01/08 is World Typing Day

~~ Typewriter

World Typing Day was concieved of in Malaysia, first celebrated there in 2011, and, as far as I know only celebrated there. By some quirk of fate the date chosen, January 1, was also the day that Herman Hollerith received a patent for his punched card calculator in 1889. Typing was initially done on a typewriter, one of which is pictured above. It was, in its time, a momentously important device which rendered typing a very important skill.

Written communication went from pictures and glyphs chiseled into and painted onto rocks to marks on clay tablets to handwritten "ink" on paper type products, many endlessly copied by monks, to ... Ta Daaa! - the Gutenberg Press and moveable type. That was good for books, broadsheets and like that, but not so much for one time communicatons. Meanwhile, penmanship became very important lest an order for thirty hogs result in the delivery of thirsty dogs. The typewriter went a long way toward solving that issue.

Per da wiki:

A typewriter is a mechanical or electromechanical machine for typing characters. Typically, a typewriter has an array of keys, and each one causes a different single character to be produced on paper by striking an inked ribbon selectively against the paper with a type element. At the end of the nineteenth century, the term 'typewriter' was also applied to a person who used such a device.[1]

The first commercial typewriters were introduced in 1874,[2] but did not become common in offices in the United States until after the mid-1880s.[3] The typewriter quickly became an indispensable tool for practically all writing other than personal handwritten correspondence. It was widely used by professional writers, in offices, in business correspondence in private homes, and by students preparing written assignments.

Hollerith's device utilized punched cards, sometimes later called IBM cards, which were generated by a "keypunch machine" operated by a "Keypunch operator" who was essentially a form of typist, typing information onto/into the cards which would then be read into a machine. Like middle managers, the machine had no innate skills and had to be told what to do in great detail, but it was quick and didn't try to fondle the typist. This didn't happen for many decades, but, in time, the machine could spit out invoices, orders and tons of other paperwork at a rate that would humble the average typing pool. By then, of course, the punch cards were long replaced by terminals, whose operators generally engaged in typing, still using the same old qwerty keyboards that were invented to slow down typists back when typewriters were so clunky that a fast typist would jam them.

So, full circle, in a way, but not exactly. The terminal has no platen, no carriage return, no ribbon and a screen. It is the harbinger of the constantly promised "paperless society" which has utterly buried us all in paper. Typing is very much still with us, though it is losing some ground. My hands are frequently uncooperative and keyboards are unforgiving, but there are speech to text apps aplenty to carry the bulk of the load. They do produce a product that needs to be edited and corrected via the keyboard, but they still put a lot of words on the page with little effort. There are also technologies like Rocketbook where one writes longhand on special re-useable paper and takes a picture which uses OCR to produce a text file on whatever device you choose to send it to. Again, editing is required, but one needn't type the whole thing. Just over the horizon lurks the mind-machine interface, but I try not to think about that, that way lies madness

On this date n 2002, the so called "No Child Left Behind Act" was passed; another counter-productive attempt by the under-educated to "reform" education. Sigh.

It is also Show and Tell Day at Work Day. Ignoring the grammar/redundancy, this really sounds like a good way to get fired, or arrested. Who thinks this stuff up?

On this day in history:

1454 -- The Pope gave Portugal exclusive rights to Africa south of Cape Bojador. Yup. He did.
1735 -- Handel's Ariodante was first performed
1790 -- Washington's first State of the Union address
1828 -- The US Democratic Party was allegedly organized, but I doubt it
1889 -- Herman Hollerith got a patent for his punched card calculator
1912 -- The African National Congress was founded. Sorry 'bout that, Pope dude.
1918 -- Woodrow Wilson announced his 14 points
1926 -- Usurper/conqueror Abdul-Aziz ibn Saud was crowned King of Hejaz
1961 -- A French referendum supported de Gaulle's Algerian policies
1964 -- Johnson declared a "War on Poverty" which seemingly until Bill Clinton.
1973 -- The trial of the Watergate burglars began
1975 -- Ella T. Grasso became the first woman Governor in the US who didn't succeed her husband (Conn.)
1992 -- GWB barfed on Japanese Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa.
1994 -- Valeri Polyakov took off for his record 437 days in space (aboard MIR)
2002 -- The No Child Left Behind Act was signed
2011 -- Gabrielle Giffords and several others were shot

Some people who were born on this day:

The white men in our colonies are too frequently the savages

~~ Alfred Russel Wallace

1628 -- Francois-Henri de Montmorency, duc de Luxembourg, general, worth a read
1638 -- Elisabetta Sirani, painter
1823 -- Alfred Russel Wallace, geographer, explorer, biologist, evolutionary theorist
1824 -- Francisco Gonzalez Bocanegra, poet and composer
1854 -- Fanny Bullock Workman, geographer, cartographer, explorer, writer, and mountaineer,
1904 -- Tampa Red, guitarist and songwriter
1909 -- Evelyn Wood, speed reader, author and educator
1911 -- Gypsy Rose Lee, actress, dancer, and author
1928 -- Luther Perkins, guitarist
1931 -- Bill Graham, concert promoter
1935 -- Elvis Presley, actor, guitarist and singer
1937 -- Shirley Bassey, singer
1940 -- Cristy Lane, country singer
1941 -- Graham Chapman, cultural icon
1942 -- Stephen Hawking, physicist and cosmologist
1946 -- Robby Krieger, guitarist, singer, and songwriter
1947 -- David Bowie, singer, songwriter, producer, and actor
1947 -- Terry Sylvester, singer and guitarist
1960 -- Dave Weckl, drummer
1978 – Marco Fu, snooker player

Some people who died on this day:

You will protect with the last drop of someone else's blood what was never yours.

~~ Kenneth Patchen

1337 -- Giotto, painter & sculptor
1642 -- Galileo Galilei, scientist and heretic, redundant, I know.
1713 -- Arcangelo Corelli, violinist and composer
1825 -- Eli Whitney, engineer, invented cotton gin
1880 -- Emperor Norton, emperor
1896 -- Paul Verlaine, poet
1952 -- Antonia Maury, astronomer and astrophysicist
1958 -- Mary Colter, architect
1972 -- Kenneth Patchen, poet
1976 -- Zhou Enlai, first premier of the PRC
1979 -- Sara Carter, singer, songwriter, and autoharp player
1980 – John Mauchly, physicist, computer designer, and academic

Some Holidays, Holy Days, Festivals, Feast Days, Days of Recognition, and such:

World Typing Day (Malaysia)
Show and Tell Day at Work Day

Today's Tunes

Tampa Red

Luther Perkins

Elvis Presley

Shirley Bassey

Robby Krieger

David Bowie

Terry Sylvester

Arcangelo Corelli

Sara Carter

Bonus Bowie:

Ok, it's an open thread, so it's up to you folks now. So what's on your mind?

Cross posted from http://caucus99percent.com

Open Thread, Democratic Party, Fanny Bullock Workman, Portugal, The Pope, The ANC, Luther Perkins, Bill Graham, Elvis, Shirley Bassey, David Bowie, Sara Carter