Like, how did I leave Bangkok at 8 AM and arrive in LA at 8 AM the same day, both local time? Time travel.
GPS. I know how it works in principle* - but it’s still magic that I can be in the most remote spot in the world and still get my exact bearings to the nearest square metre.
( * Triangulate from the time offsets in ping messages from four or more satellites with synchronised clocks, right?)
So many having access to the bulk of human knowledge and so many driving head first into conspiracy theories and magical thinking for comfort seems pretty cursed
In a time of constant attention distractions and exploiting addiction triggers and misinformation some folks choosing to reject corporate media to actually read books and primary sources and get PhDs to do more academics seems pretty blessed
The em field seems like 50 different things but it’s all different frequency ranges of the same thing is pretty mind blowing
Aluminum foil. Rolls of perfectly smooth, impossibly thin METAL. That you can buy for like $3 and use at-will by the sheet. Wtf.
I’m a spongy sack of fatty tissue controlling a vehicle made of meat with electricity.
Don’t forget all the chemistry happening! You’re an ambulatory meat sack-shaped drug lab with feelings.
Driving on the road with humans and highway driving. Humans are remarkably stupid and volatile and yet, by and large, driving is remarkably reliable and safe despit the fact everyone is controlling a 3000+ lb weapon whilr distracted by thoughts and their phones. It blows my mind.
Why are so many of these “seems like magic” posts people taking an opportunity to be super negative
On a related note, the idea that all it takes is a simple line on the ground for a lot of disaster not to happen. Sometimes when another car passes in the opposite direction, I think of how freaking close we are, at the relative speeds we’re going, and I’m amazed/frightened that a line dividing our lanes, an imaginary border, is all that’s keeping us apart.
One tire blowout and everyone’s gone.
Kiss the rain!
I could not come up with some kind of Carpe Diem quote on short notice so this is what you get!
That slap you use for browsing social media has dotzens of times the computing power of the Cray supercomputer.
slap?
Oh slab I bet
Existence itself is quite the trip
There’s a box in my kitchen I can put dirty dishes and tomorrow morning they’re clean
Tap to pay
Looking at my family brings joy that feels like a hug to my heart.
Rainbows.
Radio. Radio is magic.
I just am not happy enough with the world for anything to feel magical anymore.
The trick is looking for the little magic. In the midst of this past winter’s snowmageddon I had to keep driving to work. The windshield would be covered in salt spray and dirt most of the time. One day I must have gotten the bright idea to do the window washer when I got to work, before I went inside. My memory’s not the greatest and it was such a small simple thing that I had totally forgotten about it by the end of the day.
It took me a few blocks to pick up on what was different, since it seemed like everything was. I could read the bumper stickers on the car in front of me. All of the houses and buildings were in sharp relief. I could make out the individual branches of each tree instead of just seeing a tall gray blob. It slowly dawned on me that all this was because my windshield was clean.
My past self had inadvertently created magic for my future self. Not magic in finally having a clean window or somehow making the snow and sleet stop. Magic in those few brief moments when I could see things more clearly than any other time in the cold winters of my life. That brief moment was like walking out of a door right at the end of a summer rainstorm. Petrichor filling your nostrils and everything in front of you so sharp and full of color.
Remember it’s probably not the world you’re unhappy with, it’s the people on it. Look past the people and find the magic in your surroundings.
Both phones and modern medicine are pretty cool to me still!
I can talk to someone on the other side of the world? Basically instantly? Damn! That’s sweet!
Diseases that use to ravage the world are just. Gone. I don’t have to worry about getting smallpox and just dying. I get a single shot, once? (Maybe a few times for the nasty diseases) and then I just… go do whatever? Damn, that’s amazing!
The fact that all over the world we can drill a hole ~100’ into the ground and get fresh water. So far, but many factors are conspiring against that basic life-sustaining resource.
Computer programming.
We created entire schools of magic (programming language) that all have their unique syntax and rules. Each school of magic has it’s own spells. We type the magic words (commands) into a spell book (software) that was created by magic words to create new software.
Straight up fucking magic.
