Copyright © 1998 Orlando Sentinel
Converted to HTML by Scott Pakin.

Newspaper article about my complaint-letter generator

The following article appeared in the 29 May 1998 edition of the Orlando Sentinel in in an article entitled, Weird on the Web.


Got a gripe about somebody but just don't have the right words to express yourself? Scott Pakin does. His Automatic Complaint-Letter Generator will produce an impressive—and mostly senseless—missive of hilarious ranting and raving. All you do is plug in the target's name and the number of paragraphs desired and the generator fashions a letter by randomly combining thousands of programmed phrases.

An example from a customized letter about our friend Cal: Unless you share my view that I must protest Cal's use of militant deadheads to make us dependent on anti-intellectualism-oriented worrywarts for political representation, economic support, social position and psychological approval, there's no need for you to hear me further.

Check it out: The Web site is at http://www-csag.cs.uiuc.edu/individual/pakin/complaint.