what’s the coolest piece of technology you’ve ever been able to handle first hand?

25 comments

1. I had the original iPhone in the UK when it first released, because I worked for O2 customer service.

2. In 1981, we were the first people I knew of that had a VCR. I went to school the next day and everyone was talking about some show that came on TV the night before. And I blurted out, “yeah, we taped it.” It was like a record screeching moment. Everyone looking at me in confusion. One guy said, “what do you mean you taped it? You held a tape recorder to the speaker?” When I explained that a VCR was a tape recorder for shows they were equally confused and amazed. A few came over to see this new fangled contraption and minds were blown. “Just put it on channel 3 and hit play.”

3. SR71 recon aircraft

4. Not really an answer to your question, but the coolest computer I programmed was a hand soldered prototype board attached to the wall with bent paperclips attached to a power supply and disk sitting on the desk.

5. 1966 Cadillac Fleetwood.

6. I got to go to a shop and see an EDM machine run. It is awesome (but slow) to see something cut thick metal, so precise, with a wired that is as thin as a hair.

7.  a good piece of technology should be at least a little bit better than a lot of other things.

8. unmanned hydro survey boat and controller. Basically it’s an RC boat with gadgets that collects information about the water surface and approx. 2 feet under it and collects gps points for everywhere you drive it.

   So I could make it do lines across a river and in my mapping software I have thousands of coordinate points and for every one of those points I had elevation, current, and water depth. We used them in places our survey boat couldn’t fit and in areas that were dangerous.

9. Flash light. I was 3 years old

10. The Russian nuke that they plan to drop on America 3/8/2023 at approximately 3:38AM on the east coast.

11. Atlas Copco Twin Boom underground mining Jumbo.

    It’s a pair of hydraulic hammer drills that take 2 inch diameter bits on the end of a 3m shaft, that are bolted to hydraulic arms with enough movement to be able to drill a hole backwards over the head of the operator. The whole thing is 3m x 3m x 12m

12. A controller, operating one of the “yellow lights” at an F1 Grand Prix.

13. The international space station

14. Security cameras, Doesn’t seem too exciting but live tracking of peoples movements across whole city’s, learning their routines. Literally creates a whole file on people, even able to identify when wearing mask glasses or hat. Can identify their gait & posture. Knows their height. Can see in Hd everything they are reading on their phone. Crazy tech.

    Also satellite technology but I’m not sure how much I can disclose on that one.

15. An actual USAF flight simulator.

16. I got to ride a 1952 vincent black lightning one of the first super bikes ever made.

17. $275k Sausage/Meatball making machine from Austria.

    Also, I was on an installation job for an MRI machine at a hospital, and regularly handle pieces of art worth anywhere from a few thousand to a few million dollars.

18. In the army in ‘91 we had the first handheld GPS. It was the size of a shoe box and cost prob $100k

19. At the time, iPod nano 1. I loved that fucking thing!

20. The encryption used on Air Force One radios.

    It is impossible to break. Without going into information that will probably result in a door knock, there’s enough encryption on top of encryption on top of encryption on top of counter measures, on top of *counter-counter measures* and even more encryption.

    It’s pseudo randomly generated by a closed system computing farm tucked away in some “facility”. It’s not that the encryption is impossible to break, because there isn’t an encryption out there that can’t be broken. It’s that it’s impossible to ever break it *in time for it to be useful*.

    The most powerful super computer the *NSA* has at its disposal can’t crack it in the amount of time it’s in use, and this technology is from *the 1980s*. Even if a bad actor were to kidnap the operator, by the time they could get any information, the Cypher has changed again and the RT has timed out and bricked.

    *AND A HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATE INVENTED THIS* with no prior encryption training.

21. A Stradivarius.

    I don’t know how to play violin, but I can pluck out a few fiddle tunes. So when the opportunity to pick up and play a Stradivarius presented itself when I wandered into a local Bach festival, I took it.

22. I came here to say google Soli but these fuckers got blackbirds so im out.

23. bitcoin

24. A model S plaid with less then a thousand miles

25. Steamdeck, goddamn I love that thing.