Just to keep you informed of a couple of updates to the site:

1. Comment avatars! Now, if you have an avatar on file with a global avatar site such as Gravatar, it’ll show up next to your comment! Just make sure you use the same email address as one you have on file with the avatar site. If you don’t have one, the system will choose a default, but what fun is that?

2. The old Captchas only worked right about half the time. That’s the word you have to type in to prove you’re not a piece of crap spammer. Now, the Captcha used when commenting on articles more than seven days old–as well as to get my email address above–use the ReCaptcha system. Developed by the originators of the Captcha at CMU–the same place that gave us the word “bogosity”–this is a good robust solution, with extra coolness thrown in.

   Notice that it gives you two words to type in, unlike most Captchas. That’s because it isn’t just a spam checker. Various projects on the internet are working to digitize old books and make them online, but computers are only so good at turning scanned words into actual computer text. One of the words is a known word; the other is a word the computer can’t recognize. So if one word isn’t quite readable, make your best guess at it. It will be compared with the results of other users all over the internet and used to make these old books available online! How cool is that?

3. Just in case anyone wants even more information about me, I’ve uploaded a page of 101 Facts About Me. And I swear, they’re all true! Really!