Later Love

The Later Years Of Douglas Adams

Jimmy Maher | The Digital Antiquarian | 19th July 2024

The man behind The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was part of a motley club of successful writers who hated writing. As someone reared on Wodehouse and Monty Python, he “felt pigeonholed as the purveyor of goofy two-headed aliens”. Any effort to change direction — the fourth Hitchhiker’s novel was a magic-realist romantic comedy set on Earth — was met with disapproval from his fans (8,200 words)

Love Letter Generator

Patricia Fancher | Big Think | 20th July 2024

“Can computers think?”, Turing asked in a 1951 radio broadcast. “To behave like a brain seems to involve free will.” The computer can only do what the programmer stipulates; it could appear to create something new through a touch of randomness. Turing and Strachey programmed a love letter generator based on this idea, “hinting at a future in which a computer could write original prose” (2,500 words)