# Things that are basically impossible
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-are-basically-impossible/779374
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [February 9, 2017, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-are-basically-impossible/779374 "2017-02-09T04:46:51Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Xema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xema)
#### Post date: [February 9, 2017, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-are-basically-impossible/779374/1 "2017-02-09T04:46:51Z")
I’m on my way from Sydney to Los Angeles, on a Boeing 777 that’s currently at 34,000 feet over the south Pacific (near Tonga) - and I have internet access. I’m sitting in Business class, which means I can set up my PC, plug it in, and check out SDMB while sipping from a glass of cognac after a nice supper.
This really isn’t within the scope of what’s rationally possible.
Any other candidates?
---
### Author:  [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)
#### Post date: [February 9, 2017, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-are-basically-impossible/779374/2 "2017-02-09T04:57:49Z")
I have never had measles, mumps, polio, diphtheria, smallpox, tetanus, rubella, and even though I had pertussis, it lasted just a couple of days, and was never very serious, all because of a few injections I had as a child, and didn’t enjoy, but barely remember. My mother had measles and mumps, and sure as hell remembers those. I also sure as hell remember chicken pox, something my son will be spared because of an injection.
FWIW, I was in countries with polio when I was 10, and there was a measles outbreak at my college my senior year, so I’m pretty sure I’ve been exposed to both of those. And I was a candy striper in the hospital, so there’s a chance I was exposed to other stuff. I also had a paper route, and was bitten by dogs twice. I also got a serious puncture wound from a nail at a construction site once. Still, no tetanus.
---
### Author:  [@OldGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldGuy)
#### Post date: [February 9, 2017, 6:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-are-basically-impossible/779374/3 "2017-02-09T06:04:39Z")
How in the world can you take a flat piece of vinyl and scratch into it with a stylus in such a way that when you put a needle back into the cut groove it reproduces the original sound so accurately? Phonograph records seem highly implausible if not impossible. Digital recording seems simple by comparison.
---
### Author:  [@Channing\_Idaho\_Banks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Channing_Idaho_Banks)
#### Post date: [February 9, 2017, 6:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-are-basically-impossible/779374/4 "2017-02-09T06:24:42Z")
How can people accurately pilot 2-ton vehicles? Specifically, idiots who cannot see. Yet, millions of them are out there.
---
### Author:  [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)
#### Post date: [February 9, 2017, 6:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-are-basically-impossible/779374/5 "2017-02-09T06:39:24Z")
I had an organ removed (gallbladder) and I was up and walking around and eating real food the same day. I got a total of three tiny scars, none of which are still visible, and undergoing something less debilitating than a mild cold means I’ll never suffer another episode of biliary colic ever again.
I can run a whole other operating system as a guest under my current operating system. My laptop can multitask operating systems, so I can run Linux as my primary OS and run Windows as a guest which has full access to the Internet but can’t escape from the tiny little box KVM keeps it in. My laptop is now a high-end mainframe capable of running multiple real operating systems at the same time and it cost less than $1200 new.
My Internet connection is not only always-on and stable, I can use it to stream video while I surf the Web while I download video to watch later while I run ntpd in the background to automatically keep my clock synced to, ultimately, the master we-define-what-time-is clocks in Boulder, Colorado. I’d ask when my laptop became a high-end networking workstation, but, frankly, networking workstations from the golden age of workstations never had it this good.
I have more RAM than most of my previous computers had disk space. I have more disk space than most of my previous houses had total computer-usable writable storage space. I’m pretty sure my primary monitor has more pixels than all of my family’s computer monitors and TVs combined did in the CRT Era, and I have a whole other monitor right beside that one. All of that is crazy talk. None of this should be possible. It’s like I’m living in a strange dream of SSDs, massively dense disk drives, and giganto-huge RAM modules.
I hold in the palm of my hand an audio player (Sansa Clip Zip) with tens of gigabytes of storage for audio of all types, all formats, on a removable chip. It runs an Open Source firmware (Rockbox), so I can hack it at my leisure and potentially add more functionality. It has a color display, so I can play games on it while I listen to music. It is now somewhat old-fashioned, and it was never top-of-the-line, even when it was new.
