Ask HN: What technologies still impress you most today?
I had a moment of amazement the other day while I was putting in my contacts - these flimsy plastic disks allow me to see, and we can manufacture them with quite amazing precision.
A lot of technology we use every day is really quite amazing, if you stop to think about it. What technology has amazed you recently, and why?
Cars. Making a box that will carry 4 people around at 80 mph is a pretty neat accomplishment. Doing it comfortably, safely, and at a a competitive price is an amazing feat of engineering and optimization.
The fact I can sit in a cafe, wirelessly connect to the internet, then connect to the office through my VPN, and then log into a virtual machine that doesn't even physically exist.
A relative of mine recently had heart surgery of a type that is fairly routine nowadays. But when I think of the fact that you can pull apart someone's rib-cage, stick knives into their heart and then put it all back together again such that the person is walking about not long after, I am still impressed.
Would it be wrong to say we're ending the first decade of the 21st century and I was really hoping for a lot more tech. Most of us grew up on sci-fi. I'd say we're a little behind schedule. "Sorry Dave, I can't do that." is a pretty old movie quote.
Technology will only really amaze you when you have to do without it for a week. Or even just an hour. Even the most basic stuff is so far beyond what you personally would be able to re-create starting from scratch, even with all your knowledge that it might as well all be science fiction.
We're standing on top of a nearly endless layercake of invention, unable to even conceive any more of what it would be like to stand on the plate the cake rests on.
We'd probably last for about 15 minutes. But since the heart of the question is 'recently', I'd have to pick abs, without it I wouldn't be writing this.
I think it's amazing that the Internet works.
Topical video (Everything's amazing and nobody's happy):
The scientific method. It works on just about any problem you're able to apply it to.
Transistors. The sheer complexity and speed of what can be achieved by stacking together a large number of electrically activated switches never ceases to amaze me.
I still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea.
Having been to the moon.
The world wide web, for being so relevant to many things I do.