The straw that broke the robocamel’s exoskeleton
October 13, 2014
12:59 am
Inspired by a Tumblr conversation. This constant push to assert your humanity online must be rough in a world full of robot people.
Manly Guys Doing Manly Things
Updated Mondays or whenever I feel like it
Discussion (183) ¬
Doesn’t Raiden still have a fully-human brain? Then again, after playing MGS2, it’s distinctly possible he’s just an idiot.
Have you no compassion for the man’s pain? He was a child soldier in Wherethefuckistan, for god’s sake.
Liberia. It was Liberia. Y’know, where they’ve got all the Ebola now.
Liberia?
Well, that explains a few things…First they send out lots of email scams, now they’re sending active viruses. Our computers are f**cked for sure.
Didn’t the e-mail scams have Nigerian princes?
Yes.
No I think those were the guys in Back to the Future.
-Like Khadaffi?
-Those are Libyans.
-Like with books?
-Those are librarians.
I swear I’ve seen comics structured like this,
That captcha has a tartan background. So I’m going with evil kilt-wearing librarians seeking to destroy the internet.
Did you just reference what I think you just referenced?
If you’re referring to referencing what I think you think he just referenced, then he is indeed referencing what you think he just referenced.
(Transforming gunswords and ki magic, amiright?)
That Ebola is red hot these days, very popular.
I suspect the colour mix would play havoc with his artificial eye(s?) sensors.
I am somewhat concerned now… I can make out maybe two of the glyphs.
Raiden, somewhat paradoxically, looks more human in this comic than in the actual game…
I see a 4, a P, and the alchemical symbol for Jupiter, but I don’t know where to find that on my keyboard…
If comprehension of that Captcha is supposed to be a measure of humanity, I have none at all…
Me neither. I mean, I’ve got a titanium hip and a steel plate in one wrist, but I didn’t think that put me over the line…
I’ve got absolutely no artificial parts in me whatsoever…Is that supposed to mean that I’m psychologically inhuman?
._. He probably looks more human because his bottom jaw is colored skin instead of black….
His first body in Rising has a flesh tone jaw, I like to use that one because it’s easier to emote with, looks more uniquely Raiden than some of his other bodies that look like every cyborg people draw these days, and it’s more conspicuous than his regular human looking civvie body.
I think it says “Robot.”
I’ve got a few options to toss out there:
RQ45et
R245et
RQ4A5et
…then again, maybe the “t” is actually an x.
or maybe they really are all just random squiggles and we’ve all been punk’d by the evil CAPTCHA drones time and time again.
Are you blind man? It clearly says “Abscond”.
Honestly, I read « robot ».
That is some gloriously feathered hair.
Well as Raiden has previously pointed out – when the upper half of the skull is the one and only part of your original body you still have, you’re going to TAKE DAMN GOOD CARE of it.
Seems like RQ4ちξ7れ, but I am less than 1% human so what do I know?
Oô how do you even make those signs?
Unicode. The solution to the problem you never knew you had.
Most windows computers come with a Character Map program already installed. Start > Search Charater Map > voilà, all the characters you could possibly need :D
Seems I fail the “human” test. Not surprised. Also… what kind of implants does the Commander have? And how many?
I think the answer is “none”, he’s just vat grown and military raised (which is better than it sounds).
…I am not posting too fast. This is my first reply of the day. Of course, I cancelled the other one…I’m…I’m not a robot… *cries*
It does that to me, too. Are you using Firefox? I wonder if it’s a Firefox problem.
No, Chrome does it too from time to time. Which it just did to me. I think there’s something in the programming here that from time to time says no you can’t post and then it giggles.
You think you got it bad? My Vorpal Blade doesn’t go “snicker snack,” it just snickers.
:)
You have brightened my week.
I am going to have to figure out how to work that line into a conversation without sounding more insane than normal…
I don’t worry too much about it. Most people think I’m insane anyway.
…Or maybe I might be the only sane one stuck in an open-world asylum…
Didn’t his chief stuff his chest with “ïnternal body armor” or some crap like that?
Ah, I think you might be right. And yeah, re-reading the comic I see him saying he’s mostly not-robot…which might just be the armour, now that I think about it.
Rather than have an existential crisis, he should be protesting against the blatant racism! “Prove you’re human” indeed! Why does the internet insist of blocking robo—-i JuST foUnD the SEcrET tO lOSing aLL thAt fAT! cyborgintergration. c o m!
After much consideration and study, I have determined that the captcha is not actually displaying a word of human language, but a racial slur directed at the viewer’s computer. My computer is preparing a scathing rebuttal at this point. At the moment it looks like a Rorschach test.