---
### Author:  [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)
#### Post date: [February 9, 2017, 7:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-are-basically-impossible/779374/6 "2017-02-09T07:34:50Z")
If I want to see a picture of the surface of Mars, I carry in my pocket a device which will show it to me in seconds.
---
### Author:  [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)
#### Post date: [February 9, 2017, 8:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-are-basically-impossible/779374/7 "2017-02-09T08:30:06Z")
> [@AK84](#):
>
> If I want to see a picture of the surface of Mars, I carry in my pocket a device which will show it to me in seconds.
I’ve seen true-color high-resolution pictures of the surface of Pluto.
I remember when Pluto had fewer pixels than enemies in arcade games from before I was born.
---
### Author:  [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)
#### Post date: [February 9, 2017, 9:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-are-basically-impossible/779374/8 "2017-02-09T09:48:03Z")
> [@OldGuy](#):
>
> How in the world can you take a flat piece of vinyl and scratch into it with a stylus in such a way that when you put a needle back into the cut groove it reproduces the original sound so accurately? Phonograph records seem highly implausible if not impossible. Digital recording seems simple by comparison.
And you can polish a car with a dirty rag, and it spontaneously creates a [hologram of your hand](http://makezine.com/2008/03/08/diy-handdrawn-holograms/).
---
### Author:  [@pullin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pullin)
#### Post date: [February 9, 2017, 11:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-are-basically-impossible/779374/9 "2017-02-09T11:03:31Z")
My eldest kid is an airline pilot. He spends a substantial part of his life miles above the earth in a pressurized metal tube filled with thousands of gallons of highly flammable liquid.
I’m very worried about him right now because he’s not up there where it’s safe, but on earth, backpacking thru Big Bend. He is in far more danger of harm from a rattlesnake than when he’s strapped in his metal can hurtling at 100’s of mph in the sky.
Apparently, we are statistically in more danger sitting in our houses than we are riding at nearly the speed of sound in a flying machine. This seems almost impossible to me.
---
### Author:  [@Icarus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icarus)
#### Post date: [February 9, 2017, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-are-basically-impossible/779374/10 "2017-02-09T13:43:49Z")
I exist because of the somewhat random reproduction mechanism of various unimaginable creatures going back to the dawn of life.
---
### Author:  [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)
#### Post date: [February 9, 2017, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-are-basically-impossible/779374/11 "2017-02-09T13:51:37Z")
Driving a race car at 200MPH.
Your consciousness is about a half second behind real time. You are actually ~150 feet further down the track than where you think you are. You have to start turning before entering a curve, etc. All the time avoiding hitting the tons of wailing metal bobbing all around you.
And you really, really need a bathroom break.
---
### Author:  [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)
#### Post date: [February 9, 2017, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-are-basically-impossible/779374/12 "2017-02-09T14:57:13Z")
> [@OldGuy](#):
>
> How in the world can you take a flat piece of vinyl and scratch into it with a stylus in such a way that when you put a needle back into the cut groove it reproduces the original sound so accurately? Phonograph records seem highly implausible if not impossible. Digital recording seems simple by comparison.
Computer tech ought to be impossible on similar grounds. Got a 128GB flash drive? That’s 8 bits per byte, so you’ve got something in your hand the size of a stick of gum, with _over a trillion_ bits. That’s enough for about 366 million pages of text. Like a million books. Seriously, you can fit several libraries’ worth of information in the palm of your hand. How can we miniaturize things to such an insane degree?
And then there’s the CPU, running at gigahertz speed. Seriously, you’ve got something sitting on your desk changing states _several billion times per second._ WTF?
---
### Author:  [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)
#### Post date: [February 9, 2017, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-are-basically-impossible/779374/13 "2017-02-09T17:12:20Z")
> [@Xema](#):
>
> I’m on my way from Sydney to Los Angeles, on a Boeing 777 that’s currently at 34,000 feet over the south Pacific (near Tonga) - and I have internet access.
