We all make typing mistakes, but in today’s world, a swift backspace rights all wrongs. In the typewriter era, you were stuck with your typos—until 1964, when the IBM Magnetic Tape Selectric Typewriter was developed. Using the latest assembly techniques, IBMers created a magnetic tape system for storing characters, bringing about the first analog word-processor device. The power it gave typists to correct their mistakes was a game-changer.
Technology often has a poetry to it, and poetry can emerge out of technology. Last year, an IBM intern developed a poetry generator that feeds user input through the IBM Watson Tone Analyzer to craft a poem based on the user’s feelings. We’re looking forward to seeing how this year’s summer interns find their own intersections between technology and creativity.
“When evening comes, I return to my home, and I go to my study; and on the threshold I take off my everyday clothes, which are covered with mud and mire, and I put on regal and curial robes; and dressed in a more appropriate manner I enter into the ancient courts of ancient men and am welcomed by them kindly […]. and there I am not ashamed to speak to them, to ask them the reasons for their actions; and they, in their humanity, answer me; and for four hours I feel no boredom, I dismiss every affliction, I no longer fear poverty nor do I tremble at the though of death: I become completely part of them.”
— Letter from Niccolò Machiavelli to Francesco Vettori, 1513
The giveaway package has finally been delivered to @sugarcross. I waited to post about it because I didn’t want to spoil anything. The main prize was the poetry book, but I also included an excerpt from one of Machiavelli‘s letters that I typed up.
“Én azért kezdtem és azóta is azért írok naplót, mert olyan egyedül vagyok, mint egy írógép a tenger fenekén. Akkor is egyedül, ha vannak körülöttem. Mindegy, hogy többen vannak-e, vagy csak egyvalaki van. A létszám nem változtat a szürke tényen, hogy én senkinek sem vagyok érdekes.” - Szilvási Lajos
