September 6, 2007
I'm subscribed to a handful of Google Groups, mostly sharing images around a common theme or interest. The people that coded the system are too clever by half, by which I mean they're morons.
I tend to check the images by middle-clicking them to open them in a new tab. Usually 10 to 12 at a time, so I can look at one while the rest load. Works like a charm.
Until some brain-damaged algorithm at Google decides I'm a bot or that my computer's been pwned. (Because the first thing a script kiddie does when conquering a computer is go to a single Google group and look at pictures. Retards.) At that point I get this friendly message:
We're sorry...
... but your query looks similar to automated requests from a computer virus or spyware application. To protect our users, we can't process your request right now.
And yadda yadda blah. Basically, they don't know what the hell they're doing. This frequently happens when their auto-thumbnailer, which previews the pictures in GMail, chokes and gives up forcing me to view every single picture full-sized to see which ones I like. In other words, their own incompetence causes the circumstance that highlights even more of their incompetence!
Once in a blue moon it throws a CAPTCHA at me, so I can prove I'm human. After doing that I go about my business, until their retarded checker decides that I must have turned into a bot within the last two minutes and cuts me off again.
So I've been locked out for the last half-hour or so now, waiting for their servers to decide I'm allowed back into their little playground, simply because they're incapable of dealing with tabbed browsing. They may want to ask around; a couple of their programmers on other projects may be familiar with the concept.
Maybe instead of adding half-assed star charts to Google Earth they should try making sure the stuff they already have works.
Edit: After getting tired of playing, "can I access my account now, assholes?" for 45 minutes I was finally able to get the stuff I was looking for after walking away from the computer for another 45 minutes. And after all that, there was nothing there that I wanted anyway. Dammit.
