From: Adrian Johnson <ajohnson@i...>
Date: Thu, 15 Jul 1999 16:30:00 -0400
Subject: Totally OT, but observation about list members...
I just read the recent post from Los about combat pistol shooting, in which he identified himself as a Special Forces Close Quarter Battle team leader, and a couple of observations about this list and it's membership struck me: We have a really interesting group of people here - a quick sample shows all kinds of professions and specialties: Los is a spec ops operator (and certainly knows, as do the other professional soldiers on the list, what the shooty stuff is *really* all about), Nyrath is a physicist/astronomer and really knows the star stuff, Ken W. is a physical anthropologist who has done a pile of forensic work (and really knows what he's talking about when it comes to stuff like shotgun ballistics and wound damage), and so on and so on. It isn't just these people with some kind of "special" qualification that make valuable contributions to the list - certainly I think basically everybody has added value to the experience for me. What strikes me is that the "gee-whiz" factor of computers/email/the web for adding value to our lives isn't really with things like doing spreadsheets fast and organizing data - though certainly those are valuable - but rather in bringing such a diverse group of people from all over the world together to share a common interest. Same with gaming - the gaming community really brings together a WIDE group of people - it is very cross-cultural in a way. Anyway - just a thought :) On that thought, I'm going to be, in a day or two, signing off the list for a while (heading out west - western Canada that is - for vacation time with the family). So we'll see you in the funny pages...