Michael E. Gruen

Livefyre broke commenting on this blog. I’ve written them an e-mail. Hopefully it gets resolved soon.

Approximately four people will really be heartbroken about this. I am not included in these four.

Some hackers really bore me.

Earlier this week, some script kiddies (from some middle eastern country, it seems) used an outdated wordpress plugin to screw around with my blog. Don’t worry, you’re fine. Here was the contents of their message:

HACKED BY INNOCENT HACKER
TIME IS MONEY

INNOCENT_HACKER@HACKER.COM

So, wow. That was certainly worth the effort.

Apologies for the maintenance message, but I didn’t want anyone to worry that their computers were hacked. Only my blog. And not even that well, actually.

Composing in a specific aesthetic influences tone, so select your font and format before you write.

It’s probably been a while since you’ve used a word processor as your primary vehicle to process words. More likely, you’re using a webmail client, IM chat, or an e-mail client where the formatting’s fixed and the written word rules. I challenge you: change your font—see what happens.

Interestingly, the font face influences you more in the composition phase than it influences the reader when reading. Consider:

To me, all of these sentences have the near-equivalent emotional impact.

I’ll admit: the aforementioned examples are a bit contrived. But, for me, I find that if I compose in a particular font modify margin width and line height, your writing will tailor itself to the message’s function.

For general writing, I use Helvetica Neue (Light) size 12, set to 6.5 inches of writable horizontal space (1 inch margins on an standard 8.5 x 11). For news and newsletter-style stories, I’ll break the page into two columns and my sentences become 30% shorter, my paragraphs drop to a sentence or three, and I’ll get to the point within the first vertical inch. For book and paper-writing that demands a bit more clarification (but not necessarily ‘clarity’), nothing has yet beaten Cochin (or Sylfaen, for those on a Windows box).

Succinctly, your language accommodates the area you have to work with. So form your working area accordingly.

(It’s true for me, at least.)