped around effects pedals scattered around discarded ear-buds from our inner ear fold back. My poor parents who have been visiting from Kenya over Christmas have to find a perch where they can if they want to sit in the living room.

And it’s glorious. OMG, I’ve missed this.

Funny story for you Doctor Who fans out there - as long time readers of this blog will remember, Mark’s nickname is The Evil Doctor, due to his stunning pharmaceutical collection of various herbal remedies and vitamins which he pulls out whenever someone has an ailment. Often we (Simmo in particular, who’s worked with Mark the longest) just call him “Doc”.

Well, during the long process of setting up all the gear last night, Mark needed to look inside of one of our equipment racks, but his torch had no batteries. I was wracking my brains trying to locate a torch, but the best thing I could find was my Sonic Screwdriver that one of my friends gave me, which lights up with a bright UV light, and makes that iconic Sonic Screwdriver (heh - Iconic Sonic) sound.

I handed it to The Doctor, and he laughed at me, but proceeded to use it. I had to laugh in turn at the sight of Mark (The Doctor) pointing that sonic screwdriver inside his equipment rack, like it was some inner panelling of the Tardis.

I tried to communicate this glee to the boys, but they just rolled their eyes at me - it’s hard being the only geek in the band…

More band gossip tomorrow.

Cx

Spam Comment of the Day

“Tits. Big tits. Little tits. Small tits….”

Just one (rather tame) example of the spam that most blogs get these days… Dunno what just POSTING those words is going to do to the demographic of my blog traffic.

New musical fun

…we love you, gumtree dot com!

So I’ve already announced the fabulous Mark Saul Band news about the gig that we’re doing for the Edinburgh Hogmanay, yay and hip hip huzzah! We’re quite looking forward to it, and now that we’re down to the final 4 weeks before the boys arrive, I’m getting all excited.

But I believe that I neglected to mention the other musical associations in my life just now.

See, before the gig with Mark was confirmed, I was starting to get the feeling that it wasn’t going to happen, and I was missing playing music terribly. I’ve had noone to play with except a brief - but very enjoyable - sojourn with Hayley Clare’s band during the festival. And a month is not enough, I need something more regular.

So on I hopped to Gumtree.com. See, Gumtree is rapidly becoming my mecca for all my miscellaneous needs. It’s my miscellaneous mecca - I like that, reckon I might use it somewhere. I go there to gawk at for-sale ads for kittens. I go there to snoop around for a potential flat for my scheduled move in January. I sometimes even go there to dream about one day moving to London and all the jobs that might be there waiting for me (as if I could ever leave Edinburgh though - I love this place too much). And just a few weeks ago, I went there to see if anyone in Edinburgh might have been in need of a violinst of my stellar abilities [sic].

There were a few potentials, but only one of them had a MySpace site - an aptly named young singer/songwriter called Rusty Gunson (the rather grave looking fellow on the left). I dutifully visited Rusty’s MySpace, not expecting much.

Boy, was I in for a pleasant surprise.

I’ve listened to so many baaaad MySpace bands and singers, for it’s usually the hang-out of poorly mixed music, and more often than not, poorly arranged and performed as well. (This definition of course does not apply to Mark Saul’s MySpace site, or any of those associated with my disgustingly talented older brother)

Of course, I could just be a musical snob.

However, despite my MySpace snobbery I’ll be the first to admit that to every rule, there is an exception. And Rusty Gunson is most definitely the exception. You need to listen to this guy. Click here for some ear-candy. I’m not going to gush here in public about the quality of his music - it really does speak for itself.

He’s got me on fiddle, and another wonderful musician - Clare - playing cello. And we get to wallow in rich double string harmonies with the vocals.

I swear, I’d forgotten how much I’ve missed playing with other stringed instruments until now.

So thankyou, Gumtree, for helping my musical life back into the land of the living!

Mad mad month…

November is supposed to be a bit of a “calm before storm” month. Things are supposed to be relatively placid, before the big run up to christmas and the New Year. I guess that’s why so many people decide to plan their events, set project goals, and have babies in November. And you know what this does? It makes November almost crazier than December.

D’you have any idea how hard it is to plan a birthday celebration in November? Not only are you competing with all the OTHER November babies (damned Scorpios - there’s not enough room on this planet for all of us) for the four prime birthday celebratory weekend slots, but you’re also trying to juggle your schedule around all the parties, gigs, and generally ludicrously fun stuff that’s available for do-age in November.

