Tuesday, June 23, 2015

Extra! Extra! Hot Off The Presses! Breaking News! Read All About It!


This post was meant to be a short entry on the DeepDish Facebook page, giving recognition to what might be acknowledged as Print Media Day, for the birthday of the man who set literacy and mass communications on fire, Johannes Guttenberg (1400), establishment of the Goverment Printing Office by U.S Congress (1860), and award of the patent for the QWERTY keyboard type-writer to Charles Latham Scholes (1868).  I thumb pecked some notes on the touch-screen smartphone keyboard.

 
Extra! Extra! Hot off the presses! Breaking News!
Might as well call it Print Media Day as we give a birthday shout out to the man who enabled us to more reliably and quickly share, own, and read the written word. If babies' brains grow exponentially everyday in early childhood, Guttenberg helped mitigate cognitive decline throughout the rest of the lifespan with his invention of the moveable type printing press. BYDHTTMWFI! Scientists today support this in stating that reading an actual book has many added positive effects beyond learning. So grab some print and read! 
All hail (aka shout-out) Guttenberg and Congress for their contributions to public information. 
Johannes Gutenberg. Image via Wikipedia
1400-1468 Johannes Gutenburg,German blacksmith and  inventor of moveable type printing ‎press, born. As revolutionary as was the transition from oral history to the written word (mentioned in Paulo Coelho's epic, The Fifth Mountain) the Printing Revolution introduced the spread of ideas and events through mass communication (like wild fire), and literacy. For all we have to say about ‎books and the written word we owe it to this man who set a cornerstone through literature for the major periods of human progress that followed.

GPO seal. Image via Wikipedia





1860 Congress establishes Government Printing Office‎ - official and authentic govt publications and distribution. The Gazette is one such type of publication for public notices, and appointments.
However, where the quick blurb to accompany the DeepDish conversation card (above) flourished into this longer read was in recollection of the short-lived encounter with the typewriter.










1868 typewriter patent awarded to Charles Latham Scholes - QWERTY keyboard, ergonomic layout to aid recovery from keystrokes.
 (Aside: have you ever had a mass of typewriter keys jam in a clump midair?


Or the one key that will stay frozen upright  in the mechanical version of a muscle cramp?


I am laughing hysterically with tears of mirth, well after midnight, as I tap this out on BlackBerry's highly touted touch screen keyboard. This juxtaposition drew a fresh round as I think "auto-corect be damned!" Will this be as deliriously funny to me when I read it again...smh...). 













There are others like me with a nostalgic fondness for the type-writer, like Jennifer Dukes Lee who writes a sunny-eyed view on a piece of type-written work (right),


that might have prompted Snoopy (left) to hydroplane his writing machine off the top of his red doggy house.

There are times when I have felt this way about the modern touch-screen tablet on which I completed writing this piece, even equipped with a peripheral keyboard, as I try to align "piano" hands on the home keys--ASDF, JKL; -- thumbs on the space bar, wrists parallel to the keyboard. Yet, compared to pecking it out with thumbs on a smartphone, the peripheral keyboard is a touch better (pun intended). This led me to wonder, is QWERTY still relevant with our smartphone "thumb pecking" new normal? Or is it that QWERTY touch-typing lessons, as it seems, is hard to overcome? Perhaps it will phase out in later iterations of computer technology. For now, QWERTY rules!

The humble typewriter is still savored by some writers of all ilks who tap out scripts and tomes on vintage machines, but the world has predominantly been swept on the wave of computing machines. First came the desktop personal computer, then the laptop, followed by the smartphone, and now tablets.We owe this, apparently, not to IBM, nor Microsoft or Apple, but to Alan Turing, "a British pioneering computer scientistmathematicianlogician,
cryptanalyst, philosopher, mathematical biologist, and marathon and ultra distance runner." (Wikipedia)
Alan Turing, Wartime Codebreaker, pioneer of computer science
and the study of artificial intelligence. Image (c) Pierangelo Boog 
The basis of Turing's work led to the technology boom of the '90s when the innovative development of IBM's personal desktop computer (PC), the Apple computer, and Microsoft's DOS programming language enabled rapid application of many computing and wordprocessing tasks in digital format.



In 1999, Time magazine named him one of its "100 Most Important People of the 20th century," saying, "The fact remains that everyone who taps at a keyboard, opening a spreadsheet or a word-processing program, is working on an incarnation of a Turing machine." (Biography.com).

Thank you for reading. If anything does not bear out with the facts, please let us know in the comments with a reference for your finding. You are also invited to share your favorite vintage publication. Or check online for a digital copy of the gazette for your date of birth and share a meaningful entry from it. What are your thoughts on the QWERTY keyboard, is it elegant, or could it become obsolete with changing computing technology? And of course, where do you stand in the debate concerning intelligent machines? Can you pass a Turing test? 

Reference:

Alan Turing. (n.d.). Retrieved June 23, 2015, from https://en.m.wikipedia.org/?title=Alan_Turing

Alan Turing. (2015). The Biography.com website. Retrieved 05:07, Jun 23, 2015, fromhttp://www.biography.com/people/alan-turing-9512017.

Christopher Latham Sholes. (n.d.). Retrieved June 23, 2015, from https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Latham_Sholes

Desta, Y. (2014, February 15). 10 Famous Writers Who Don't Use Modern Tech to Create. Retrieved June 23, 2015, from http://mashable.com/2014/02/15/modern-writers-technology/...

Johannes Gutenberg. (n.d.). Retrieved June 23, 2015, from https://en.m.wikipedia.org/?title=Johannes_Gutenberg

Lee, J. (2012, February 28). Regarding My Addiction to the Delete Key. Retrieved June 23, 2015.

United States Government Publishing Office. (n.d.). Retrieved June 23, 2015, from https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Government_Publishing_Office

Image credits:

Santoro, P. (2014, July 26). Conhece Alan Turing? A sua dívida com esse gênio trágico é maior do que você suspeita. Retrieved June 23, 2015, from http://www.diariodocentrodomundo.com.br/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Alan-Turing.jpg


Snoopy Typewriter Wallpaper 1920x1200PX ~ Wallpaper Cartoon Network Wallpaper #768911. (n.d.). Retrieved June 23, 2015, from http://www.wallpedes.com/wallpaper-cartoon-network-wallpaper/snoopy-typewriter-wallpaper.html

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