Don't Take Technology for Granted. So much of Today's World is Truly Astonishing

Yesterday we were sitting in a cafe on the UBC campus in the middle of our bike ride through the Pacific Spirit Park forest.

The room was quiet. Almost everyone was working on his or her computer.

Most of the computers were small and recent models.

I was struck by this amazing fact:

Almost all of human knowledge in available to each and everyone of these young students on a slim "machine" that fits easily into a backpack. Many are being operated by batteries, and all are "on line" (which is to say, plugged into the universal flow of all available human information) by "wireless" commands.

Some things aren't available, of course.

NASA's launch secrets. The FBI's files on you and your cousin, Eddie. The entire genome sequence for Baltimore's East Side.

But Google has been adding total LIBRARIES to the web for several years now. Enter "Harvard" in your search engine and galaxies of light years of info will open up.

I realize that all of this is now taken for granted, as the availability of a fresh loaf of bread is available at your corner store and you no longer have to pound grain on stone and heat recesses in a wall to get bread.

But allow me to catch my breath for a moment and be amazed.