The recent threads about what to see in Wyoming and 78-RPM recordings made
me stop and think about the world and its wonders.

Wyoming abounds in natural wonders and beauty especially if you are coming
from coastal New Jersey. If you are coming from Wyoming, I am sure that the
New Jersey beaches must seem amazing. The truth is there are very few places
you can go in this world without seeing something worth seeing.

This reminds me of a story about my teacher's teacher. He was from
Lithuania. He had to travel to Zurich Switzerland for a convention. After
the convention he said, "I *must* go see the Alps." When his students asked
why he phrased it that way, i.e. *must*. He answered them that he was afraid
that G-d would say to him, "If you stayed in Lithuania and didn't see My
Alps I could forgive you but you were in Switzerland and you didn't go see
My Alps?" (A secular example of this concept can be found near the end of
the book Zorba the Greek.)

Recently one of the local wonders, New Hampshire's famous rock formation,
"The Old Man of the Mountain" finally succumbed to the erosion that created
it. I personally never visited this wonder and now, sadly, I never shall.
The loss of something awe-inspiring is in itself a lesson that should
inspire awe.

More than most generations we have seen whole ways of life come and go. In
my lifetime Bob Cratchett has gone from using an adding machine to an Excel
spreadsheet, Beaver Cleaver can no longer go over to Whitey's house without
making a "play date," and many barriers and glass ceiling have started to
come down. Whole generations of technology have come and gone.

Just like we need to see the natural wonders while they are here to be seen,
we need to partake of the manmade wonders while we can. There are so many
things to know and so little time to learn them. Learning how the I/O stack
works should be as exciting as figuring out what really happens to
Schroedinger's cat or seeing the Grand Canyon.

This list is an important resource. It helps me not only to learn new things
but more importantly, it hips me to a lot of things I would never have
thought about otherwise. Diversity of thought, opinions and approaches on
this scale is hard to find. I consider the list another "Wonder."

Let Peace be the maxim by which we act because we will Peace to become a
universal law.
Work For Peace
The opinions expressed herein are my own and not necessarily those of my
employer.
Yosef Rosenblatt

* To join/leave the list, search archives, change list settings, *
* etc., please visit http://raven.utc.edu/archives/hp3000-l.html *