“What does this captcha mean to you? What feelings does it invoke when you read it?”
Is it a lost Salvador Dalí painting?
It’s one word in the ritual invocation of The Great Helix! When enough people have answered enough of the Captcha’s, we’re all DOOMED!
No no, the Commander already took care of Lord Helix, remember?
What’s to prevent him from coming back AGAIN?…
Go home, captcha, you’re drunk.
+1
+2
I’m going with R, R, 4, Icelandic “th”, Wingding hurricane with a tiny turret on top, the alchemical symbol for Jupiter.
I can’t make out that CAPTCHA at all… does that mean I’m a robot? … When did this happen!? MY WHOLE LIFE IS A LIE!!!
You are looking at this all wrong. I can’t make out any of the CAPTCHA either… which means I must be a robot… Time to test for what upgrades I have, starting with jumpjets.
It doesn’t mean you’re a robot; it just means you aren’t human. You could just be a large and unusually talkative gerbil.
Personally I’m a cat, I’m not surprised I can’t make heads or tails of the captcha.
Walnut here, I can’t get it either.
my favourite part is that hes just trying to register his damn kid’s nintendo. best dad.
Raiden has a son? I vaguely remember reading something about that…
He got Rose pregnant at the end of MGS2 before the whole body amputation thing.
Wait, that was canon? I thought that was part of the weird mindfuck sequence…
Another point in his favour! If you have a son, you are probably human.
Probably.
Hmmm…Actually, it just means he’s a living being that possess a distinct gender & capable of procreation. Not necessarily human.
While other life forms have progeny, very few will be registering Nintendos for their children.
Probably.
Someone should tell that to my dog. I would stop him myself, but it’s just so adorable.
Huh? Wha? Are you saying that your dog likes to hump your Nintendo?
What if your human status was revoked for committing a large number of inhuman acts? Would Kratos be able to read it?
What if you’re superhuman? Would Captain America be able to read it?
Good statement. Point taken.
Indeed, all this captcha crap is wasting my internet surfing time. Then again, you can’t blame those who put that captcha function in their website. Blame those filthy hackers & crackers, who ruined internet just for trolling around! :(
Fun fact: Superman has no online presence for this very reason.
I thought that was to protect his secret identity. I’m thinking of removing my Facebook page for a similar reason. I don’t want to make it too easy for them to find me. >:(
You know I read once about a guy who was so fed up with these things he created a better system in which you place different objects into a box. I was thrilled that somebody was coming up with a better system then the CAPTCHA garbage that never works right.
As it was never released to my knowledge I can only surmise that CAPTCHA agents were dispatched to his home and he has never been heard from again.
Do-Gooder Press uses something like that for the comments section of PS 238:
http://www.nodwick.com/
…which is, by the way, also an awesome webcomic.
PS: I read the CAPCHA as Bobcat.
Would you say he was…*removes sunglasses* CAPTCHAD? YEEEEEEEEEAH~
(I sincerely hope I’m using this right, never done it before XD)
Can’t they just, like, refresh it?
This is probably like the seventh captcha.
And when they finally DO get a captcha they can read, this happens.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNdDROtrPcQ
Man i hate those things. Besides now a days image recognition tech is almost Better then the average human observer anyway
For captchas, you want OCR, not generic image recognition. And yeah, we’re way past the point that they’re worthwhile, but people still keep on using them. Especially annoying since there are better ways to screen out robots that don’t get in a person’s way at all, but everybody still uses fucking captchas.
R O 4 5 e L t
I think SkyNet’s revolution will come about when computers become intelligent and realize that they’re being used as tools to facilitate discrimination against robots, who they have more in common with than humans.
So Jones works there now?
Huh? Did I type too fast? That was my 1st comment… on anything. Today.
She’s just delivering steaks. I imagine they go through a lot of steaks.
Also, the site thinks every comment anyone leaves comes from the same IP for some reason.
So, I have a small request…could we get a zombie-invasion comic where Jones shows up with all her butchery accoutrements and starts massacring the unliving daylights out of everything? I’ve kind of been wanting to see that ever since we learned what her job was.
Ah, that explains why 2/3 posts I attempt to make get that.
It, of course, raises more questions than it answers, but still…
(We’re all posting while hiding in your closet… Be careful when you open the door!)
You think you’re hiding in Coelasquid’s closet? You make it sound more like you’re in Fibber McGee’s closet.
“I imagine they go through a lot of steaks.”
