The Printing Press

A printing press is a device for evenly printing ink onto a print medium (substrate) such as paper or cloth. The device applies pressure to a print medium that rests on an inked surface made of movable type, thereby transferring the ink. Typically used for texts, the invention and spread of the printing press are widely regarded as among the most influential events in human history,^[1] revolutionizing the way people conceive and describe the world they live in, and ushering in the period of modernity.^[2]

The world's first movable type printing press technology was invented and developed in China by the Han Chinese printer Bi Sheng between the years 1041 and 1048. The Han Chinese polymathic genius Shen Kuo wrote extensively about the movable type printing press technology developed by Bi Sheng in his scientific book, the Dream Pool Essays which was published in Imperial China by the year 1088 A.D.. The Han Chinese later transmitted this technology to the Imperial Chinese tributary state ofKorea during the Goryeo Dynasty, the Korean inventors subsequently made many new technological improvements and innovations upon the original Han Chinese technology and in 1234 created the world's first metal movable-type printing press technology for printingpaper books 216 years before Gutenberg's version of metal movable type. This led to the printing of a Korean book, using the ancient Chinese writing system, known in Korean as the Jikji in 1377, it is the oldest extant movable metal printed book in the entire world. This was a form of metal movable type technology that has been described by the French scholar Henri-Jean Martin as 'extremely similar to Gutenberg's', suggesting that some of the earlier Han Chinese/Korean technological innovations may have been transmitted to Europesometime after the Mongolian invasions of Europe which significantly opened up the Silk Road and allowed free flow and transmission of ancient Chinese inventions knowledge,gunpowder firearm technology and science within the Mongol Empire thus allowing technology to move from China to Europe freely and safely.^[3]

The invention of movable type mechanical printing technology in Europe is credited to theGerman printer Johannes Gutenberg in 1450.^[4] The exact date of Gutenberg's press is debated based on existing screw presses. Gutenberg, a goldsmith by profession, developed a printing system by both adapting existing technologies and making inventions of his own. His newly devised hand mould made possible the rapid creation of metal movable type in large quantities. The printing press displaced earlier methods of printing and led to the firstassembly line-style mass production of books.^[5] A single Renaissance printing press could produce 3,600 pages per workday,^[6] compared to about 2,000 by typographic block-printing^[7] and a few by hand-copying.^[8] Books of bestselling authors such as Luther andErasmus were sold by the hundreds of thousands in their lifetime.^[9]

Printing soon spread from Mainz, Germany to over two hundred cities in a dozen European countries.^[10] However the first book in English was not until 25 years later in 1475. By 1500, printing presses in operation throughout Western Europe had already produced more than twenty million volumes.^[10] In the 16th century, with presses spreading further afield, their output rose tenfold to an estimated 150 to 200 million copies.^[10] The operation of a press became so synonymous with the enterprise of printing that, by metonymy, it lent its name to a new branch of media, the press.^[11] The importance of printing as an emblem of modern achievement and of the ability of so-called Moderns to rival the Ancients, in whose teachings much of Renaissance learning was grounded, was enhanced by the frequent juxtaposition of the recent invention of printing to those of firearms and the nautical compass.^[12] In 1620, the English philosopher Francis Bacon indeed wrote that these three inventions "changed the whole face and state of the world".^[13]

In Renaissance Europe, the arrival of mechanical movable type printing introduced the era of mass communication which permanently altered the structure of society. The relatively unrestricted circulation of information and (revolutionary) ideas transcended borders, captured the masses in the Reformation and threatened the power of political and religious authorities; the sharp increase in literacy broke the monopoly of the literate elite on education and learning and bolstered the emerging middle class. Across Europe, the increasing cultural self-awareness of its people led to the rise of proto-nationalism, accelerated by the flowering of the European vernacular languages to the detriment ofLatin's status as lingua franca.^[14] In the 19th century, the replacement of the hand-operated Gutenberg-style press by steam-powered rotary presses allowed printing on anindustrial scale,^[15] while Western-style printing was adopted all over the world, becoming practically the sole medium for modern bulk printing.

medieval institutions in Spain

MEDIEVAL INSTITUTIONS

As to His Majesty he must find it funny, alien and deliciously plebeian the controversy a few years ago, when it was revealed his heroic killing of a bear drunk Transylvania, continues as we have known these days devoted to spend big bucks outside the royal activity the slaughter of beasts, so dear to the crowned heads, for pure homage to its roots, seem to feel a vampiric and sickly predisposition towards guns and blood.

One activity that the royal family should suspect especially unfriendly as has been silent about the royal hunts. Or particularly hypocritical, because it is not acceptable that who appears as Honorary President in charge of one of the most recognized international conservation agencies, the World Wildlife Fund (Adena in Spain) have a hobby folded species in danger of extinction, if African elephants. Whatever he says the law of Botswana, whatever it says the speech into force of the powerful knight Don Money.

But with the bad luck that pursues Don Juan Carlos in his already advanced age, a paw treading the virulé and makes you roll, roll and roll (things rancheras, but you know it is still king), are accidents, cracked promptly removed hips and photos on the websites where apparently hung in a while but that the rapid pace of the network has managed to save to show, causing the discrete actual booking has become real scandal voices.

I consider myself a Republican, by pure rationality and pure consistency with the model of society that I like and I defend. I can understand that you have wanted to keep a premodern institution in the Spanish Constitution for fear take other steps, I can understand unless the covenant of silence that the Spanish media seem to have signed and followed for years to maintain the image of the royal house clean and immaculate to citizens. But there comes a time when we should ask ourselves if we really want a monarchy, and in which the spots that we always have hidden van breaking cracks of reality and accessing common knowledge to show us that the Bourbons have always lived in the world of Barney outside world, fulfilling the constitutionally mandated functions but while bypassing the rules thanks to their privileges and condescension with which politicians and journalists continue saving them. The king's dalliances were sneaking through the cracks; also learned that just by Dangerous Liaisons had jumped every time a murky network of evasions or favors; then came the queen to break the neutrality due to speak confidently of policy decisions and civil rights that Mrs. seem not like; were the scandals of the new generation, and with them the feeling that definitely not all Spaniards are equal before the law. And now it makes us painfully present a king dedicated to hide behind a gun, good company and saved, to kill wild animals in Africa, a murder can have no other meaning than that of accumulating macabre trophy to put horny to its owner, in a physical demonstration of power, money, impunity and tacky taste of cruelty and hypocrisy.

I do not know, I do not know if I believe, if it is true that the monarchy ensured stability in the difficult years of the transition. I do not know if it's true, you know what I think anymore, so often highlighted the role of Don Juan Carlos on the night of 23-F. But I do know that a king in a very difficult time for his subjects is dedicated to leave safari, a king who ignores the profound disgust that his hobby involves so many Spaniards, a king who acts illegally, King incapable of measuring the morality of its shares, a king who has no qualms about chairing conferences to save biodiversity morning and mow bears, buffaloes and elephants in the afternoon, he is a king who should start thinking seriously about moving to the reservation. In the Sherengueti, for example. And take with him to the family and the institution.