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WITandWISDOM(tm) - September 7, 2000 ~~~~~~~ THOUGHTS: There is a magnet in your heart that will attract true friends. That magnet is unselfishness, thinking of others first. When you learn to live for others, they will live for you. - Paramahansa Yogananda Source: Quote A Day, quoteaday- subscribe@listbot.com via http://www.witandwisdom.org ~~~~~~~ SPECIAL THOUGHTS: The day that changed Charles's life didn't begin the way he had planned. For some time he had been bothered by his sins. Many times he had asked God to forgive him. But still he had the dreadful feeling that he was lost. Then he heard that a famous preacher was coming to speak in a large church some distance from his home. "Perhaps," he thought, "this man can help me. I will go to hear him." But when he woke up on the morning of the big day, snow was falling fast. It would be impossible to reach that large church in time. It was a great disappointment, and I'm sure Charles was tempted to think God didn't care very much for him, or surely He would have kept the storm away that morning. But Charles was determined to attend services somewhere. He trudged out through the storm to the little church near home where he usually worshiped. As he stood in the vestry shaking the snow from his clothes, he noticed that there was only a handful of people present. He went up and sat in the balcony. "What will the pastor talk about today?" he wondered. "Then came another disappointment. When the men came onto the platform, the pastor was not with them. There were hymns and prayers, and then the deacon stepped into the pulpit. Charles groaned silently. "Not the deacon! What can the deacon say that's worth listening to?" The deacon read from Isaiah 45:22. "Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth." He spoke for about ten minutes, and then apparently ran out of anything more to say. He repeated the text, seemed to get another thought, said it, then repeated the text again. He said a few more words--and had to repeat the text again! Charles was doing his best to get something helpful from the sermon, when suddenly he saw the deacon look up and point his finger right at him. "Young man," the deacon said, "you're in trouble, aren't you? Look to Jesus. Look! Look! Look!" The deacon was so much in earnest that Charles thought, "I will look to Jesus." Somehow that morning he caught a vision of Christ. He realized that Jesus loved him. He went home a changed boy. And from that time on he never took his eyes off Christ. He grew up to be one of the most successful evangelists of all time--Charles Haddon Spurgeon. He preached in London, England, and it is said that for prayer meeting the people would line up for a quarter of a mile to get in, for there were only three thousand seats in his tabernacle, and that wasn't nearly enough. People liked to be near him because he lived so close to Christ that when they were near him they were close to Jesus too. By Uncle Spencer Source: Signs of the Times, Copyright (c) April 1974, Pacific Press, www.pacificpress.com/signs via http://www.witandwisdom.org Submitted by: Dale Galusha ~~~~~~~ THIS & THAT: THE USA INTERNET TIMELINE 1950s - 1960s Panicked by the Soviets' beating us into space, the U.S. Defense Department in 1957 forms the Advance Research Projects Agency (ARPA), a technical team whose job is to beef up the burgeoning federal computer system. This leads to the establishment, a dozen years later, of ARPAnet, the first decentralized computer network for sharing data. Research centers and universities quickly begin to join ARPAnet. 1969 Doug Englebart, a researcher at Stanford, comes up with several "far-out ideas." including the computer mouse and live, interactive TV pictures. No one outside Englebart's family notices. October 1, 1969 The first e-mail message is sent by a team of computer gurus at UCLA to another team at Sanford Research Institute. The message is "LOG IN." One letter is sent at a time - first "L," then "0," etc. The system crashes on "G." 1975 Working out of their garages twentysomethings Bill Gates and Paul Allen form Microsoft in Albuquerque, NM. Early to mid - 1980s The sniff of digital money is in the air, even if it's very faint. The first Internet providers are launched, including CompuServe, Genie and Quantum, which would be renamed America Online and reacquaint us with the busy signal. 1989 Tim Berners-Lee, who works at a Swiss particle physics institute, comes up with the idea of the Worldwide Web to share physics research. Early to mid - 1990s The number of Internet users soars to 1 million. Building on Berners-Lee's World Wide Web program, the first graphics-based Web browser, Mosaic, is unveiled, for the first time giving the Net more than rudimentary visuals. 1994 Netscape is co-founded by Marc Andreessen, the key figure in the creation of Mosaic. Netscape Navigator quickly becomes the dominant Web browser. 1994 - 95 The White House goes online. Dormroom Webcams help spur the reality programming rage that will lead to "Who Wants to Marry a Multi- Millionaire?' and "Survivor." 1995 Companies that are suddenly considered "old media" (read: newspapers and magazines, even TV networks) rush to get online in a big way, and the marketing of the Net kicks into high gear. Microsoft launches the Microsoft Network. Many insiders predict that Gates' innovative MSN will crunch AOL within a year. It doesn't 1996 - 98 Entertainment, retail and business-to-business applications push the Internet's original purpose, research, into the background. With the economy booming, individual investing online becomes a phenomenon. Cyberhoaxes (Did you read the "transcript" of the Columbia astronauts on their ill-fated launch?) proliferate. Computer games displace video games in popularity. Michael Jackson and Paul McCartney simulcast Web-only concerts; retail sites such as Amazon.com make buying CDs and books on the Web easy. 1999 - present Online music community Napster, which allowed anyone with a computer to download and store music without paying for it. The Commerce Department reports that the Internet has contributed to 30 percent of U.S. economic growth since 1995. From: The Oregonian, Copyright (c) June 13, 2000, www.oregonlive.com/oregonian/obuffer.ssf via http://www.witandwisdom.org Submitted by: Barbara Henry ~~~~~~~ KEEP SMILING: One day while at the service desk of the large discount store I worked for, I saw a hand reach over and pick up the microphone for the public-address system. I assumed it was one of the assistant managers and didn't bother to look up. Then I heard a male voice say over the loudspeaker, "Hurry up, Margaret! I'm ready to go." From: Reader's Digest, Copyright (c) 2000, www.readersdigest.com Source: Kitty's Daily Mews, Copyright (c) 1997-2000 All rights reserved worldwide, kittysdailymews-subscribe@topica.com via http://www.witandwisdom.org ~~~~~~~ TRIVIA: In 1948 Einstein was offered the first presidency of the new nation of Israel. He turned it down with this statement: "I know little about the nature of people . . . . And I am saddened and ashamed that I cannot accept it . . . . I lack both the natural aptitude and the experience to deal properly with people." Source: Sermon Fodder, Sermon_Fodder- subscribe@onelist.com via http://www.witandwisdom.org |