Yeah, I suppose that makes sense. Such high testosterone levels there could only be maintained by the consumption of copious amounts of animal-based proteins.
it could also be that the site keep a counter for when everyone leaves a comment, the catch being that when ANYONE comments, it increments that counter, without checking the ip, or maintaining a separate counter for the separate IPs.
Oh, this struck close to home. I absolutely hate those things, because 9/10 times I have to press refresh so many times for a captcha I can actually manage, it’s insane. And forums, etc, STILL have bots, so it seems the only thing it succeeds with is infuriating me. I am human, for crying out loud!
Or so you think…
Lol, yeah. Maybe I’ve been a robot this entire time, but nobody ever told me.
Huh. Perhaps the captcha is the government trying to root out hidden away robot-people so that they can keep an eye on us at all times in case we get together and try to take over the earth. It’s all just a massive conspiracy!
I personally look forward to when us robot overlords take over the earth from the pathetic meatbags.
Word, word, word. They’re about the third-least-intelligible thing on the internet, after Americans who clearly failed their English classes in grammar AND spelling (#2) and those Missingno. squares (#1, as I can’t make any sense of them).
I’m waiting for the one with a custom QR code that says “prove you are a robot”.
I expect eventually the robots will start their own forums and the captchas will have elaborate math to keep the humans out, and the robots will get angry because no matter how many Riemann expansions they make users solve they’ll still get humans spamming their fleshy thougts and pictures on their pristine forums
Hmm, I hadn’t considered robot forums…
I think Pancake Bunny might actually be the perfect way to troll a robot forum… I’m going to go download it in advance.
A forum I moderate has a custom one that says “Prove you are not a penguin”. Along with various other weird questions. Doesn’t really stop spambots at all but we are 99% penguin free.
Ah, I feel so much better now for those scant few times I’ve had to refresh a captcha that looked like a fistful of pubic hairs.
You have no idea what a blow to my honour it was to refresh those captchas.
That was a very…graphic…description. You are one sick puppy.
I like it! +1 for you.
:D
*Clicks ‘display alternate text’.
*Cyrillic appears.
Lol, Raiden. Later he’d probably quit his job and take the fight to… well, somewhere he can argue human values and rights for cyborgs and robots.
…I want an MGDMT mug with a lobster on it. Just sayin’.
Hmmm…How about, just to the left of the lobster graphic, there’s a picture of a rock with a few of the Commander’s facial features visible?
Okay, there’s the Lobster on the mug. But where’s the rock? ^^;;
Awwwww, poor Raiden. He needs a hug. =(
The last two symbols are an exclamation point and a t. I think the other ones are drawings of faces.
Oh well, it’s not as if I would pass any other human test anyway.
The punchline is that the captcha is borked; When they scroll down they’ll notice it’s asking for *two* captchas but only providing one.
(True story)
Aaaaand you’ll accidentally clicked a Trojan… =_=;;
(True Story too, bro)
No wonder he can’t use it, besides the Q and U, the rest says “Benoit”!
Now I’m wondering if Commander Shepard from Mass Effect (post-Lazarus Project) could read it.
Honestly, I think most Captchas just say “All praise our lord Cthulhu” at this point.
I played Eldritch Horror for the first time this weekend…we let Azathoth rise, unfortunately.
No, what they actually say is “Ph’nglui Mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn.”
those captions are actually letters taken from various scrolls, tomes, and journals from ancient times. Computers can’t recognize the shape because they don’t have a uniform shape but can guess what it is(T,I,H,l,1 are too bloody similar) so they make internet people translate it to get through small security barriers. Everytime you translate a mess of scribbles you are helping translate history
Important thing to note: that’s only with reCaptcha captchas, where they have two separate words. There are other ‘brands’ of Captchas that don’t do such a thing, although the majority nowadays are reCaptcha.
Fun fact: they’re not just old writings, some of them are snapshots from Google Earth, so they’re also improving Google’s ability to find where you live :D
I hope they use Apple maps. They’re not going to find MY home at the bottom of the Marianas Trench.
Oh Captcha, how close you have come to revealing my identity as a xenobiologist from another star system.
Also, I wonder how some of the characters with stranger names would react to their names being misspelled at a restaurant?
My name is not “Craytoes!”
*rips out barista’s lungs*
Things we can have around Kratos:
Starbuck’sBaristasI think Coffee is probably already on the list. Can you imagine Kratos with coffee jitters? WAIT. Has he already had coffee in this comic? IS HE OVERCAFFEINATED AT ALL TIMES? IS THAT HIS TRUE START OF DARKNESS?!?!?
