Another solution ... fire up a text editor, and compose your post offline in the text editor beforehand, if you're posting something important or lengthy.

This way, you have chance [1] to subject the post to proofreading before committing yourself to posting, and [2] save a copy in case your Internet connection malfunctions, and loses your post in transit.

Even for some short posts it's a good idea, if you know your Internet connection is less than ideally reliable.

I'm tempted to ask at this juncture, in which band a word I encountered in a recent scientific paper would fall ... the word in question being myristoylation, which has attracted the attention of scientists studying the mechanisms by which the common cold exerts its evil influence.

An overview can be read here, and those capable of understanding the scientific paper can read it here.

Meanwhile, back to the birds ...

One bird that you are advised never to take on as a pet, unless you are seriously dedicated, is the Moluccan Cockatoo. Lovely to look at, but 'high maintenance' doesn't begin to describe them in captivity.

Basically, these are avowedly social birds, to the point of needing constant stimulation round the clock, either from you, or from another (and preferably more than one other) Moluccan Cockatoo. If they're not given this, they become neurotic. Which manifests itself in ear-splitting screeching fits.

How ear-splitting, may I hear you ask? Try one hundred and thirty five decibels. These are birds whose sound output can rival a 747 on takeoff, as heard in close proximity to the runway. In their native habitat, Moluccan Cockatoos calling to each other can be heard one and a half miles away.

If you want to provide these birds with proper care, you are looking at building an aviary big enough to allow 12 of them to move about without being cramped, with a mix of foliage shelter areas and free flight paths.  Add up the capital cost of the birds, plus the aviary that will keep them happy, and you're looking at heavy duty financing. The aviary needed will be pretty much a civil engineering project (with associated costs), and finding someone who can supply you with 12 Moluccan Cockatoos (here in the UK, that's £5,000 a pop, so £60,000 goes on the birds alone), and by the time you've finished setting this up, you'll have blown enough money to pay for a 5 bedroomed house with double integral garages, and a pair of Ferraris to occupy the garages. If you can't write out a cheque for £3 million without worrying about the bills afterwards, don't bother, leave them in the wild.

Here's what a Moluccan Cockatoo looks like:

I aim to please fellow bird fans

I'm surprised that it's still the case that French comes first. Spanish would be far more useful to most people, especially given that there are about five times as many Spanish as French speakers in the world.

This is a hangover from the past geopolitics of Europe. France was historically a major political and military power, right through to the early 20th century, and today maintains much of that status courtesy of being a nuclear power and one of the five Permanent Members of the UN Security Council. Spain, however, suffered a systemic decline in its influence after the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588, but the real killer from Spain's point of view was the Thirty Years' War. France, despite being a nominally Catholic country at the time, sided with the Protestant Alliance, partly because of threats from the then Habsburg Empire, and partly because Spain sought to consolidate its Dutch interests, leading to Spain siding with the Habsburg Empire and its leader, the intolerant and militaristic Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II. Ferdinand II's attempt to impose Roman Catholicism upon other European nations, right in the middle of the Reformation, led to the start of the Thirty Years' War, and Spain's gamble on siding with Ferdinand II cost the country dearly in terms of prestige and power. France, by contrast, emerged from that war as a major political and military power, alongside a newly independent Netherlands (having freed itself from Spanish dominion), a newly ascendant Sweden, and the continued naval presence of Britain. Spain made up for its losses in Europe, by building an empire overseas in Africa and the Americas, but the War of The Spanish Succession dealt another blow. Various other intrigues (including being shafted by Napoleon Bonaparte) added further to Spain's geopolitical woes, though France suffered its own setback around the same time with the Battle of Trafalgar.

Basically, Spain developed an unfortunate habit of choosing its military interventions badly for 400 years, heavy-handed administration of its colonies leading to independence uprisings not helping matters. So, despite its colonial activity resulting in over 600 million modern-day Spanish speakers, a large number of them reside in countries where other linguistic options exist. The USA, for example, is a majority English speaking political entity, and as a corollary, there is relatively little requirement for visitors to master Spanish, and some Latin American countries also have significant English-speaking cohorts (Argentina being a perhaps surprising example, along with Chile).

Had Spain made better choices, and remained a major geopolitical force, its language would almost certainly have been more frequently taught in UK schools. French and German classes in UK schools reflect relatively recent Imperial concerns, and the balance of power over the past 200 years.

The word plenum sees frequent use in engineering. Such as plenum chamber - in the world of automotive engineering, this is a large air box used to ensure equal distribution of air pressure to cylinders in a supercharged or turbocharged car. It also appears in rocket engineering, air conditioning units, church organs and a number of other applications.

I actually thought that viz was a computer term that meant virtual.

Anyway, I have confirmation that Viz is the actual teammate but I am still left wondering what name Viz is short for.
The answer is probably " none of your business " which is fair enough.

Viz is actually a contraction of videlicet, which itself is a contraction of videre licet, "it is permitted to see". Originally used to denote in print a revelation from a confidential source, its meaning has shifted to denote any explanatory exposition, with the inference that said exposition provides evidence for a postulate being advanced. Hence its frequent use in, for example, older generation mathematics textbooks, prior to the presentation of a proof.

Merriam-Webster is unusually informative with respect to the matter of the "z" appearing in viz. Originally, in mediaeval manuscripts, a special symbol was used to denote contraction of Latin words ending in -et, and this special symbol bore some resemblance to the letter 'z', and was thus eventually morphed into a 'z' over time. The symbol in question appears in this Unicode chart, in the form of two variations, given the Unicode code numbers 0xA76A and 0xA76B (note: hexadecimal notation! The decimal codes are 42858 and 42859 respectively). The symbol was originally an Arabic '3', but which morphed over time to resemble 0x0292 (decimal 658) from this character chart, which sees modern use in the International Phonetic Alphabet.

More on this subject can be derived by reading this article on scribal abbreviations, which cause no end of headaches for scholars deciphering mediaeval manuscripts, as use of these was frequent, but not subject to any consensus standardisation. A fairly lengthy tome devoted to this subject can be downloaded for free from here, for those who wish to delve into this voluminous subject matter further. An insight into the Byzantine nature of the subject can be obtained from here.

The gun lobby has bought two of our three branches of government.

Shouldn't you be alarmed that any lobby has bought any part of your government?

Isn't that what governments are supposed to do, if they're operating properly - namely, fending off attempts to buy them?

Because if corporations can just walk in and wave a cheque book, then buy policies to suit them, regardless of what the electorate wants, you don't have a democracy any more by definition. What you have is a plutocracy. And that, even more than the gun fetish that infects your country, should scare you a lot.