Inventing A Writing Technology Essay -- Writing Technological Papers

"Inventing" A Writing Technology According to Walter Ong, an influential scholar of the relationship between technology and media, "Literacy is imperious. It tends to arrogate to itself supreme power by taking itself as normative for human expression and thought. This is particularly true in high-technology cultures, which are built on literacy of necessity and which encourage the impression that literacy is an always to be expected and even natural state of affairs" (316). Ong would probably agree that literacy is so embedded in our current technological culture that it has become part of the standard of living, a necessary requirement for functioning in this highly professionalized world. However, the point of Ong’s prior statement is not that writing is only a necessity but that writing is a necessity which has become so internalized it is often taken for granted. The process of writing is a highly evolved, technological entity often revered as a "natural" part of life when in reality writing has been arti ficially created by man. Writing is very much an artificial creation, not a natural occurrence. To illustrate how true this is and how much writing is taken for granted and internalized as natural to humans, an experiment was done. Students from Eastern Michigan University’s English 328: Writing, Style, and Technology class were challenged to invent a writing technology without using any manufactured utensils such as pens, pencils, paint, brushes, white-out pens, nail polish, electronic devices or paper. The purpose was not to invent a new alphabet but to invent a new method of writing. In addition, the assignment required the consideration of four other elements: permanence, portability, creativity, and the extent to ... ... Beginning with the first written script of the Samarians, writing has been developed and integrated into world cultures. Many cannot imagine speech without writing, and U.S. culture would probably have difficulty functioning without writing. So, to say that writing is natural is one of the most incorrect statements of all time because, in truth, writing is one of the most invaluable, and highly-developed technologies existing worldwide today. Works Cited Barron, Dennis. "From Pencils to Pixels: The Stages of Literacy Technologies." Writing Material: Readings from Plato to the Digital Age. Comp. Evelyn B. Tribble & Anne Trubek. New York: Longman, 2003. 35-53. Ong, Walter. "Writing Is a Technology that Restructures Thought." Writing Material: Readings from Plato to the Digital Age. Comp. Evelyn B. Tribble & Anne Trubek. New York: Longman, 2003. 315-337.

Everyman Play Analysis Essay

The play â€Å"Everyman† remains nobody indifferent and thus is attractive for many readers, because the play is the best example of the medieval morality play. The genre of the play is presented by allegory aiming at dramatizing moral struggle that can be considered as universal and individual as well. The play is interesting, because it portrays feasting Everyman being informed of approaching Death. Thus many important themes are raised in the play: death and eternal life, friendship and betrayal, knowledge and power, etc. The author originally portrays, firstly, how Everyman is deserted by his â€Å"true† friends and companions, how he falls back on his Good Deeds, etc. It is also necessary to admit that Everyman is associated with eternal values of beauty, intelligence, strength and human knowledge. All these elements assist Everyman in compiling book of Accounts, though at the end of the play he remains only with Good Deeds alone. Furthermore, the play is, certainly, edifying, because it provides the idea that people can take with them from real world nothing they have received, but only the things they have given others. Apparently, the play differs from contemporary biblical text as it doesn’t dramatize biblical episodes and characters. Instead the play personifies the good and bad qualities of mankind and shows them in conflict. Moreover, â€Å"Everyman† provides complete morality restricted by depicting the spiritual biography of the human microcosm, instead of representing spiritual history of man. Finally, the play is attractive due to author’s very unique style of writing, because the author employs s technique of imagery meaning that he uses images and symbols to represent a certain hero and particular idea. Thus imagery makes readers understand the play and acting better. Further, â€Å"Everyman† teach people how to be moral. Moral seems to be the universal theme being popular in all times. The play suggests that it is necessary to do good deeds and to obtain knowledge, because everything learnt will stay for the whole life.

Perl Array unshift() Function Tutorial

Perls unshift() function is used to add value or values onto the beginning of an array (prepend), which increases the number of elements. The new values then become the first elements in the array. It returns the new total number of elements in the array. Its easy to confuse this function with push(), which adds elements to the end of an array. Picture a row of numbered boxes, going from left to right. The unshift() function would add the new value or values on to the left side of the array, and increase the elements. In the examples, the value of myNames becomes (Larry, Curly, Moe). The array can also be thought of as a stack—picture a stack of numbered boxes, starting with 0 on the top and increasing as it goes down. The unshift() function would add the value to the top of the stack, and increase the overall size of the stack. You can unshift() multiple values onto the array directly: Or by unshift()-ing an array: