Mr. Turing, I Give Up.

If a captcha is supposed to prove that I'm a human, I am apparently becoming less so with each new captcha I encounter.  It used to be that you could easily decern the letters in a captcha, and feel proud at your ability to do something computers can't do.  Those days seem to be numbered.  Here's a captcha that Google served me up today:

Is that "REAUTTERA" or "REOUTTERA"? Apparently, it's neither, which means I needed to  get very imaginative before finding the right answer. Actually I never did find the right answer. I failed two Google captchas in a row today. The first one was so twisted that I was basically taking a shotgun approach and trying any combination that seemed remotely similar.

I also tried the audio hint. That was even more distorted. I put headphones on and played the hint 10 times over, and I could not make out a single sylable. It was just like some sorta David Lynch sound track - creepy and probably meaningless.

We've known for years that computers were getting smarter.  Now, it seems their primary interest is in making me look dumb.