So I just tried to throw a link up on StumbleUpon to, you know, something cool I found on the Internet. Couldn't log in to my account (actually, can't remember ever creating one but hey, I must have at some point.) Create an account...fine. Go through the usual CAPTCHA bullshit...fine (I guess). Create a password.
"Password is too weak". Well, maybe. It's an unguessable string of non-word letters but whatever. I substitute some numbers for letters. "Password is too weak". Still? OK, got a solution for that common obstacle too. I switch an "a" for an ampersand.
"Password can only contain numbers and letters".
WTF?
As far as I can work out, the only way to get a password that meets StumbleUpon's fairly unusual "strength" requirement is to arbitrarily uppercase some of the letters. So I do that. Now I have a password I'll never, ever remember, and suddenly I realise why logging on didn't work in the first place. I needed a password, that couldn't contain anything except numbers or letters, that was stronger than a meaningless string of numbers and letters. It reminds me of nothing so much as a line from the Simpsons - "I want all my groceries in one bag, but I don't want that bag to be heavy". Quite.
I wonder how many dead StumbeUpon accounts I've created and then been unable to get back in to in the past? Must be quite a few. Can't just be me. And why would I even care if someone went to the trouble of hacking my (now necessarilly one-time) StumbleUpon account anyway?
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