I'm amazed by how much technology amazes me

[chacoguy]

@Crotalus

Others have mentioned it, but data storage stills blows my mind. When I began my programming career in 1988, my company’s computer was an IBM DOS mainframe. Our disk storage devices were IBM 3380s, which were about the size of portable toilet, cost about $100,000 each, and had a storage capacity of about 2.5 gigabytes. We used thousands of magnetic tapes in our processing because disk storage was so expensive. Now I can buy a 1 terabyte drive for $70 that is about the size of a sandwich. A small sandwich. And a 16 gig flash drive is $20.

They went to the Moon on ONE Meg.

[Rick]

@Arrendajo

Sh*t I’m amazed by my car, and it’s just a modern version of something that’s been around for a hundred years.

I’m in the automotive business and have been for over 40 years.
If you told me back in 1967 when I started in that gas station that I would be working on cars that polluted less while driving than the then current cars did while parked, would get twice the horsepower per cubic inch, and better gas mileage I would have told you that you were nuts.
If you then went on and told me that a car might have 25 or so different computers in it, and to fix a problem I might be plugging in a device into the car, which has no wires attached to it. Then I would go across the shop to another computer and somehow with no wires attached to the car or that device, change the programming in the car, well then I would have known you are on drugs.
The other thing that amazes me is that I understand how all of this shit works and I can explain it to others.
Arthur C. Clarke was right. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
We have a term to describe technology in a car we don’t understand. The term is PFM
Pure
Fucking
Magic

[Asimovian]

I can post on the Dope, watch videos or live television, shop, bank and pay bills, virtually be at my work desk, chat, order food, read books, make phone calls and play games, all while lying in bed, or sitting on the toilet, or hurtling across the sky in an airplane, using just a very affordable laptop and wireless internet connection.

It’s a good time to be alive.

[Hbns]

ATM machines.

I am currently in a small German village. I can go to the ATM at the bank in this village, put in my ATM card from my small town midwestern USA credit union and and withdraw Euro. By the time I walk back to my flat and get online with my credit union the transaction has already posted. That is pretty amazing.

[Stoid]

@Crotalus

Others have mentioned it, but data storage stills blows my mind. When I began my programming career in 1988, my company’s computer was an IBM DOS mainframe. Our disk storage devices were IBM 3380s, which were about the size of portable toilet, cost about $100,000 each, and had a storage capacity of about 2.5 gigabytes. We used thousands of magnetic tapes in our processing because disk storage was so expensive. Now I can buy a 1 terabyte drive for $70 that is about the size of a sandwich. A small sandwich. And a 16 gig flash drive is $20.

Wait, check THIS out.

[phouka]

Colors.

When I learn about the technological advances behind colors and dyes available to us, I am gobsmacked.

Mauve was one of the first synthetic colors created. It was made from coal tar, until then considered a waste product. The creation of mauve (mauveine, anilline dye) led to the creation of more synthetic dyes but also to the development of sulfonamides and then chemotherapy drugs. IIRC, it also produced the stain that enabled us to discriminate between gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria. AND it was the ink used in ditto machines.

Prussian Blue was created in the early 1700s, but its molecule is so complex, it defies standard crystallographic techniques for description. It’s used in blueprints, was one of the few blue pigments that wouldn’t fade (you can see it in the famous tsunami woodcut "the Great Wave Off Kanagawa), and it’s still a standard treatment for thallium and caesium poisoning.

Newly discovered pigments have a habit of sparking fads in fashion. The hideous neon colors of the 80s were the result of new dyes. The jewel colors that started showing up on cars in the 90s were the result of new painting techniques and technologies. There were even, for a few weeks, t-shirts dyed with a chemical that changed color in response to heat. Until, people realized it meant their armpits and boobs were going to be very noticeable whenever they wore those shirts. Amazing stuff.

[Dewey_Finn]

@Rick

I’m in the automotive business and have been for over 40 years.
If you told me back in 1967 when I started in that gas station that I would be working on cars that polluted less while driving than the then current cars did while parked, would get twice the horsepower per cubic inch, and better gas mileage I would have told you that you were nuts.

I remember reading a description of an automobile trip taken in the early twentieth century (like around 1910-1930). The trip was about forty miles in distance in Southern California, took hours and involved multiple flat tires. This, it was said, was typical. Today, of course, such a trip would be far shorter. Flat tires are rare. And I can drive my car thousands of miles without needing to do anything aside from adding fuel.

As for data storage, flash storage is amazing but hard drives are a mechanical engineering wonder. The platters in a typical drive spin round dozens of times a second while the read/write head moves a tiny fraction of a inch just above the platter. And the drive can continue to operate like this for thousands of hours.

[pinguin]

There are even more amazing things to come: 3D holographic TV is just around the corner; Commercial space trips; Fusion, perhaps will work some of these days. But what I am waiting for since years are flexible e-book readers, like the one in this picture:

http://www.lasersharks.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/2238136368279992.JPG