My stepsister’s in Tonga - I bet you’re hogging her wifi! 😉
---
### Author:  [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)
#### Post date: [February 9, 2017, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-are-basically-impossible/779374/14 "2017-02-09T18:02:35Z")
Last night I heard a frog outside my window. That frog’s mother laid a thousand eggs, and only one survived. Every year a new replacement generation, so two years ago, the frog’s mother had a chance in a million of surviving and begetting my frog. Grandmother, a chance in a billion. My frog’s chances after a million years of frog generations, is a number with 3-million digits. And there he is. He made it. And tomorrow morning, the lawn-care crew will run over him with a mower.
---
### Author:  [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)
#### Post date: [February 9, 2017, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-are-basically-impossible/779374/15 "2017-02-09T18:43:58Z")
I can go out on a clear night, in a low-light location, and spot the Andromeda Galaxy in the sky. That light began over 2.5 million years ago, and continued unimpeded through space… until it hit the retinas of my eyes.
---
### Author:  [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)
#### Post date: [February 9, 2017, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-are-basically-impossible/779374/16 "2017-02-09T18:58:22Z")
I’ve published books with traditional publishers. Yet I see ads all the time which assure me that it’s impossible to do this; only by sending money to their companies can I ever see my manuscripts in print.
---
### Author:  [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)
#### Post date: [February 9, 2017, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-are-basically-impossible/779374/17 "2017-02-09T19:04:33Z")
I’m watching the 1931 version of _Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde_ on my DVR.
Everyone who acted in it is dead. Probably, all the technicians are dead. The director is dead, and the screenwriter is dead.
They filmed this movie on celluloid in 1931, relying on the reaction of light and some chemicals to make a series of thousands of little pictures that could then be projected on a white screen.
The negatives degraded, and so did most prints, and for several decades, you could see the movie, but it had scratches, white lines, pops, buzzes, and muffled parts. And I could see it only when someone decided to project it on a screen or broadcast it on TV.
About 15 years ago, someone used computer technology to erase the scratches, pops and buzzes on the film, and stored it digitally, so now I can watch it as clearly as it was in 1931. It’s sent to me over a wire, into a machine that I program to capture and save it, so I can watch it any time I want. I can pause it if I have to go to the bathroom. I can rewind a scene if I want to see something again-- I can watch the same scene twice, once studying one actor’s face, the second time another’s. After I’ve seen it several times, if there’s a part I don’t like, I can fast forward through it. And I can do it sitting on the futon, with a wireless remote.
It also has had optional captions added, so I can watch it with my Deaf friends.
I don’t know whether those dead actors thought that people would still be able to watch the movie after their deaths (or would still want to); maybe they did, but I’ll bet they never dreamed people would be watching it in their living rooms _any time they wanted_. On large flat screens
---
### Author:  [@Channing\_Idaho\_Banks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Channing_Idaho_Banks)
#### Post date: [February 9, 2017, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-are-basically-impossible/779374/18 "2017-02-09T19:06:13Z")
“To be perfectly frank, we’ve surveyed
over three hundred worlds and no one’s
ever reported a creature which, using
your words…
(read from Ripley’s
statement)
…‘gestates in a living human host’
and has 'concentrated molecular acid
for blood.”
---
### Author:  [@ivylass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivylass)
#### Post date: [February 9, 2017, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-are-basically-impossible/779374/19 "2017-02-09T19:08:49Z")
Ivylad was in the Navy in the late 80s-early 90s. He served on a submarine and I did not hear from him for six months except for snail mail letters.
Ivygirl is in the Army. She’s currently on deployment in the Pacific and yesterday we video-chatted via Facebook Messenger.
It amazes me that I have a mini-computer at my hand, where I can take pictures and post them to social media, look up information, and figure out where I took that wrong turn.
I used to have to watch TV on the network’s time. Now, if I miss the premier of a show, I can catch up later at my convenience (or watch an entire series at once.)
---
### Author:  [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)
#### Post date: [February 9, 2017, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-are-basically-impossible/779374/20 "2017-02-09T19:13:16Z")
I can speak to my xfinity remote control and it will search for the program or channel I want to see. There was no programming time required for it to recognize my voice, and it nails it every single time.
I remember when I thought the fax machine was very close to being black magic.
[Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-are-basically-impossible/779374.md?page=2)