And then add into the equation the National Novel Writing Month, and you’ve got yourself one helluva busy time.

What’s that?

What do you mean, “what’s National Novel Writing Month?” It’s only, like, THE biggest event in the writers calendar. Who cares who gets the Pulitzer Prize? Who cares who the Booker, Hugo or Nebula Prizes go to? Nobel Prize for literature? Feh!

The National Novel Writing Month (or NaNoWriMo to the cool kids - yep, that’s me) is a month where you challenge yourself to write a Novel. In a month. Hence, y’know, “Novel Writing Month”. The goal is to get to 50,000 words by the end of November, using any dirty wordcount tricks you know of. Superfluous adjectives? Do it! Crappy verbose dialogue? You bet!

There’s a website and a forum that you can sign up to, and an mailing list to subscribe to, and pep-talks from famous authors to coax you up along the way. Last weekend there was an email in my inbox from one of my very favorite authors, Neil Gaiman (who wrote and executively produced that stunning movie, Stardust - that movie deserves its own blog entry. Patience, children.)

And Neil said some wonderful things to us, and I am again inspired to write write WRITE!

I may have mentioned in a previous entry that I’ve been playing a bit of World of Warcraft (just a bit!) and this has been my inspiration. Well, World of Warcraft, and Justin Long the actor. I cast him in my book. Why? Cause he’s cute, and cause I can! *wicked grin*

(An aside - if you’re wondering at any point as to why I’m dwelling at all on my obsession with playing video games, then I should make mention of the fact that this blog was brought to you by our friendly sponsors… Click the links to find out who )

The story’s a tawdry romance about two people who play waaaay too much WoW - romances involve copious superfluous adjectives, and boost the word count through the roof! Here’s what I mean:

“Her eyes shone huge with a blue so deep it was almost violet. And when she’d raised those eyes to his with that tiny smile on her lips, he felt time stop and stretch out into eternity in that one moment. That one glance had him fascinated with the ruby fullness of her lips, and the smoky eyeshadow which made her eyes smoulder with promises he could never hope to deserve.”

-Charlotte’s as yet unnamed tawdry romance novel

But writing a novel is hard. You gotta keep at it, day after day. This month though, I’ve been making sure I keep up with my “research” - in order to get more inspiration about WoW, I have to PLAY it of course!

Through WoW (and to a certain extent, through the inimitable Zelda) I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m just an addictive type. I’ve always been slightly obsessed with playing computer games. And if there’s no computer around - like that marathon train ride Ubiquitous Jessie and I took through China, we’ll inevitably find some card game to play (UNO was our game of choice then, but bring on the computerized UNO, I say - is that really sad of me?)

Aaanyway, they give us a word-count-schedule, which it’s ideal to stick to. The goal is 1,667 words, every day, for the month of November. Yes, it would have been ideal indeed if I’d just stuck to that word count. Cause then I’d not have been a whopping 22,000+ words behind schedule. We should have written 30,000 by last weekend. I’m on just over 8k. I’ve come to the conclusion that all research and no writing makes Charlotte a Not-Very-Prolific-Writer. So no more “research” unless I really need it.

Honest.

So why, you ask, am I blogging to you, lovely reader, rather than just writing?

Ciao.

Hunting…

what’s the big deal?

I’m sure that a lot of you have heard of that magical place called World of Warcraft (known to them that’s cool as “WoW”). Some of you may have even visited there. It’s been featured on South Park, and countless YouTube videos about people who live their lives through it. They find their future spouses while they’re battling evil kobolds, they have entire social groups around quests, and I’ve even heard about groups gathering and having virtual funerals to honour friends who have died in real life.

Here’s a bit of mindless diversion which gives you an idea of what World of Warcraft looks like, in a funny wee song about what the internet is REALLY for:

Anyway, long story short, I decided the other day to see what all the hullabaloo was about. I signed up for a free 10-day trial, and then embarked on the marathon task of downloading all the files and patches needed to actually run the game - almost 7GB of them!! It took about 24 hours of setting downloads going, and then coming back after work or after a good night’s sleep, but eventually I actually got to, you know, play the game!

I invented a character - a fiesty warrior type with black hair and long legs and a face like Faith from Buffy, and called her Palinea - a good fantasy name, a name that’s been created with little thought apart from how it might sound phoenetically.

Then I let Palinea loose on the region of Thunderhorn, in the realm of Azeroth.

