A conversation between freelancers Eva Holland, Josh Dean, Jason Fagone, and May Jeong about pitching stories, negotiating contracts, and breaking into a tough industry.
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Longreads Best of 2014: Business Writing
We asked a few writers and editors to choose some of their favorite stories of the year in specific categories. Here, the best in business writing.
The Freelancers’ Roundtable
A conversation between freelancers Eva Holland, Josh Dean, Jason Fagone, and May Jeong about pitching stories, negotiating contracts, and breaking into a tough industry.
Why Microsoft, Google, and Apple Are Working With Science Fiction Writers
Science fiction writer Eileen Gunn recently wrote in Smithsonian magazine about how the science fiction genre informs the way we think about the real world. Here, Gunn writes that big tech companies like Microsoft have hired science fiction writers to do “design fiction”—coming up with new technology ideas through imaginative works: Microsoft, Google, Apple and […]
The Fasinatng … Frustrating … Fascinating History of Autocorrect
The story of how a Microsoft employee working on the Word team invented autocorrect.
One Question for Microsoft's Next CEO
OM: The challenge for Microsoft comes down to: you’ve got developers, you’ve got cloud, you’ve got the legacy, the enterprise relationships, those things you got right. You’ve got old legacy products which people like to use however there is a little bit of challenge when it comes to the new world. Look at the world […]
Science, Chance, and Emotion with Real Cosima
Through her work on clone-thriller Orphan Black, science consultant Cosima Herter has helped open our eyes to the possibilities and perils of synthetic biology and the pursuit of genetic perfection.
Why Autocorrect Doesn’t Correct Obscene Words
Gideon Lewis-Kraus talked to autocorrect inventor Dean Hachamovitch for Wired, and learned why some swear words don’t get autocorrected: On idiom, some of its calls seemed fairly clear-cut: gorilla warfare became guerrilla warfare, for example, even though a wildlife biologist might find that an inconvenient assumption. But some of the calls were quite tricky, and […]
Chat Wars
Sabotage, bureaucracy, and emoticons: Inside the late ’90s chat wars between Microsoft and AOL, from the perspective of a former Microsoft programmer: The messenger war was a rush. Coming in each morning to see whether the client still worked with AOL was thrilling. I’d look through reams of protocol messages to figure out what had […]
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
Below, our favorite stories of the week. Kindle users, you can also get them as a Readlist. Sign up to receive this list free every Friday in your inbox. * * * 1. Why Poor Schools Can’t Win at Standardized Testing Meredith Broussard | The Atlantic | July 21, 2014 | 12 minutes (3,091 words) […]

