#26213: PZ Myers — 05/26  at  06:16 PM
Hey, there's a magic word here. Maybe this is going to work.

#26221: — 05/26  at  06:42 PM
I kinda wish the damn magic word requirement hadn't been turned back on between the time I wrote my comment in the thread below and the time I pressed "Submit."

Lost the comment, had to try and re-create it. That'll teach me not to save everything before I try to post.

#26223: PZ Myers — 05/26  at  06:52 PM
Oops. Sorry. This is a fast-paced, fast-changing blog, you know. We have the capability to completely change the CPU behind it with a twitch of a cable, even, or with a sudden redirect in httpd.conf, they're somewhere else.

And someday we will -- people will be in mid-comment, and suddenly discover that they are on RaptureReady or Fafblog or PowerLine. The power, the power...sometimes it does go to my head.

#26236: decrepitoldfool — 05/26  at  08:25 PM
There are lots of reasons comments (and posts on my own blog) can get lost 'twixt the typin' and the submittin'. That's why I've gotten in the habit of typin' everything bigger'n a breadbox in a text editor and pastin' it in when it's ready.

#26237: — 05/26  at  08:54 PM
If you see this, it's working fine for me.

#26239: coturnix — 05/26  at  08:55 PM
"SimpleText", "Text Editor", "WordPad" and "Notepad" (depending on which computer I'm on) are my friends. MSWord tends to freeze on older Macs and requires disabling a bunch of automatic formatting thingies before typing.

#26240: ang6666 — 05/26  at  09:20 PM
You realize this means I have to make sure I can leave a comment again! (just noticed tho that it doesn't seem to carry on into the column ... that is a good thing!)

#26249: — 05/26  at  10:09 PM
Hallooo, hallooo ... (tap, tap, tap) is this thing on. Oh, there it goes.

I have seen the word, and it is GOOD, sayeth the lord.

#26266: — 05/27  at  03:21 AM
Well, given the fact that I got one spam message through a comment e-mail (unless there really is a commentor named "free business grants" who felt the need to let you know that he loved your blog), I can only say that I'm happy that you have turned the protection back on.

The idea of suddenly being a Powerline, on the other hand, is
the stuff nightmares are made of.

#26270: Alon Levy — 05/27  at  04:21 AM
The solution to your problem with MSWord, Coturnix, is not to use an older Mac - and preferably not to use a Mac at all.

#26280: coturnix — 05/27  at  06:28 AM
Well, my Gateway died more than two months ago. I got a G3 which died in two days. In the meantime I am using a 10-year old PowerMac. The G3 is now fixed - I'll go and pick it up tonight. I also got a great deal on another Gateway which I'll pick up on Wednesday. If everything goes OK, you'll see me double my blogging very soon!e

#26285: Alon Levy — 05/27  at  07:26 AM
I have no idea what a G3 or a G5 is. I'm monolingual in x86/MHz.

#26287: PZ Myers — 05/27  at  08:06 AM
Eww. You're speaking vile heresy here now, Alon.

#26293: Alon Levy — 05/27  at  09:22 AM
At middle school they used Macs with OS 9, which was incomprehensible and inconvenient to this Windows user accustomed to maximized windows and taskbar icons. I've hated Macs since then.

#26303: Ken Cope — 05/27  at  10:33 AM
X86 v OSX!!! A religious war on pharyngula? <Sulu>Oh my. </Sulu

#26305: coturnix — 05/27  at  10:47 AM
Oh, no! Not this fight! Not here! I am totally egalitarian. I usually have one of each at home, and certainly a few of each in the lab. Each is better for some applications. I prefer blogging on a PC mainly because of Halo Picassa. I have to use Mac for data analysis as a program I use/need does not exist for PCs. At home, my wife and son prefer PCs, my daughter and I prefer Macs, but nobody is really exclusive or has religious feelings about it. My brother is an ultra-Mac-ian, though....

#26308: PZ Myers — 05/27  at  10:58 AM
Geez. Don't you know all us latte-sippin', volvo-drivin', godless lefty-liberal-progressive types who root for the environment and feminism and peace are required to use artsy-fartsy Macs? It's part of the image, man. You're going to get kicked out of the club.

Macs are what set us apart as bold individualists on the edge! That's why we all have to use them.

#26318: — 05/27  at  11:41 AM
I had a lot of trouble trying to post last night.

Some of it may have been my ISP, which kept knocking me off line, but at least part was the magic word device.

If you lose the word, you no longer get a new one by hitting refresh.

#26319: PZ Myers — 05/27  at  11:43 AM
Uh-oh. You mean the word is disappearing again? Is anyone else having this problem?

#26343: — 05/27  at  01:01 PM
Not me.

#26345: ACW — 05/27  at  01:05 PM
What happened to the cool biojargon check-words? I miss "allele" and "cytokynin". Now we get things like "made" and "here".

#26348: PZ Myers — 05/27  at  01:20 PM
They'll be back, once everything is functioning reliably.

#26390: — 05/27  at  06:19 PM
Yes, the word is disappearing.

It disappears (or at least in one instance, it disappeared) between the preview and the submit.

After previewing, I hit submit and got a message (didn't copy it exactly) that I needed to copy the displayed word. Only it wasn't displayed.

In the old version, I was not using preview, so I don't know how new this glitch is. But in the old program, there were times when the magic word would not show. I could get one by hitting refresh.