What modern technological equipment baffles you?

[Shut Up Legs]

Fitting all that storage onto a tiny USB stick! How the hell do they manage it? I have a tiny USB stick that holds 256GB, which is more storage than a desktop PC I had only 10 years ago. It astounds me, and I'm a software engineer, so used to using technology.

 

[Dave7]

Modern "one armed bandits" (hope this one hasnt been mentioned).
I could work the old toc tac toe's and even the 3 cherries but when I go in a pub and see people standing at the machines with hundreds of buttons & flashing lights I wonder "do these people really understand them"?

 

[Rezillo]

Bitcoin mining - what's all that about, then? I can just about get my head round being paid to to help validation of transactions but who is doing the paying?

I struggle enough with working out how Bitcoin operates in the first place.

 

[spen666]

I can't get my head round how sewing machines and printers work. They work so fast and are so efficient in producing excellent results every time, it is just a miracle for me.

If you use one of those 3D printers, you will be able to print your own sewing machine

 

[swee'pea99]

Is social media 'technology'? I can just about post on forums, but twitter, instagram, snapchat...fergeddaboutit

 

[Tin Pot]

This is the IBM Quantum Computer.

I won’t try to explain for obvious reasons.

 

[MontyVeda]

certainly not modern, but I can't fathom how a cone of card and a magnet gives such amazing clarity of sound

 

[Wobblers]

Also I have difficulties with those automated shopping tills, i.e. the ones that tell you that you have an unexpected item in the baggage area. I nearly always end up wanting to hurl my tins of chick pea dahl at the screen. Which is why I always queue up at the manned shopping tills.

"Unexpected FIST in screen area..."

 

[Shut Up Legs]

It is worth it. Blockchain has the potential to be as revolutionary as the internet

What made me laugh is that the Wikipedia article on blockchain technology says it was invented by someone whose identity apparently can't be verified.

 

[classic33]

What made me laugh is that the Wikipedia article on blockchain technology says it was invented by someone whose identity apparently can't be verified.

Satoshi Nakamoto or Hal?

 

[classic33]

This is the IBM Quantum Computer.

I won’t try to explain for obvious reasons.

View attachment 396786

How do 4D computers work?

 

[PaulSB]

This doesn’t baffle me as in how to make it work but simply why?

A friend of mine has just posted a request to FB friends asking for recommendations for Bluetooth bathroom scales. These would connect to his health app and update his weight which the health app would convert to all the usual BMI stuff etc.

I’ve had to bite my tongue to avoid suggesting if said person is too feckin’ idle to enter 3-4 digits in to an app weight loss chances are less than zero. Unbelievable!!!!!

 

[colly]

Even using stuff as common place as messaging and instant chat is a form of black magic.
I punch a series of characters on my phone screen, push another button and it instantly sends the information to someone maybe 10000 miles away and recreates the same series of characters in the same order on their screen.
It does this by sending the information to my router wirelessly, that sends it down a copper wire along with probably dozens of other signals all at the same time, it goes........well, somewhere. The signal, my signal that is, is transmitted up into space to a satellite along with maybe millions of other signals, probably bounced to another satellite or two which just happen to be in the right place and from there it goes back to earth, is pushed back into a wire or fibre optic cable finds it way to my mates router and arrives via the airwaves right at his screen and the characters magically appear.
The question is for me when its bowling along with a few million similar messages.......how does it know where to go? Why doesn't it get mixed up?

It all happens in an instant yet we just 'do it'. I swear it's a black art.

 

[Tin Pot]

Even using stuff as common place as messaging and instant chat is a form of black magic.
I punch a series of characters on my phone screen, push another button and it instantly sends the information to someone maybe 10000 miles away and recreates the same series of characters in the same order on their screen.
It does this by sending the information to my router wirelessly, that sends it down a copper wire along with probably dozens of other signals all at the same time, it goes........well, somewhere. The signal, my signal that is, is transmitted up into space to a satellite along with maybe millions of other signals, probably bounced to another satellite or two which just happen to be in the right place and from there it goes back to earth, is pushed back into a wire or fibre optic cable finds it way to my mates router and arrives via the airwaves right at his screen and the characters magically appear.
The question is for me when its bowling along with a few million similar messages.......how does it know where to go? Why doesn't it get mixed up?

It all happens in an instant yet we just 'do it'. I swear it's a black art.

The reality is more boring than accounting, so I’d stick with “black art” and be happy.

 

[Andrew_P]

The one thing I cannot really grasp is the rapid development of technology over the last 80-100 years comparatively to the previous few thousand. Even in my lifetime which is minuscule in the timeline the development graph is almost vertical. I know the catalyst was electricity but still its amazing the rapid development in comparison to any other 50 year period in time. No conspiracy theories just wonderment. Makes you wonder what my kids will be struggling to adapt to in 50 years time..

I seriously recall the first fax machine at work and it was really baffling and I remember looking at this huge machine printing what someone had written miles away, squealing and making allsorts of funky noises giggling like a pair of kids me and my boss standing their watching the first fax! The next week when he went to a customer who had one, which was fairly rare at the time he took the opportunity to fax a sketched phallic object and couldn't wait to get back to see my reaction he knew the fax ringing we would all go over to see who had actually sent a fax....

I do miss him stayed in touch for years after he sold up and I moved to the company that bought us out.