I’ve seen the I write like links show up on facebook and twitter a few times, so I decided I’d take a look. Not content to simply feed it one sample, I fed it the text from several of the posts from the archive. Here were the results:

• I Hold Strong Opinions About The Placement Of Curly Braces

• => I write like: H.P. Lovecraft. Really? Wait… what?

• No, We’re Not The Stupid Ones

• In Which I Am No Longer A Very Good Bachelor
• Oracle To Acquire Oracle

• => I write like: Cory Doctorow. Huh. You think? Well, okay. Thanks!

• The Emperor’s New Web

• => I write like: Jonathan Swift. [blushing] No, no… you’re too kind.

Not sure how they are analyzing the text and reaching their conclusions, but there’s at least a little bit of smarts in there; that last one, the one which was compared to Swift, is indeed a satire, though I’m not going to claim it’s in the calibre of Swift’s satire, but still; their algorithm picked something out of it which prompted the comparison. Not bad.

So, evidently, according to their analyses, I write most often like Cory Doctorow. I’ve only read Down And Out In The Magic Kingdom, and several of his blog posts/essays, but enough to consider it a compliment, though I’m not certain it’s deserved. Regardless, there we have it.