首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
考研
The "paperless office" has earned a proud place on lists of technological promises that did not come to pass. Surely, though, th
The "paperless office" has earned a proud place on lists of technological promises that did not come to pass. Surely, though, th
admin
2014-06-25
51
问题
The "paperless office" has earned a proud place on lists of technological promises that did not come to pass. Surely, though, the more modest goal of the carbon-paperless office is within the reach of mankind? Carbon paper allows two copies of a document to be made at once. Nowadays, a couple of keystrokes can do the same thing with a lot less fuss. Yet carbon paper persists.
This should not come as a surprise. Innovation tends to create new niches, rather than refill those that already exist. So technologies may become marginal, but they rarely go extinct. And today the little niches in which old technologies take refuge are ever more viable and accessible, thanks to the internet and the fact that production no longer needs to be so mass; making small numbers of obscure items is growing easier. On top of that, a widespread technostalgia seeks to preserve all the ways people have ever done anything. Steam locomotives; trebuchets; papyrus scrolls: all boast bands of enthusiasts making or restoring them, and sometimes making a nice profit selling the results to fans with money to spare.
As a result technologies from all the way back to the stone age persist and even flourish in the modern world. According to What Technology Wants, a book by Kevin Kelly, one of the founders of Wired magazine, America produces over a million new arrow and spear heads every year. One of the things technology wants, it seems, is to survive. Carbon paper, to the extent that it may have a desire for self-preservation, may also take comfort in the fact that, for all that this is a digital age, many analogue products are hanging on, and even making comebacks.
Indeed, digital technologies may prove to be more ephemeral than their predecessors. They are based on the idea that the medium on which a file’s constituent 0s and 1s are stored doesn’t matter, and on Alan Turing’s insight that any computer can mimic any other, given memory enough and time. This suggests that new digital technologies should be able to wipe out their predecessors completely. And early digital technologies do seem to be vanishing. The music cassette is enjoying a little hipster renaissance, it’s very distortion apparently part of its charm; but digital audio tape seems doomed.
So revolutionary digital technologies may yet consign older ones to the dustbin. Perhaps this will be the case with a remarkable breakthrough in molecular technology that could, in principle, store all the data ever recorded in a device that could fit in the back of a van. In this instance, it would not be a matter of the new extinguishing the old. Though it may never have been used for MP3s and PDFs before, DNA has been storing data for over three billion years. And it shows no sign of going extinct.
Which of the following is the idea conveyed by this text?
选项
A、The newest technologies look most likely to vanish; the oldest may always be with us.
B、Revolutionary digital technologies may extinguish old ones one day.
C、Molecular technology might be the terminator of other technologies.
D、Imperfectness is where the life of old technologies lies.
答案
A
解析
文章前三段指出,老技术往往会被边缘化,却很少被新技术所取代,甚至可能会东山再起。第四段进而指出,最新的数字技术反而最有可能消亡。最后总结全文,再次否定老技术被完全取代的可能。由此可见,[A]选项为作者意在传达的观点。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/cGK4777K
0
考研英语一
相关试题推荐
OnecountrythatiscertainoftheeffectoffilmsontourismisAustralia.TheTouristOfficeofQueenslandsaythatCrocodile
OnecountrythatiscertainoftheeffectoffilmsontourismisAustralia.TheTouristOfficeofQueenslandsaythatCrocodile
OnecountrythatiscertainoftheeffectoffilmsontourismisAustralia.TheTouristOfficeofQueenslandsaythatCrocodile
OnecountrythatiscertainoftheeffectoffilmsontourismisAustralia.TheTouristOfficeofQueenslandsaythatCrocodile
Fatehasnotbeenkindtothewesterngreywhale.Itsnumbershavedwindledto130orso,leavingit"criticallyendangered"in
Writeanessayof160~200wordsbasedonthefollowingdrawing.Inyouressay,youshould:1)describethedrawingbriefly;2)e
FromTheTippingPointtoNudge,theriseofpop-socialsciencehasbeenanoticeablefeatureofthepastdecadeinpublishing.
Writeanessayof160—200wordsbasedonthefollowingdrawing.Inyouressay,youshould1)describethedrawingbriefly,2)
(46)OneideathateliteuniversitieslikeYale,sprawlingpublicsystemslikeWisconsinandsmallerprivatecollegeslikeLewis
Afieldissimplyasocialsystemofrelationsbetweenindividualsorinstitutionswhoarecompetingforthesamestake.Anexam
随机试题
建立质量责任制是企业建立全面质量管理中的首要环节。()
身份证明系统应该由几方构成?()
下面哪项指标和患者呼吸困难的相关性最强
必须按照国家药品标准和国务院药品监督管理部门批准的生产工艺生产的药品有
CATV系统采用单相,220V、50Hz交流电源,允许电压偏移(),频率偏移±1Hz。
按照《城市房地产开发经营管理条例》的规定,房地产开发企业应当在商品房交付使用时,向购买入提供()。
我国公民李某为某市重点高中的数学老师,2010年度取得的收入明细情况如下所示:(1)每月取得工资收入6000元。(2)5月,转让专利权取得收入25000元,缴税前从中依次拿出5000元、3000元,通过国家机关捐赠给农村义务教育。(3)9月,获得稿酬
下列命题中,体现辩证法思想的有()。
Parentsandstudentsarenowrelyinglessontakingoutloansandmoreongrants,scholarshipsandtheirownincomeandsavings,
【S1】【S4】
最新回复
(
0
)