CAPTCHAs don’t prove you’re human – they prove you’re American (2017)

Re:CAPTCHAs don’t prove you’re human – they prove you’re Ame... by kodisha on Friday November 27, 2020 @06:26AM (#25227750)

Around 2015, or so I was visiting Boston during some really cold winter (was -10 outside)

We were at the office, went out to wait for a bus, waited for 15 minutes, and since it was freezing we decided to go back inside and get uber/taxi.

I pulled my laptop out of the backpack, tried to turn it on - it was dead.

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Re:CAPTCHAs don’t prove you’re human – they prove you’re Ame... by MaxBarraclough on Friday November 27, 2020 @06:44AM (#25227846)

Lithium batteries don't like extreme temperatures. Is it possible to make a laptop that copes ok with extreme temperatures?

edit Apparently the Toughbook is able to cope with -16°C. Wonder how they do it.

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Re:CAPTCHAs don’t prove you’re human – they prove you’re Ame... by tzs on Friday November 27, 2020 @07:01AM (#25227949)

Some Toughbooks go to -25 C.

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Re:CAPTCHAs don’t prove you’re human – they prove you’re Ame... by kodisha on Friday November 27, 2020 @07:01AM (#25227948)

Nope, the entire laptop was dead. Booted into some black screen of death, with glitches.

I never saw something like that before or after that.

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Re:CAPTCHAs don’t prove you’re human – they prove you’re Ame... by chithanh on Friday November 27, 2020 @07:45AM (#25228250)

Possibly condensing water caused some transient short circuit. If your laptop survived, you were lucky.

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Re:CAPTCHAs don’t prove you’re human – they prove you’re Ame... by hinkley on Friday November 27, 2020 @08:05AM (#25228370)

Kids these days.

Anybody remember when rental movies had warnings about letting them warm up before playing them if they were exposed to cold temperatures?

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