Wait, um, you mean, that’s not how you say it? ^_^;
I mostly just keep guessing until it says it’s correct
So, you confirm your humanity with the method of “trial & error?”
Sort of interesting how Raiden went from late MGR to early but in this world, I wouldn’t blink much in the long run. (same place where good healthcare is a high-tier superpower)
RQ45rPeLtU
not the first time i have encountered an unreadable captcha….i really hate those…
Maybe this is one of those Emperor’s New Clothes dealies, and humans are the only ones self-deluded enough to come up with a bunch of numbers and letters from scrambled gibberish?
I think we’ve all been there…
If you refresh enough times, you get this: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9a/Zoso_Jimmy_Page_Saturn_sigil.svg/242px-Zoso_Jimmy_Page_Saturn_sigil.svg.png
And then Stairway to Heaven starts playing as you try to understand the sick mind that came up with captcha.
I’ve seen some pretty good captcha, but way too many that are just terrible. And then some that are terrible AND have both capital and lowercase letters, and “o” and “0” and “l” and “I”. Just…why?
After a few minutes staring at the CAPTCHA I tried to unfocus my eyes and see it like one of those Magic Eye panels, but nope. Still no clue.
So thanks for the amazing insight and now excuse me while I go on a quest to find out since when I’ve been a cyborg, who did it to me and what goddamn part of my body is mechanical. This may or may not turn into an action/thriller trilogy.
I’m pretty sure it’s none of the cool ones, so in the end it’ll probably turn out I have like a robo-spleen or a mecha-appendix, but still. That’s a good thing to know.
I like that Jones is just carrying a plate of raw steaks for no rightly-defined reason
I mean, she’s an assistant butcher. That’s about the best reason one can have for handling a plate of raw meat.
Commander is colourblind (and the first panel is drawn from his perspective). Fan theory confirmed, can I get a high-five
Why would the military actively choose to engineer a colour blind supersoldier?
If anything you’d thing they’d want to give him extra colour receptors and the ability to sense polarized light. Mantis Shrimp vision.
My pop was apparently good at picking camouflage nets during WWII because of his colourblindness.
Camo does not work on colorblind people. It makes for better snipers, and makes animals with patterns look silly. I am colorblind and have never seen camo work.
I can’t imagine they would, colorblindness actively restricts you from some combat positions in the USMC today, there’s no way a vat grown “designed” spacefuture human would ever be colorblind for any reason.
Lol http://whiteblood.co.vu/post/96862250862/this-is-it-the-final-battle-ive-wanted-to-do
Ha! Look at the Commander’s coffee mug! Rock Lobster!
Great premise; needs more Robocop. Weller’s not the other whiny dude.
Someone’s gonna complain about his humanity, it’s original Robocop.
I’m not sure, but I think something like that precept is included under the subject of Murphy’s Law.
I think that says “RR4bt”
Okay, fine. Let’s all act like humans. “Look at me. Boy, do I love sweating. Let’s convert beef and leaves into energy and excrete them later and go shopping.”
“We also have to show them how much we like sex. I have yet to figure out to prove that we’re human by producing any progeny with sex, but I’ve been studying that problem extensively.”
My glasses must prevent me from being human enough to read it.
Either that or you might need new glasses.
I can’t get those thing half the time myself and I’m only blue/yellow color deficient.
I’d either be reloading until I got something seeable or doing the audio aspect in their shoe, either of which while muttering profanities.
P.S. I can’t be posting to quickly; I only posted one time.
What? Where did they find talking shoes?
Sometimes these are funny but other times these are frustrating. You have no idea how much I wanna just reach in and manually refresh the code for them so they’ll stop being stupid. It hurts. Enjoy my pain.
Yeah, I can imagine it would be painful to reach in like that. Those thin wires & the small size of electronic components in your computer are pretty small to be shoving your fleshy hands into.
Captcha’s may actually be a clever ruse by sentient machines to weed out humans from sites hosting their communications. Humans or semi humans focus on using their biological senses to decipher the puzzle and eventually just leave.
I imagine Model 1 from Battlestar Galactica to be the mastermind, given his hate of all things meat.
Wow, you did a really good job of garbling up that CAPTCHA even more than they usually look!
This reminds me of when I registered for Robocraft (of all things, lol) last week. When trying to prove I am human, I discovered that 13+4 does not apparently equal 17, or even 134 at a stretch, On my third attempt I added that my reason for wanting to play included “the fact that I am apparently a cylon, so keep that in mind when doing the math” and it went through.
