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That nobody in popular music has written anything yet to rival the Beatles.
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Surgery blows my mind. When I see those shows on TV where someone has something horribly wrong with themselves, and another person knows how and where to root around in that sack of glop that is our bodies, to not only identify which parts they’re looking at, but what to do to make them ok again.
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That nobody has ever mounted a serious protest against the Illinois Tollway Authority.
You don’t need handheld global interface to know how the Bears are doing…
Hey, I made a football joke! 
Toddlers acquiring speech amaze me–as does wind, snow, fog, tornados and frost. Oh, and leaves turning in the fall–I don’t care about the science of it, I love the beauty of it.
RE the Lockhorns–ditto Family Circus, Andy whatever, Dondie, Nancy, Beetle Bailey and Brenda Starr…when was the last time the funnies were funny?[/OT]
You’re right, this is completely inexplicable. Does anybody read that thing?
Why on earth would this surprise you? How else could it possibly be? Why would the networks provide their content to the cable company if the cable company was going to allow you to watch it without seeing the commercials, when you seeing the commercials is what makes the network money and is their entire reason for existence?
Umm, I pay close to $60 a month for basic cable, which does not include any commercial-free channels. I would expect that even if they insist on putting commercials in my content, that I can skip them automatically if I am watching from a recording as is per functionality of the device they provide me. To go in and explicityly disable this functionality is just mean and greedy. (I can still fast forward, I just have to eyeball where to stop and often overshoot).
I am amazed at the human body. It’s built inside another body, from instructions written in a code using only four letters, and it ends up big, and functioning, and aware. The design and function of every organ, every system, is absolutely fascinating, and sometimes I just look at a kidney or a heart and think, “wow.” Feedback systems, balanced hormones and neurotransmitters, membranes letting some things in, keeping others out… it’s perfect.
I’m also amazed at how little it takes to put a body out of commission. One error in the code, one little virus, a problem in any of the organs, and everything can break down.
But then, it’s also amazing how far we’ve come in our ability to diagnose, treat, and prevent disease. Drugs to kill bacteria, vaccines to keep viruses at bay, replacements for missing hormones, and transplants for dying organs.
On an unrelated note, I’m also amazed at how good love feels.
I’m amazed in two contrary directions about medical science. If your ear, cornea, heart, kidney, hip, knee, or shoulder blows out, you can get it replaced or fixed. These things were impossible when I was a child.
On the other hand, many people get angry when the doctor can’t fix everything.
I’m amazed again and again at the gullibility of my country’s voters.
How much you are paying is irrelevant, because if you were getting commercial-free TV, you would be paying more, by simple market economics.
Imagine you publish a magazine like Newsweek. Some big store comes up to you and says “we want to sell your magazine on our racks”. You’re like “hell, yeah, you do that, we’ll both make money”. Now another big store comes up to you and says “we want to sell your magazine on our racks, but we sell it with a magical set of glasses that superimpose porn over all the ads in your magazine”, would you be happy about that? Would you let them sell it?
Of course, I’d just charge more! Most people are getting the Cable TV I watch over the air for free, which is paid for by the ads. I pay Comcast, the cable company, to deliver me this content in a premium fashion - it’s always static free, I get a program guide, I get to record it and fast forward through commercials. The equipment they lease me has the capability to skip commercials automatically as opposed to me fast forwarding through them. That capability is explicitly disabled by comcast. I’m not asking to view the content without commercials, which, while nice, won’t fly with the networks.
Comcast has an ability to negotiate with the networks. They also have a monopoly on cable boxes for their service. If I could get a TiVo that was also a Comcast cable box with commercial skip, I would’ve done so. I’m arguing that disabling commercial skip is not only dishonest, misrepresents their service, and greedy but it is also anticompetitive. I don’t get a choice of cable providers, I don’t get a choice of DVR cable boxes, I either pay for what they ask or do without.
Bug’s legs. Those little, tiny things no bigger than a hair…and they WORK. They move and support the body and propel through difficult terrain, maybe even vertically. Amazing.
I second the airplane posts. I sit and watch a jumbo jet coming in at a distance and it is moving impossibly slow. It just hangs there. Tons of steel. No way. Gotta be a trick.
Cell phones. Watching a movie only a few years old and when something happens we think “Why doesn’t he just call someone” from his car, backyard or a desert? I can remember when a car phone was the height of luxury, reserved for limo’s only.
Authentic wanted posters rarely had images, and were produced one by one on manually operated printing presses. Those that had images used engraved illustrations, not photos.
Thanks. I can understand engraved illustrations. But how about the Booth reward poster? How did they do that in 1865?
Looks like the photos were glued to the poster. If you look at an enlargement of the one on the top left, you can see it starting to lift along the bottom edge. It is unlikely that it was a photo lithographic technique, which was invented in 1859, but was not capable of continuous tone pictures until 1880:
Thanks, Fear. Looks like someone in the War Department had the unenviable task of making print after print of these photos and then cutting and gluing them to posters.
Oops, that should be “driving up Portola in SF”. I often say one when I mean the other, and Potrero wouldn’t afford quite the same view.
I don’t know if anyone did this one yet, but it amazes me that on my Comcast On Demand, I can turn on a movie, watch 5 minutes, of it, then call my dad and tell him to turn it on, and he can watch it from the beginning. I just don’t understand how this works.
There was a huge traffic jam on the IUD. 
[QUOTE=groman]
I’m a young-un. I’m an engineer. Technology doesn’t amaze me, it’s how the idiocy, greed and bureaucracy of mankind throttles it’s use. Things still amaze me, though, every day.
[QUOTE]
Grom You’re too young to be this old.
The usual advance in tech. I’ve used the first generation of home computer. The fact that a Game Boy Advance has the same processor as some of them (Z80?) runs for 18 hours on a charge, fits in a pocket, costs $75, and is computationally a weakling amazes me. Your handheld GPS most likely has a 386 processor (Garmin III+ and V’s do). and likewise runs 20 hours on a charge, and tells you where you are withing feet using satellites from SPACE (DUDE!?!?!)
The fact that my kids not only have unique personalities, they had them so early. Life, yeah, I get it. Birth is pretty damn incredible too. But one twin likes milk in the morning and the other wants a binky? And they figured this out at, what, 6 months?
The fact that my kids, at nearly 3 years old, are these huge gangly long things that flop over my arms to both sides when I hold them. I remember when could hold them in one hand, like a football…it seems like a long time ago, but it was only half a car-loan ago.
Two types of creativity: commercials and popular music. I’m amazed that there are still original ideas left, that they haven’t used up all the good ones yet.
Memory amazes me. The fact that now, with my life slipping away, I can remember things from when I was 18 months old better than I can things I did 2 days ago. and the things that trigger memory…
My kids amaze me. Constantly.
Nothing technological amazes me at all.
On the other hand, I am also constantly amazed and bewildered by the fact the people still give Nicole Kidman work. To the day I die this fact will baffle me.
mm