Saturday, March 21, 2020

The Influence of Literature on the Monster Essays

The Influence of Literature on the Monster Essays The Influence of Literature on the Monster Paper The Influence of Literature on the Monster Paper I would also switch Plutarch Lives for A Separate Peace and Ruins of Empires for the Bible. Changing the reading material of the monster would greatly impact how he acts and thus, changing the outcome of the story. Paradise Lost Is a solid read, but If the monster really wants to learn and understand nature and English, he needs a dictionary. The possibilities of a dictionary the most useful of nearly all books. If the monster had a dictionary, he loud not have to worry about eavesdropping on peoples conversations in order to learn. Paradise Lost is good literature, but will not help him like a dictionary would. With the monsters minor intelligence, a book such as this would be of great use to him. The second change in books I chose was Where the Red Fern Grows. I think the most important value in this book that may help the creature is compassion. Where the Red Fern Grows illustrates compassion in many parts of the book, as it regards a boy and his love for his dogs. The creature can learn a lot from this reading because it can open his heart more. If he does this than he can prevent himself from harming anybody, now that he has the concept of compassion. If he had learned about these good concepts from Where the Red Fern Grows, then It may have stopped him from compassion would help him to not to commit murder. Also, this skill would have helped him forgive Victor for not carrying out his plan of getting a female monster. All in all, a better choice of reading for the creature than Sorrows of a Young Writhe loud have been Where the Red Fern Grows, to better control himself and act more civil. The third book that the monster originally read was Plutarch Lives. I swapped it for A Separate Peace by John Knowles. I did this so that the monster could get a better grasp on the theme that revenge is not the answer. He needed to have a better concept of this moral because It would allow him to forgive Dry. Frankincense, and not kill his wife. The novels mall pipeline Is concerning whether one boy should get revenge or not. The creature needs to fill his mind with literature that will soften is heart, and not only give him knowledge, but teach him not to seek revenge, for it Is Tilted, not sweet. Finally, the last book swap I would make is Volleys Ruins of Empires for The Bible. The bible is the most essential book ever written. It teaches you how to live with God, many words of the English language, and it teaches a ton of history. The creature would honestly be getting the whole package if he had the Bible. If he follows the 10 Commandments in the Bible, he will not hurt anybody else. Exodus 20:13 says You shall not murder. If he follows this, like his theoretically will, then it will prevent him from killing multiple people! Also, Psalm 34 :14 says Turn from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it. This Bible verse should lead him to make good choices and not harm anyone anymore. My last Bible verse is John 3:16, For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. This verse would really be a revelation to the monster because it would give him someone to talk to. I think if the monster had a real legislation with the Lord, no problems would have occurred. All in all, changing the reading material of the creature could have really prevented some conflict in the story. All four changed books should have helped the creature gain a better understanding of the moral concepts of compassion, and that revenge does not pay, and not kill anybody. The Bible should get him in a relationship with God, impacting his decision making in a positive manner. If the reading material for the creature was altered then maybe the outcome of the book would have been different.

