Technology amazes me

[Doinstuffman38]

I saw an infomercial this morning for the newest Ninja Blender, the Ninja Kitchen System 1100. The number represents it's wattage. My bass amp puts out 236 watts at maximum... how is it that a 1 1/2 pound blender can put out more watts than an amp that weighs somewhere between 70 and 80 pounds? I'm gonna start running my bass through that blender for gigs. So, tell me, fellow escapists, has there ever been a time where technology has simply left you dumbfounded?

 

[Stoogie]

i cant think of anything but, i allways research and learn how it works rather than being dumbfounded. I could say the opposite with older ppl like my parents for example.

 

[viranimus]

Because running a motor consumes more electricity than running electricity through a coiled
magnet?

Edit: also be aware the largest bulk of your amps weight IS the magnet.

 

[Katherine Kerensky]

When mankind took to the skies in spindly contraptions of wood and cloth.
Or steel and cloth.
Either way, flying was a hell of an event in our history. Airships and airplanes, both are nice, and somewhat amazing.

 

[Doinstuffman38]

Because running a motor consumes more electricity than running electricity through a coiled
magnet?

Edit: also be aware the largest bulk of your amps weight IS the magnet.

Well, that makes sense, it just sort of amazed me how far crushing ice has come.

 

[tharglet]

Ooh, then you better not look at 2000w hairdryers [http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/4434122/c_1/1%7Ccategory_root%7CHealth+and+personal+care%7C14418350/c_2/3%7C15701134%7CHair+care%7C14418399/c_3/4%7Ccat_14418399%7CHair+dryers%7C14418400.htm] if that scares you.

Wattage consumed is not relative to the size of the device.

 

[Doinstuffman38]

Oh dear god, no. Why would you show me this?!

 

[Ray De Ation]

ASIMO has seven degrees of freedom in each arm and the ability to recognize the approach of human subjects.
My friend, strangle-bots cannot be far behind.

 

[Doinstuffman38]

Because running a motor consumes more electricity than running electricity through a coiled
magnet?

Edit: also be aware the largest bulk of your amps weight IS the magnet.

basically this

*sigh*. alright, I get it, you guys are tech-savvy. When I first saw the actual commercial, it got me a little perplexed.

 

[Scobie]

DELETED

 

[_Janny_]

Anyone else spend their free time thinking about how you'd explain the modern world to a pre-Columbian Aztec or is it just me?

Ever since I saw a certain Fringe episode, I've thought about the same thing (well, not that specific, but anyway). Explaining our world to someone in the past sounds really difficult. I seriously have no idea how I'd do it. How would we go about describing an airplane? "It's like, uh... a box of metal. In the sky. That carries people." Who's believe that? We'd be considered nuts and thrown in the loony bin. >.>

 

[Stalk3rchief]

Just realizing how fast we're evolving astounds me sometimes. It's just hard to realize that the microwave isn't really that old, neither are color TVs or even the channels that run no them.
20 years from now idfk wha tto expect.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

I saw an infomercial this morning for the newest Ninja Blender, the Ninja Kitchen System 1100. The number represents it's wattage. My bass amp puts out 236 watts at maximum... how is it that a 1 1/2 pound blender can put out more watts than an amp that weighs somewhere between 70 and 80 pounds? I'm gonna start running my bass through that blender for gigs. So, tell me, fellow escapists, has there ever been a time where technology has simply left you dumbfounded?

Good lord, assuming that's RMS, what would you ever need with a 236 watt amp? And for that matter, who makes amps with awkward wattages like that? My guitar amp is 60 watts, solid state, which means the perceived loudness is comparable to a 30-40 watt tube amp, if not something even weaker. It still gets loud enough to play any gig short of Madison Square Gardens -- I can balance against a full band, complete with a drummer, somewhere in the general vicinity of a 2 on the volume knob. If you want to be impressed with wattages, I'd look back at your bass amp -- My guitar amp is equivalent to a mid-wattage light bulb, and yours is roughly equivalent to two 120 watt bulbs. These things are seriously efficient.

Edit: Micro SD cards were dumbfounding to me when I first saw them, and they still are today. My first hard drive had less space than a chip the size of my pinky nail -- I think they're up to 8 times larger than that hard drive now. It absolutely boggles the mind.

 

[MagnetoHydroDynamics]

Look at computers, and tell yourself this "It's not magic."
I know it's not magic, I know how the magic works, but that has taken me over five years of interest and hobby studies. And I still don't know all of it.

 

[ChildishLegacy]

"Sound energy" isn't really much energy at all, there was some pop science fact that you'd have to scream continuously for x amount of years to get enough energy to heat a cup of coffee. So even though your amp seems as though it should take a lot of energy to pump out loud noise, it doesn't require that much energy.

 

[him over there]

Ok well first of all this:

and this:

​

Secondly sometimes I'm astounded by some things capabilities over others. Some people in this thread have said already that it's because the lack of a motor consumes for less electricity or whatever. Anyway technology astounds me for much the same reason a lot of things astound me in life: Effort, time and money in =/= Progress and entertainment out all the time.

Think of it this way, It takes about a thousand dollars maybe more to go on a vacation to some tropical getaway for a week. It takes about 300 to 500 dollars to buy a game consoles that will last you a few years.

It's the same as technology, you need huge towers and satellites to use cell phones but you can create a calculator to solve all your math needs with a program and a solar battery. Effort in and Quality out is totally backwards. It's essentially magic so long as you don't understand it.​

 

[BiscuitTrouser]

to solve all your math needs with a program and a solar battery. Effort in and Quality out is totally backwards.

Whoa whoa whoa. Do you KNOW how they wrote the first programme ever? Ever wondered how they did it? 1's and fucking zeros manually entered as machine code. That programme was used to programme other programmes until today you can code a "calculator" in python (with interface) with about 200 lines of code. The first calculator... fuck me that was insane amounts of effort, its easy now because we used previous technology to make it happen but coding the first EVER programme? Insanely hard. I dont know how they did it, who went out and went "Lets use a BILLION transistors to solve a problem". Imagine coding a MILLION 1's and 0's onto a magnetic strip. In sets of 8. To perform the smallest addition. THATS what we were talking here. And to use it you had to use a punchcard with the bineric value of your numbers on to enter it. Calculators are fucking amazing and the effort put in to have the one you hold today is... staggering. Thank alan turing you get to use one.

What you see today is easy to make because entire languages have been coded and re coded and coded again on that old code to give you easy to programme tools and tiny calculators. Shoulders of giants. If you weigh up all the work put in a calculator took more work than the cell phone. Well they both trace back to computing so roughly the same effort.

Computing course has humbled me by showing me the titans of technology. The people who took a load of electrical componants, nothing fancy, nothing sauve, nothing already made amazing by people before them and went "Lets use these in a way the world has NEVER seen before". Its amazing. The very first building blocks set down apon which we create all our new and flashy techology from.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Honestly, not really, but that could be my age showing.

It's just the way things are. Once I get older and regressive, I'll probably be confused and angry at all these new fangled stuff threatening the social order of when I was young, or 20 years before I was born or some idealised version of both.

At the moment, it's something to be taken for granted.

 

[xDarc]

When browsing google tech news, and all i see is articles about cell phones that scratch your balls, I am am not impressed.

In fact, today's so called technology is a complete sham.

In the 60's they went to the moon with freaking vacuum tubes.

Today we have the ability to manipulate structures on an atomic scale, and we are building cell phones.

 

[3 legged goat]

My TV, my phone, my headphones, and my laptop mostly. Most modern technology is pretty freaking awesome when you think about it! Except for ovens. They are pretty lame.