Future Shock

Human brains are terrible at understanding exponential growth, so perhaps it’s not surprising that we take the crazy advances of computer processor speed and miniaturization for granted. For example, those little birthday cards that play music have more computing power than the entire Allied Forces had back in 1945.

That said, I’m still kind of blown away by my Apple Watch. I mean, the thing is less than two inches square, and less than a half-inch thick, yet I can take it with me on a run, leave my phone behind, and still track the route and check my pace, listen to music (on even teeny-tinier Bluetooth earbuds), and field calls and texts mid-run.

Though, conversely, the only other piece of tech that similarly blows my mind is the fax machine – I still kind of get overwhelmed thinking about a device where you can feed in a piece of paper, and the same thing prints out of another matching device, moments later, potentially thousands and thousands of miles away. So I may not be the best person to judge.