Thursday, March 5, 2020

The History of the Computer Keyboard

The History of the Computer Keyboard The history of the modern computer keyboard begins with a direct inheritance from the  invention of the typewriter.  It was Christopher Latham Sholes who, in 1868,  patented the first practical modern typewriter. Soon after, in 1877, the Remington Company began mass marketing the first typewriters. After a series of technological developments, the typewriter gradually evolved into the standard computer keyboard your fingers know so well today. The QWERTY Keyboard There are several legends around the development of the QWERTY keyboard layout, which was patented by Sholes and his partner James Densmore in 1878. The most compelling explanation is that Sholes developed the layout to overcome the physical limitations of mechanical technology at the time. Early typists pressed a key which would, in turn, push a metal hammer that rose up in an arc, striking an inked ribbon to make a mark on a paper before returning to its original position. Separating common pairs of letters minimized the jamming of the mechanism. As machine technology improved, other keyboard layouts were invented that claimed to be more efficient, including as the Dvorak keyboard patented in 1936. Although there are dedicated Dvorak users today, they remain a tiny minority compared to those who continue to use the original QWERTY layout, which remains the most popular keyboard layout on devices of many types throughout the English-speaking world. QWERTYs current acceptance has been attributed to the layout being efficient enough and familiar enough to hinder the commercial viability of competitors. Early Breakthroughs   One of the first breakthroughs in keyboard technology was the invention of the teletype machine. Also referred to as the teleprinter, the technology has been around since the mid-1800s and was improved by inventors such as Royal Earl House, David Edward Hughes, Emile Baudot, Donald Murray, Charles L. Krum, Edward Kleinschmidt, and Frederick G. Creed.  But it was thanks to the efforts of  Charles Krum between 1907 and 1910 that the teletype system became practical for everyday users. In the 1930s, new keyboard models were introduced that combined the input and printing technology of typewriters with the communications technology of the  telegraph. Punch-card systems were also combined with typewriters to create what were known as keypunches. These systems became the basis of early adding machines (early calculators), which were hugely commercially successful. By 1931, IBM had registered more than $1 million in adding machine sales. Keypunch technology was incorporated into the designs of the earliest computers, including the 1946  Eniac computer that used a punch-card reader as its input and output device. In 1948, another computer called the Binac computer used an electro-mechanically controlled typewriter to input data directly onto magnetic tape in order to feed in computer data and print results. The emerging electric typewriter further improved the technological marriage between the typewriter and the computer. Video Display Terminals By 1964, MIT, Bell Laboratories, and General Electric had collaborated to create a  time-sharing, multi-user computer system called Multics. The system encouraged the development of a new user interface called  the video display terminal (VDT), which incorporated the technology of the cathode ray tube used in televisions into the design of the electric typewriter. This allowed computer users to see what text characters they were typing on their display screens for the first time, which made  text assets easier to create, edit, and delete. It also made computers easier to program and use. Electronic Impulses and Hand-Held Devices Early computer keyboards were based either on teletype machines or keypunches but there was a problem: having so many electro-mechanical steps necessary to transmit data between the keyboard and the computer slowed things down considerably. With VDT technology and electric keyboards, the keys could now send electronic impulses directly to the computer and save time. By the late 1970s and early 1980s, all computers used electronic keyboards and VDTs.   In the 1990s, handheld devices that introduced mobile computing became available to consumers. The first of handheld devices was the HP95LX, released in 1991 by Hewlett-Packard. It had a hinged clamshell format that was small enough to fit in the hand. Although not yet classified as such, the HP95LX was the first of the Personal Data Assistants (PDA). It had a small QWERTY keyboard for text entry, although touch typing was practically impossible due to its small size. The Pen Is Not Mightier Than the Keyboard As PDAs began to add web and email access, word processing, spreadsheets, personal schedules, and other desktop applications, pen input was introduced. The first pen input devices were made in the early 1990s, but the technology to recognize handwriting was not robust enough to be effective. Keyboards produce machine-readable text (ASCII), a necessary feature for indexing and searching by contemporary character-based technology. Minus character recognition, handwriting produces digital ink, which works for some applications but requires more memory in order to save input and is not machine-readable. Ultimately, most of the early PDAs (GRiDPaD, Momenta, Poqet, PenPad) were not commercially viable. Apples 1993 Newton project was expensive and its handwriting recognition was particularly poor. Goldberg and Richardson, two researchers at Xerox in Palo Alto, invented a simplified system of pen strokes called Unistrokes, a sort of shorthand that converted each letter of the English alphabet into single strokes that users would input into their devices. Palm Pilot, released in 1996, was an instant hit, introducing the Graffiti technique, which was closer to the Roman alphabet and included a way to input capital and lowercase characters. Other non-keyboard inputs of the era included the MDTIM, published by Poika Isokoski, and Jot, introduced by Microsoft. Why Keyboards Persist The problem with all of these alternative keyboard technologies is the data capture takes more memory and is less accurate than with digital keyboards. As mobile devices such as smartphones grew in popularity, many differently formatted keyboard patterns were tested- and the issue became how to get one small enough to use accurately. One fairly popular method was the soft keyboard. A soft keyboard is one that has a visual display with built-in touchscreen technology. Text entry is performed by tapping on keys with a stylus or finger. The soft keyboard disappears when not in use. QWERTY keyboard layouts are most frequently used with soft keyboards, but there were others, such as the FITALY, Cubon, and OPTI soft keyboards, as well as a simple listing of alphabetic letters. Thumbs and Voice As voice recognition technology has advanced, its capabilities have been added to small hand-held devices to augment, but not replace soft keyboards. Keyboard layouts continue to evolve as data input embraced texting, which is typically is entered via some form of a soft QWERTY keyboard layout (although there have been some attempts to develop thumb-typing entry such as the KALQ keyboard, a split-screen layout available as an Android app). Sources David, Paul A. Clio and the Economics of Qwerty. The American Economic Review 75.2 (1985): 332-37. Print.Dorit, Robert L. Marginalia: Keyboards, Codes and the Search for Optimality. American Scientist 97.5 (2009): 376-79. Print.Kristensson, Per Ola. Typing Isnt All Fingers, Its Thumbs. The World Today 69.3 (2013): 10-10. Print.Leiva, Luis A., et al. Text Entry on Tiny Qwerty Soft Keyboards. Proceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. 2702388: ACM, 2015. Print.Liebowitz, S. J., and Stephen E. Margolis. The Fable of the Keys. The Journal of Law Economics 33.1 (1990): 1-25. Print.MacKenzie, I. Scott, and R. William Soukoreff. Text Entry for Mobile Computing: Models and Methods, Theory and Practice. Human-Computer Interaction 17.2-3 (2002): 147-98. Print.Topolinski, Sascha. I 5683 You: Dialing Phone Numbers on Cell Phones Activates Key-Concordant Concepts. Psychological Science 22.3 (2011): 355-60. Print.