2025-03-10
30 分钟This is the Guardian.
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Signature moves are We Losing the Ability to Write by Hand?
By Christine Rosen Read by Laurel Lefkoe Humming away in offices on Capitol Hill,
in the Pentagon and in the White House,
is a technology that represents the pragmatism,
efficiency and unsentimental nature of American bureaucracy, the auto pen.
It is a device that stores a person's signature,
replicating it as needed using a mechanical arm that holds a real pen.
Like many technologies, this rudimentary robotic signature maker has always provoked ambivalence.
We invest signatures with meaning, particularly when the signer is well known.
During the George W. Bush administration, the Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld,
generated a small wave of outrage when reporters revealed
that he had been using an auto pen for his signature on the condolence letters
that he sent to the families of fallen soldiers.
Fans of singer Bob Dylan expressed ire when they discovered
that the limited edition of his book the Philosophy of Modern Song,
which cost nearly $600