Gutenburg Rocks My Socks!

On the first day of class I made a menchion of a rant about Gutenburg, so I decided that Here it is! I cannot express my love and apprication for the man who gave us moveable type. I mean at first I really did not think about it much, how books first started, where they came from and all that jazz. I guess my love for Gutenburg and his contributions can be traced back to my five years of German.

One of my German teachers LOVED Gutenburg, he said if it had not been for the famous German the world as we know it would have been altered. And I have to say that after I thought about that comment, it is very true. The printing press came in at the perfect time, if it had not come along then our whole line of technology would be messed up and I for one cannot think of living without my cell phone haha. But also Gutenburg gave the world a chance to read, to have the written word spread. The Bible was the first book that was printed on the printing press, and it is easy to assume that if that had not happened then maybe the views people have on religion would be changed, or not as deeply rooted as they are now.

I got to see one of the few copies of the Gutenburg Bible that still exist. One is on display at the Library of Congress. While I was there I studied that Bible for at least twenty minutes maybe longer. I was of course trying to translate and read the page that the Bible was open to, but I was also looking at the complexity of the letters, how even and perfect they looked for the worlds first printing press. I marvled at the book, at how each letter was shaped, each word spaced perfectly next to the last word. It was amazing that such a primative tool in our eyes can produce such perfection.

As someone who reads all the time, and spends a lot of time reading and looking at printed words and that book at was made hundreads of years ago still looks as perfect as any type I have seen in a book today.

So thank you Gutenburg. Thank you for the gift you have given man kind. You opened up doors that needed to be opened and without those doors we might still be in the dark in more ways then one. Thank you for the gift of the printing press, and for making books easy for normal people to have access to. Don't know who I would be without you, weather I loved to read or not.

Google Making Us Stupid...Well Not Me

The Article "Is Google Making Us Stupid" raises a good point about reading, the internet, and attention spa- OH Look SHINY!!



But I digress. Honestly I think it depends on the person was well as the generation. The older generation that grew up only with books who now has this wave of online information can find it overwhelming. Where in the past they had to look for hours to find something they wanted, now its point and click. The younger generation is now being introduced to the internet more and more, and soon they are not going to know what a book is because they can get everything they want on the computer.

Me I think I am stuck somewhere in the middle. I LOVE to sit down with a book and just read for hours, I can lose myself in it. But on the other hand I also love how easy the internet makes research papers, and the like. Yes I sometimes use Google as spell check because the free word processor I have on my crappy laptop will not recognise some words that a monkey could know.

But stupid, I think that word may be a little harsh, dependent, yes, the reason for my astigmatism, sure, but making us stupid I think not.

So as I type this on my laptop with google opened in another tab to make sure 'astigmatism' was spelled right, I have a book entitled 'I Elizabeth' by Rosalind Miles, waiting for me on my bedside table.

For me internet and hardback books are friends, and will remain so...I hope.

My First Blog For Class

This is my first blog for digital media culture. I just want to get something written so it doesn't look so blank.