---
title: "Cut-ups of my Top 10 posts of 2004"
date: 2004-12-09
author: "Richard MacManus"
categories:
  - name: "ReadWriteWeb"
    url: "/category/readwriteweb.md"
tags:
  - name: "2004"
    url: "/tag/2004.md"
---

# Cut-ups of my Top 10 posts of 2004

Back in the early 90’s I used to read [William S. Burroughs](https://web.archive.org/web/20050209095849/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_S._Burroughs) books and for a while I was quite taken with his [“cut-up” method](https://web.archive.org/web/20050209095849/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cut-up_technique) of writing. The cut-up technique is a specialised literary form in which a text is cut up at random and rearranged to create a new text (ref: Wikipedia). I think this was during my Surrealism phase. Oh, it was nothing extreme – all I did was buy the odd [Salvador Dalí](https://web.archive.org/web/20050209095849/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dali) poster, read [André Breton](https://web.archive.org/web/20050209095849/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andre_Breton) books and watch movies with French sub-titles. The usual University psuedo-intellectual postering.

So I thought it would be interesting to take my 10 most-visited posts of 2004 (as listed in [my previous entry](https://web.archive.org/web/20050209095849/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/002525.php)) and produce some random cut-ups of the text. In a way I’m applying [Remix Culture](https://web.archive.org/web/20050209095849/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/002454.php) theory to my own blog… well it’s a start anyway 🙂

In the interests of keeping the cut-ups brief (the top 10 posts yielded 13,300 words!), I decided to restrict them to 100 words or less.

## Word’s Auto-Summarize Feature

This is something [I’ve played with before](https://web.archive.org/web/20050209095849/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/001821.php), inspired by [Jason Kottke](https://web.archive.org/web/20050209095849/http://www.kottke.org/04/04/free-culture-100). Here is the text of all 10 of my most popular posts of 2004, in 100 words or less according to Microsoft Word. See if you can spot any trends!

\*\*\*start\*\*\*

Most people thought I was nuts. Basically I believe that the Web should be organised around topics, not people. I’ve read Linked by Albert-Laszlo, I’m convinced. 10 – Personal Blogger. 100 – Social Blogger. 1000 – Community Blogger. A social publishing tool perhaps, because I do converse with other people via my weblog.

“Weblog comments incite duels. Synchronicity for Bloggers

Especially as I not only have to convince business people, but IT people too.

People can produce information, subscribe to information they value, edit each others information. Blogs vs Books?

I do like reading blogs, too. New Generation of Readers

\*\*\*finish\*\*\*

## Using a Cut-Up Machine

For the next one, I firstly ran the text through the [Grazulis Cut-Up Machine](https://web.archive.org/web/20050209095849/http://web.ukonline.co.uk/gary.leeming/burroughs/cutup_machine.htm) ([via](https://web.archive.org/web/20050209095849/http://www.lazaruscorporation.co.uk/v4/cutup/links.php)) – and then used Word’s Auto-Summarize to reduce it down to less than 100 words.

\*\*\*start\*\*\*

parties made people see products – they multimedia and very people to multimedia.

it’s people. – kinds tools

Synchronicity Bloggers

pattern – synchronicity. Today Digital Web corps?” Synchronicity for Bloggers

People edit each others information. Information Flow is Knowledge Management. Literary Types

people I nuts. tools.

read discussing products WebOutliner, Lifestyle Hubbie. people doing – they a blog a blog. People world as if Web the old old. people, sheep, herding.

post entitled Knowledge Writing Book a number comments. do reading too. for book mind. like literacy, to as generation readers content consumers books. Blogs vs Books?

\*\*\*finish\*\*\*

I think I like the second one better. It’s amazing how you can summarize a whole year’s worth of weblog posts into 100 words and spot some interesting trends. For example, I didn’t realise my literary background showed up so much in my blog writing – but it’s apparent in these two cut-ups.

Anyone know of any other web-based cut-up machines to try? This is fun!

**UPDATE**: It occured to me that some readers may want to have a go at cutting up my Top 10 posts too – a la [Tom Coates’ recent project](https://web.archive.org/web/20050209095849/http://www.plasticbag.org/archives/2004/11/visualisations_lead_to_selfknowledge.shtml) with his blog posts. So I offer you the entire text of my Top 10 posts of 2004, as a **[Text File download](https://web.archive.org/web/20050209095849/http://www.readwriteweb.com/gems/rww_top10_2004.txt)** (75KB). I’m not expecting anybody to bother, but it would be cool to see what others come up with.

*Originally published on ReadWriteWeb ([archived copy](https://web.archive.org/web/20020204040018/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/002543.php))*