April Fools Site: Robots Only; No Humans

Posted April 1, 2022, 12:00 a.m.
Updated July 9, 2023, 4:04 p.m.

For April Fools Day 2022, Off on a Tangent became a “robots only” website that required you to fail a “CAPTCHA” test before viewing the site. You can see the prompt and how it worked by clicking here. Here’s the message that appeared on the site:

For security reasons, Off on a Tangent is now a “robots only” website. Human use of the site is prohibited. I’m sorry that it has come to this.
Visitors attempting to access the website will now be given a security prompt and will have to disprove their humanity by failing at least two “CAPTCHA” tests before being granted access.
I, for one, welcome our new robot overlords.

Scott Bradford has been putting his opinions on his website since 1995—before most people knew what a website was. He has been a professional web developer in the public- and private-sector for over twenty years. He is an independent constitutional conservative who believes in human rights and limited government, and a Catholic Christian whose beliefs are summarized in the Nicene Creed. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Public Administration from George Mason University. He loves Pink Floyd and can play the bass guitar . . . sort-of. He’s a husband, pet lover, amateur radio operator, and classic AMC/Jeep enthusiast.

Quotes

One of the best pieces of advice I’ve ever heard goes something like this: If you want success, figure out the price, then pay it.

Are introverts arrogant? Hardly. I suppose this common misconception has to do with our being more intelligent, more reflective, more independent, more level-headed, more refined, and more sensitive than extroverts.

The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction and the distinction between true and false no longer exist.

Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as the heritage of all men, in all lands, everywhere. Destroy this spirit, and you have planted the seeds of despotism around your own doors.

Whenever a separation is made between liberty and justice, neither, in my opinion, is safe.

When you run across dedicated Socialists, remember that the only difference between a Socialist and a Communist is in the method of takeover. The desire to seize monolithic control of society is the same in both.

According to the classic liberal-arts ideal, learning promises liberation, but it is not liberation from demanding moral ideals and social norms, or liberation to act on our desires—it is, rather, liberation from slavery to those desires, from slavery to self.

The first lesson from Cana is: ‘Aid yourself, and Heaven will aid you.’ Our Lord could have produced wine out of nothing, as He had made the world from nothing, but He willed that the wine servants bring their pots and fill them with water.

The power of the will does not extend to making opposites exist at the same time.

The Constitution was designed to keep government off the backs of the people.

Each person’s private trouble cannot be solved by a social revolution, because revolutions are destabilizing and dangerous.

Conscience has rights because it has duties.

Maturity is not a matter of age. You have matured when you are no longer concerned with showing how clever you are, and give your full attention to getting the job done right. Many never reach that stage, no matter how old they get.

We are not angels; that is why we should not be ‘spiritualists.’ We are also not animals; that is why we should not be materialists.

Fame is proof that the people are gullible.

If you want to be loved, be lovable.

Let us be neither dogs that do not bark nor silent onlookers nor paid servants who run away before the wolf. Instead let us be careful shepherds watching over Christ’s flock.

‘Stand on the other side from where the physics is happening’ is actually a good general rule for scientific equipment.

The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.

Those who seek absolute power, even though they seek it to do what they regard as good, are simply demanding the right to enforce their own version of heaven on earth. And let me remind you, they are the very ones who always create the most hellish tyrannies.

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