writing

Writing for the Machine: Hysteria among journalists

Last year, The New York Times published an article called "This Boring Headline Is Written for Google," which focused on the effect search engines are having on journalistic writing. The primary focus was on the negative impact of "writing for machines" and the corresponding loss of creativity such an endeavor entails.

What always amazes me is the fear and anger that many writers express about writing with search engines in mind. Just in using the phrase "writing for machines" they create among themselves a rather Orwellian hysteria, but it is only just that: hysterics. … Read more

Power Downloader's strange software solution

Power Downloader has been around long enough to know that young people tend to go through phases in their lives. Particularly in college, when young people are trying to figure out what path they want to take and what kind of individual they want to be, a certain degree of experimentation is expected. When Power's niece, Kitty Kilobyte, recently stated in an e-mail that she would no longer use any software from a huge corporation, Power smiled knowingly to himself and continued to read on. Kitty said one of the programs she needed was a full-featured word processor for her next year at school, but it had to be unique like she is--a program unlike what everybody uses at school.

In Power Downloader's many trips through the Download.com software library, he's found plenty of unique software apps; from the strange and wonderful to the just plain weird. But it wasn't enough to just grab the weirdest word processor available for Kitty; he had to find one that was both unique and useful.… Read more

Dark Room isolates you and your text

You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door.

There is a small mailbox here.

OK, not really, but the freeware Windows app Dark Room (based off the Mac OS X 10.4 software WriteRoom) looks a heck of a lot like the classic text-adventure game Zork.

The idea behind Dark Room and WriteRoom is simple: offer a distraction-free application for writing text. Both apps throw out the bells and whistles and provide a lightweight text editor without buttons, menus, or anything else that might disturb your concentration.… Read more

Inkless pen writes forever

When you finally become a celebrity (unless you already are one), this pen will mean you'll never have an excuse not to give out your autograph. Worse, you'll never have an excuse not to write a check when your career goes south.

That's because this writing instrument doesn't need ink to work--that's right, Skippy. Instead, it has a metal-alloy tip that can write on most types of paper and will never smudge or be erased, according to Spluch. That could come in especially handy when your bar napkins get wet.

Urbis: 'Creative Republic' shows potential, faces threat of 'Myspaceyness'

I have a background in creative writing, so I was very excited to hear that one of the presentations at last night's NY Tech Meetup would be a demonstration of a new kind of Web community for writers (and eventually artists, musicians, and filmmakers). Indeed, the first presentation was of Urbis, which is a new review community founded by local New Yorker Steve Spurgat. Meetup founder Scott Heiferman described Spurgat, with his background as a playwright, as "the most unlikely Internet entrepreneur."

Here's the central concept of Urbis, which according to Spurgat has 12,000 members … Read more