Support NeoGAF

[ZackieChan]

Wherever I read the quote in the topic I think of aliens.

Everyone on earth could be the "secluded tribe."

That's what I've had in mind with all my replies in this thread. People are thinking too small. Though the OP just asked about modern-day stuff.

 

[TheRedSnifit]

.

 

[Poodlestrike]

Yeah, that's pretty much right. The crazy thing is, you'd expect there to be a time component, right? Like, if you went back in time to the 1800s or whatever, the airplane would seem like magic. But, as technology advances and the fields dealing with each piece of it become more and more specified, it's going to start looking like magic to people who're alive when it's invented. Sure, the people making it will understand it, but to the rest of the population it might as well be sorcery.

Nanotech is going to do some weird stuff, guys. Nanotech and spintronics.

.

Schlock the GOAT.

Fan without blades.

You can't explain that.

God, I hate these. It's just got a tiny fan in the base. It's a weakass fan that makes too much noise to move too little air while looking cool.

 

[Black_Stride]

God, I hate these. It's just got a tiny fan in the base. It's a weakass fan that makes too much noise to move too little air while looking cool.

The dyson ones, or the chinese knockoffs.
Cuz my doctors office has a couple of these and they seem okay and definitely arent noisey, quite the opposite.

 

[genjiZERO]

I feel like this is an overstatement. You may not know how something specially works, but if you have an understanding of it you conceptually know it's just a machine. Magic lacks this by definition.

 

[farmerboy]

I'm 39. I've already seen incredible things happen in my lifetime. Though what really intrigues me, is if I live another 39 years what fascinating/astonishing things may I live to see? Things that I may consider "magical" today.

Contact with other beings? That's magical in my eyes, considering the vastness of space. But also magical on a philosophical level.

The eradication of disease? Wondrous fascination at how that would become possible.

The maturing of nanotech, and what exactly they may achieve with it. At the moment, what I know and what they think they can do with it certainly seems magical to me. Medicine and engineering will benefit enormously from it.

Sentient robotics.

Colonisation of other worlds. Mars anyone?

Technological advancement seems to occur at an exponential rate, considering the last 4 decades, maybe the next 4 will be a case of "You ain't seen nothing yet" and that certainly is magical to me.

 

[Poodlestrike]

The dyson ones, or the chinese knockoffs.
Cuz my doctors office has a couple of these and they seem okay and definitely arent noisey, quite the opposite.

I got mine from a Bed Bath and Beyond, mostly out of curiosity, so I don't think it's a Chinese knockoff.

Ultimately, it's a matter of math; if you want to move a lot of air, you can either increase fan speed, or increase fan diameter. I'm sure they're fine for doing a little (very little) quiet recirculating, but I'd wager that the dial is turned way, way down on the ones in your doctor's office.

 

[NJDEN]

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic"

Damn this quote! Time and time again it pops up in my life...

I even wrote about it for one of my university courses... I agree with it.

 

[bistromathics]

To reverse it, magic is mostly just knowing something other people don't

I'm in this camp.

 

[Currygan]

well of course. Advanced magic would be damn impossible to replicate, though

 

[Beaulieu]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGbrFmPBV0Y

man if I would have seen that live I would have died
just in video this is goosebump inducing stuff