Just about all technology amazes me, from airplanes to the hooziewhutzit sticks mentioned upthread.
One of the most amazing things to me though is the fact we’ve walked on the moon. I’m rereading Andrew Chaikin’s A Man on the Moon (though I have the 3-volume hardbound boxed set), and the courage, not only of the astronauts themselves, but of everyone involved, is amazing. The courage, knowledge, expertise, ingenuity, intelligence, and so on, of mankind is exemplified in the space program. While that tome deals with the American space program, my amazement isn’t limited to America, but extends to the entire species of humankind.
Public libraries also amaze me. I mean, I don’t need the internet to find information. I can go into any library I choose, pull a book off the shelf, and learn. Probably for 99% of human history, that wasn’t possible for the average citizen.
Excuse the hijack, but I was just thinking of this the other day. Doesn’t the retractability just keep it from writing on things you don’t want it to, and not actually keep the ink from drying out? The small amount exposed to air is going to dry out the same amount with the amount of air in the cap or airflow through the pen bottom, right?
I did the math a couple of years back when comparing the cost of my first (20MB/$800.00) hard drive to my most recent acquisition (160GB/$40.00). 8000 times the memory for 1/20 the price. You don’t see the price of too many things fall by a factor of 160000 over a period of 20 years.
Believe it or not, the technology that makes all of this possible is photography.
All* of the advancements in electronics over the last 60 years have hinged on the ability to image smaller and smaller components on Silicon. In the early 80’s used to work in what is known as a “mask shop,” creating the master images used to make the actual chips. We were working on linewidths of 1 micron (1/1,000,000 meter) back then - now cutting edge is on the order of 20 times smaller. People keep predicting that we will bottom out, but I give it at least another 20 years.
*there are other process improvements - etching, metallization, implanting, etc. which are also critical, but none matter if you can’t image your circuit.
I have to concur with this. As an adolescent, my friends and I went to incredible measures to catch just a glimpse of a boob - and on printed paper no less. Nowadays, I have to go to incredible measure to *avoid *seeing nudity every time I access my e-mail!
Heck, you wouldn’t have to explain it to her. The girl who crossed the continent in a covered wagon lived to see the jet age and long distance telephony.
The pace of invention during her lifetime was arguably at least as rapid as it is now.
Life. I’m a biologist, and it still amazes me. I can make up a big pot of, essentially, soup, and it will sit there forever and just be soup. But if I add just one tiny microscopic blob of information contained in the hardware required to read it, I can come back the next morning, and suddenly much of that soup will have been turned into zillions more of those little blobs - all alive! It’s absolutely mind-boggling when you think about it, even after all these years of working to understand it.
Laura lived until 1957 and did fly in an airplane. She certainly would have known what a telephone was…Computers on the other hand would be totally foreign.
Well, while it wasn’t ‘next morning’ (still isn’t when I order material goods on-line, since I only request standard shipping), but by the turn of the previous century Sears, Montgomery Wards, & other mail-order catalog outlets, coupled with RFD & Parcel Post, kinda had this concept going fairly well…
All that was posted (although I forget to be amazed a lot) and 4D ultrasounds of fetuses. You can actually see what the little buggar will look like before s/he comes out! Amazing stuff!
I remember getting my first computer… I was like 40 and had resisted all things technical until my brother sent me a PC. My first thought was, “well, I’ve got a $1000 solitaire game”. My 62year old mother had to come over and assemble it for me and then I got the Internet and one day the machine threatened to crash or crunch or some word for BREAK and I thought my world was going to cave in on me! You’d have thought I was about to lose a LEG!
In most places, you can drill down 300 feet or so and get a nice clean free supply of water. Wells can supply water for decades with little or no maintainence.
The personal automobile combined with the roadway system.
What began as a motorized transport system to get from point A to B has evolved into getting from point A to B under any conditions. They operate in temps from below zero to over 100 degrees. They enclose the passengers in a completely climate controlled environment (heat and a/c). They provide an entertainment system (radio). They can operate in bright sunlight, nighttime with headlights, rain with windshield wipers, ice with defrosters. They have their own anti-theft system (door locks and keyed ignition). They can run smoothly, quietly, and with little effort at speeds in excess of 65 mile in an hour.
Combine that with the roadway system that allow you to travel door to door to 99% of businesses and homes throughout 49 states on asphalt or concrete. You can travel the majority of the way non-stop. A basic system of painted lines, signs, and lights can control the flow of millions of these vehicles.
To be able to drive coast to coast in less than 3 days with your own personal transport would just blow away early settlers.
Virtualization. I’m running something like ten VMs right now with ten different OS configurations on one machine. Not so long ago that would’ve required a lab full of machines. Invaluable from a development standpoint.
Which leads me to…
Performance. It blows me away how fast my dev machines are today compared with a matter of years ago.