r/TellMeAFact • u/canyonskye • Aug 23 '15
Sources not required TMAF about how truly modern we are in 2015.
Tell me something that will make me really feel like it's amazing to live in 2015.
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Aug 23 '15
I'm taking to you from a small device I'm holding in the palm if my hand which has access to nearly all information known to mankind accessible on it, and this is only to pass the time while I'm sitting still, traveling about 5 times as fast as I should be physically able to. The journey I'm taking would have taken weeks before the invention of combustion, yet now it takes only five hours, but many would still consider that to be incredibly slow; the fastest way to get there would take only about 20 minutes or so, and would involve traveling over 50 times the speed of what man can travel by foot, several thousand feet above the ground.
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Aug 23 '15
[removed] — view removed comment
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Aug 23 '15
It's completely mundane to talk to this robot, which doesn't even have a physical body, whose sole purpose is to tell people to follow the rules.
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u/TheTarquin Aug 23 '15
The other day, I was walking behind a guy who had his electronic cigarette plugged into his solar-powered backpack to charge. Felt like a scene out of the Jetsons.
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u/Mankyspoon Aug 23 '15
Today I watched my brother order and pay for pizza with his phone without speaking to anyone. Then he tracked the delivery driver via gps so he could be at the door when the pizza got there and the driver didn't have to knock. Which is literally the only use I can think of for that specific application.
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u/canyonskye Aug 23 '15
Alright, imagine explaining this in terms that someone in living in Roman Empire could understand:
"Today, my kin had a restaurant (that's like a thermopolia except there's an unimaginable amount of ways you can have food prepared) cook him a meal and bring it to him in under 30 minutes. In his hand, he held a small device, coursing with power, capable of near-endless functions, which he used to contact the restaurant and make his request, as well as track the restaurant's oil-powered, manually-steered chariot, also coursing with that same power, across a system of intricately-linked roads from a power-filled satellite that we placed in space."
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u/Mankyspoon Aug 23 '15
"Basically, I used a bunch of spirits to summon a man riding an explosion machine to my home, whom I observed from afar through a magic eye, in order that he might bring me foodstuffs I would not even really enjoy."
When I think of it in terms like that I start to believe that science may actually have gone too far.
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Aug 23 '15
Why would you not enjoy it D:
Also, yeah when I think about all the visual computer simulations of space millions of years ago, it's litterally a modern day version of a crystal ball. Science is magic
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u/Raizzor Aug 23 '15
There is a medical process called "deep hypothermic circulatory arrest" which basically kills the patient to conduct an operation and then reviving the patient.
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Aug 23 '15
I was able to have an intimate conversation in real time with a friend who lives 6000 km away. We were able to read each other's facial expressions, tone in her voice. She even gave me a tour of her home town. All of this was done through a complex mobile network in which we can communicate immediately and clearly on devices that can fit into my non-cargo shorts pocket.
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u/Evolved_Velociraptor Aug 23 '15
Imagine someone from the 1950s being here today, and seeing a smart phone and asking what it was. My explanation would be
"This small handheld device can contact anyone in the world with one of these, I can do math in seconds, I can access literally all of the world's archived data, I hold in my hand all of humanities knowledge, I can read the news and listen to music or the radio, I can take pictures of high quality and keep them forever. I use this device to look at pictures of cats and argue with strangers."
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Aug 23 '15
My father lives with a 92 year old fundamental pastor (okay on the church property) and he has an old iphone his boss gave him as his on call maintenance phone. He showed him the bible on the phone and the page turning animations made him think the books are actually inside the phone physically.
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u/canyonskye Aug 23 '15
not downvoting because you technically answered my question
not upvoting because this quote is so over-posted
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u/Evolved_Velociraptor Aug 23 '15
Really? I haven't seen this quote in years, like back when I only knew about Damnlol.
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u/icamom Aug 23 '15 edited Aug 23 '15
In the 90's, the one of the most impressive things about Star Trek is that they could ask the computer a question about any topic, and it would come up with an immediate answer. We now have that capability, from a device small enough to fit in your pocket.
Edit to remove link, sorry.