In accepting an honorary degree from the University of Notre Dame a few
years ago, General David Sarnoff [head of RCA] made this statement: We are
too prone to make technological instruments the scapegoats for the sins of
those who wield them. The products of modern science are not in themselves
good or bad; it is the way they are used that determines their value. That
is the voice of the current somnambulism. Suppose we were to say, Apple pie
is in itself neither good nor bad; it is the way it is used that determines
its value. ... There is nothing in the Sarnoff statement that will bear
scrutiny, for it ignores the nature of the medium, of any and all media, in
the true Narcissus style of one hypnotized by the amputation and extension of
his own being in a new technical form. ... It has never occurred to General
Sarnoff that any technology could do anything but _add_ itself on to what we
already are.
-- Marshall McLuhan, _Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man_ (1964)
Pascal n.
An Algol-descended language designed by
Niklaus Wirth on the CDC 6600 around 1967-68 as an instructional
tool for elementary programming. This language, designed primarily
to keep students from shooting themselves in the foot and thus
extremely restrictive from a general-purpose-programming point of
view, was later promoted as a general-purpose tool and, in fact,
became the ancestor of a large family of languages including
Modula-2 and Ada (see also bondage-and-discipline l
summed up by a devastating (and, in its deadpan way, screamingly
funny) 1981 paper by Brian Kernighan (of K&...