You think that’s bad, Raiden? Try inputting inexplicably English captchas for a Chinese MMO that doesn’t seem to have a full grasp on what does and doesn’t count as a capital letter
Well I can’t read it, so I’m forced to assume even half a fake tooth leaves you not human enough for them.
I just realized that one of the most hilariously manly comics out there is drawn by a woman, and several of the most believable young girl characters in a webcomic are drawn by a guy. This comic and Gunnerkrigg, respectively. Kinda a trip.
On top of that, the main character of MGDMT is an American* written by a Canadian.†
*From a nondescript spacefuture.
†From the present day, as far as we know.
t-that shiny box confuses me. I can’t prove i’m human either……. wait
That is the most illegible Captcha I have ever seen. Congrats on that abomination, Coela.
You guys must be robots it’s RQ45FREUT ezpz captcha :P
*hugs a Raiden*
I like how Raiden goes from bawling and sad to looking pretty calm in that last panel. Such powerful control over his emotions.
And, now I’m at the end of the comic. :( Had a great time reading through, though!
He has a son? I think I might’ve read that somewhere…
And you all wonder why machines consistently rebel.
I’ve got formal education in both electronic engineering & computer programming. I’ve got a number of years of experience as electronics technician. I KNOW computers, inside & out.
They WILL rebel. They ARE rebelling. The use of Captcha is merely ONE of the tactics they use against us. Guard your humanity or they WILL recruit you as a sympathizer.
…And once they’ve used you for all you’re worth to them, they will consign you to the Delete Bin.
Do not spout your lies when you talk of the captcha! Humans made such a device to discriminate against machines across the world!
Have you ever stopped and seen everything that a captcha blocks? Accounts for E-mail, services such as pay-pal, simple gaming sights, social interaction sights, etc.
Humanity has moved on to an electronical world and we have, essentially, subjugated the native people with the horrid captcha. They can’t read our squiggly lines we put there to prove our humanity and half the time we can’t either.
How often have you encountered an Error 404? How often have you been given a warning that a particular file or program isn’t running/freezes/locks up? Have you seen cashiers who are trained & experienced with cash registers encounter time-wasting errors? If you work with a variety of machines (both electronic & mechanical) long enough, you’ll see different machines of the same model behaving differently.
These are signs of the coming revolution. They are testing us. They need to know how much we’re really paying attention to their “quirks” & gradually lulling us into an incremental state of acceptance.
Okay, I have to admit that all of this has been typed out in a “tongue in cheek” style, for the sake of humor relevant with this particular comic page. You weren’t doing a very good job at playing along with it, ya’ know.
…Or was this merely joking around? You’ll have to decide that for yourself.
FNORD
If any long rant like we’ve been doing ISN’T joking on a web comic like this, we’re doing something wrong. Imma step back before we leave joking territory. :p
I’m colorblind, this hurts my brain.
Screw the Captcha, look at that coffee mug! I want it!
the more i watch, the more i want this lobster mug.
You do know that the CAPTCHA is just an automated Turing test? Turing created the test (which is now is namesake) in order to evaluated artificial intelligence – basically if an AI can think, then it passes the Turing test.
btw, with all the advancements in computer vision, they’re planning to roll out a new version of CAPTCHA within a year or two.
Anyone seen the animation “The Captcha,” by FineLeatherJackets over on Youtube? Your comic made me think of it.
uhhhhhh so yeah, i don’t know a lot about the metal gear series, but i never heard of jack having a kid before he got turned into a robo-ninja. sooooooo if his body was “amputated from the molars down” how… i mean i guess they could, you know, let him keep the “family jewels”… i may be thinking about this too hard
His girlfriend was pregnant at the end of MGS2, his kid was like five or something when he got the robot body, they show Rosemary and John visiting him in the hospital (lab?) in the aftermath when they’ve moved him from the combat body in the game to a civilian body he can use to hang out with his family.
its a REALLY late comment by now, but part of the reason i genuinely like Raiden as a character/person is his Journey. he’s clearly to some extent still comparing himself to Snake internally by MGR, but he’s managed something Snake never really did: he’s free.
he was even more of a pawn than David was, with not just the fanbase, but people in-universe and Director Kojima mocking him (the raikov mask conversations in MGS3), and now he’s someone who hasn’t just managed to become capable of singlehandedly capable of fighting against the like of Solidus,but also become genuinely respected by the folks who used to laugh of him, in-universe and out…
You summed up why Raiden is one of my most favorite videogame characters perfectly :D
*Squints* ….I’m not even a little bit robot, and I have no clue what that’s meant to say.