Awe for Technology
I - Writing
Without
the keyboard, the word processing software 软
件 ruǎn
jiàn and the computer,
this piece of writing would not have been possible. It would also
be hard to contest the assumption that many people today learn
more effectively and efficiently with the
pen and pencil.
Credit is often given to Johannes Gutenberg for his role in printing. He was dubbed the "Father of printing". But that belief has since been debunked when the world opened its eyes to the East. Gutenberg didn't give birth to the idea of printing even though he rightly deserves the respect for introducing printing to the western world.
One could draw a parallelism between the paper and printing. Some of us were taught, when young, that it was the Egyptians who invented the paper. And that "fact", too, has been revised. The word paper IS indeed derived from "papyrus" - a plant once pressed and dried for people to write on. But paper, the sheets of material that we use, is manufactured. Paper is made from parts of trees. Credit is now accorded to Cai Lun 蔡伦cài lún.
Travel back in time to the ancient Shang Dynasty in China 中 国 zhōng guó and one would marvel at how humans then - WITHOUT the computer, WITHOUT the pen, and WITHOUT paper - could manage to write. A feat they did so well that their inscriptions bore not only questions and advice, but also prophecies. The writings were carved on bones and shells (oracle bones 甲骨文jiǎ gǔ wén) with the help of sharp tools. What's amazing and awe-inspiring is that more than 4,500 character types survived until today, exceeding a period of over 3,500 years.
Imagine how grateful this author would be if this piece of writing could survive just a thousandth of that.
Read about the fascinating oracle bones 甲骨文jiǎ gǔ wén HERE.
See also
prophets
For more Musings of the Developer, click / touch HERE.
Credit is often given to Johannes Gutenberg for his role in printing. He was dubbed the "Father of printing". But that belief has since been debunked when the world opened its eyes to the East. Gutenberg didn't give birth to the idea of printing even though he rightly deserves the respect for introducing printing to the western world.
One could draw a parallelism between the paper and printing. Some of us were taught, when young, that it was the Egyptians who invented the paper. And that "fact", too, has been revised. The word paper IS indeed derived from "papyrus" - a plant once pressed and dried for people to write on. But paper, the sheets of material that we use, is manufactured. Paper is made from parts of trees. Credit is now accorded to Cai Lun 蔡伦cài lún.
Travel back in time to the ancient Shang Dynasty in China 中 国 zhōng guó and one would marvel at how humans then - WITHOUT the computer, WITHOUT the pen, and WITHOUT paper - could manage to write. A feat they did so well that their inscriptions bore not only questions and advice, but also prophecies. The writings were carved on bones and shells (oracle bones 甲骨文jiǎ gǔ wén) with the help of sharp tools. What's amazing and awe-inspiring is that more than 4,500 character types survived until today, exceeding a period of over 3,500 years.
Imagine how grateful this author would be if this piece of writing could survive just a thousandth of that.
Read about the fascinating oracle bones 甲骨文jiǎ gǔ wén HERE.
See also
prophets
For more Musings of the Developer, click / touch HERE.
