I was formerly an eyeglasses wearer. From about age 14 to a little over two years ago, I wore a very mild prescription lens. I had a very mild Myopia (Nearsightedness), I could see things closely unaided but distances needed sharpening for me.
A little over two years ago, I had inadvertently sat on my glasses hopelessly bending and distorting the fragile frame. I was pretty mad that I was stupid enough to leave them on a chair in the first place. Then I spent time being mad that I sat on a chair I RARELY SIT ON.
My anger turned to surprise the next day when venturing out into the world for the first time in a couple of decades without my visual aid. My distance vision, which needed the enhancement, seemed better. Not "20/20" mind you but, if this was all my glasses had needed to correct, why did I bother.
Not being able to see the chalkboard clearly in junior high school was a clear signal of upcoming (additional) social awkwardness. Nothing strikes fear in a young teenagers life than the need for glasses (or braces). Though even my feeble, hormone addled brain saw their need.
Now, "eons" later, I am able to function without them. Yes, my distance vision could still use a little sharpening. But, I am finding more and more I can read at a distance in a way I could not previously.
What has any of this have to do with an up close technology like the Internet? Well, I now find deficiency with close up, smaller characters. A sign of age to be sure, but a disappointment to my recently 'upgraded' vision.
Everyone who uses the Internet has certainly come across a Captcha challenge on some site or another. Usually in conjunction with registering to a forum or the final step in a downloading process.
A CAPTCHA is a program that protects websites against bots by generating and grading tests that humans can pass but current computer programs cannot. For example, humans can read distorted text as the one shown below, but current computer programs can't:
Although the above examples seem pretty innocuous, the ones I come across in daily forum activity exceed the above in deviousness. These tired, old 40 something eyes seem not up to the task of word twisting.
All CAPTCHA windows come with a refresh button. If you can't read the current challenge, click the refresh button for a new word set. My dilemma now starts when I wonder how many other web citizens must refresh the image 4-5 times before being able to decipher it.
I feel like a dinosaur even though I was sort of on the leading edge of personal computing, learning my skills in the first years of the 80's with Data Processing technical classes. Ah, the memories... writing code for 2 hours to produce a circle on the screen of an Apple II, with filled-in color ! Learning the rather limited/near obsolete technology of punch card encoding and finally... actual, connected to a central processor, PC data tasks.
I felt like an expert when I got my first PC and even more so when the Internet was a viable, surf-able entity. I now lament my wobbling vision as even newer frontiers are beginning to unfold web-wise.
MAYBE ... I need new glasses.