Are we in Geek Nirvana yet?

Aaaanyhoo. It’s a relatively easy thing to do to get out your sword and start hacking at things - it’s kinda the default action for a warrior in WoW. As I was wandering around (in the virtual world) trying to work out what I was supposed to do (instruction manuals? pah!), I came across a little bunny. It was totally unafraid of me, and I thought I’d randomly click on it and see what happened.

Lo and behold, out comes my sword, and without even meaning to, I smite the poor little beastie. It gave a little squeak, and suddenly the little caption which described it when I clicked on it (which before had said something like “fluffy bunny”) read “corpse - fluffy bunny: skinnable”.

How bad did I feel? I’d just killed a bunny. It was a very cute bunny too.

But it was just a virtual bunny. It was just lines of code, which changed from one state to another. I can’t even kill a virtual rabbit witout feeling bad.

So with that in mind, I was walking along this morning on my way to work, and saw this plastered to the back of someone’s car:

I’m sorry, but I just don’t get it. What’s so great about hunting? Culling, I can understand - if an animal population gets out of control, then it starts causing damage to its environment (I mean, just look at humans!) so culling is a neccessity sometimes. But hunting? For sport?

I’ll just never understand it, but that’s cause I feel bad even when I kill a virtual rabbit. I never really get how people can switch off their guilt when they cause the death of a REAL life

Highland games a-hoy!

More jetsetting with the Mark Saul Band

Here we go folks - after almost 18 months of no touring or playing with (or even SEEING) my beloved boys in Mark’s band, we’ve been booked to do a show at a highland games in January.

“Highland games in January?!” you splutter, “isn’t Scotland a bit cold to be thinking about anything other than curling up infront of the fire in January?”

Well, yes. Yes, it is. Scotland in January is coooooold. Bloody cold. But that would only worry us if the Highland Games were in Scotland - but they’re not!!

No, dear friends, we have been invited to play somewhere far more clement - WE’RE GOING TO FLORIDA, BABY! Yep, highland games in Florida, land of white linen suits and alligators and shuttle launches and disneyworld…

Suffice it to say, we’re a little excited about the whole thing, I can assure you. I can’t think of anything I could use more than a week of sunshine and funky moosak with m’boys, to escape the chill of Scottish Winter.

Reconstructing old books

one word at a time

I know I’ve not been the most forthcoming blogger recently. This comes about kinda as a result of not not leading a particularly interesting life recently (apart from the odd gig with jetsetting musicians, that’s always fun), and partly as a result of the hundreds of spam comments I have to wade through daily to keep this blog artificial-meat-free.

I’ve tried a few different antispam plugins for Wordpress, but stacks still seem to get through despite the word blacklist I’ve been growing as more spam comes in - words like aderall, amoxicylln, diazepam and hundreds more - mostly prescription drugs.

Anyway, I read today about a new kind of CAPTCHA developed by Carnegie Mellon University. What’s CAPTCHA, you might ask? Well, to quote the reCAPTCHA website, a CAPTCHA (Completely Automated Turing Test To Tell Computers and Humans Apart) is a program that can tell whether its user is a human or a computer. You’ve probably seen them before — colorful images with distorted text at the bottom of Web registration forms. CAPTCHAs are used by stacks of websites to prevent abuse from “bots,” or automated programs usually written to generate spam. No computer program can read distorted text as well as humans can, so bots cannot navigate sites protected by CAPTCHAs.

Anyway, a team have been digitizing old books (and they only have about 100 million left to go!), using scanning and OCR - Optical Character Recognition. But OCR isn’t perfect - about one word in ten is mis-read, and the only way to check the accuracy is to have a human actually read the scanned word, and verify the correct spelling.

What reCAPTCHA’s all about is using humans across the globe to decipher the illegible words as part of their everyday internet experience. The wonderful thing about this particular CAPTCHA is that it presents you with two words: one is already known by the system, but the other is a scanned word from an old book which can’t be read by a computer - either because the ink is smudged, the page is damaged, or because the book is just. Plain. Old.

So I’ve introduced reCAPTCHA into my website - let’s see if it cuts down on spam. If it does, then I’ll relax some of my other antispam measures, and let new people post new comments immediately. If I can ever find anything useful to talk about.

So just remember, every time you see a reCAPTCHA square a bit like the one on the comments page for this post, you could use it to help contribute to the monumental task of preserving the history of the written word.