4 ms·

As too went the government space programs, until the disasters in each started happening. The sense of awe sticks around though. I don't know, I still will fro

As too went the government space programs, until the disasters in each started happening. The sense of awe sticks around though. I don't know, I still will from time to time get a little sense of vertigo when I'm in an airplane and the landing gear leaves the runway. The scope and scale of human accomplishment to get to the point where this miracle has become mundane will occasionally hit with the peculiar warmth that accompanies the loss of meaning of a word spoken one too many times. It briefly becomes new again, and amazing. It is pretty cool indeed.

martincmartin 8y ago
Have you seen "Everything's Amazing and Nobody's Happy"? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUBtKNzoKZ4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUBtKNzoKZ4
- agumonkey 8y ago
  couldn't help but think about that
- djsumdog 8y ago
  ah I remember that. I can't help but think in a modern context that this bit falls into the whole, "nostalgic for a better time that never existed fallacy" though. For example: old crufty rant about how no one talks to each other and everyone is on their phones. Get a video from the 1960s of people on a train in NYC. Everyone has their head in a book or newspaper or magazine. By the 1980s, some nerds have walkmans. By the 90s everyone has discmans, plus their book. Today every has their phone, on which their either reading a book, a magazine or listening to a podcast or music. The media is different, it's a bit more interactive, but it really hasn't changed that much.
  - samatman 8y ago
    I'm reminded of one of my very favorite strips from the Far Side: https://familybreedscontent.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/beforetv.jpg https://familybreedscontent.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/befo...
  - stcredzero 8y ago
    Get a video from the 1960s of people on a train in NYC. Of course people don't interact on mass transit. The media is different, it's a bit more interactive, but it really hasn't changed that much. It has been a progression. More and more interaction has been mediated electronically, where it's been widely known since at least the 80's that interpersonal cues do not work in the same way. Of course non-interaction on mass transit is going to be a constant. It's socializing in the home, day to day, where things have changed. Things have changed.
  - jacobolus 8y ago
    Today they are mostly on social media or playing mindless addictive games. Which I guess is sort of like reading a magazine or watching TV, but not exactly. They are also on social media or playing mindless addictive games walking down the street, at restaurants, in stores, in the park, intermittently during the workday, in bed, on the toilet, ...
noir_lord 8y ago
It's awesome in the original meaning of inspiring awe. I get that feeling alot when I consider think like that I have a device in my pocket more powerful than a 1980's supercomputer.
- Retric 8y ago
  Modern cellphones would have made the top 500 chart well into the 90's. 2.0 Gflops = top 250 in 1993: https://www.top500.org/list/1993/11/?page=3 https://www.top500.org/list/1993/11/?page=3
- reaperducer 8y ago
  Looking at an old computer magazine last night (Byte's LISP issue), there was an ad for a storage device about the size of a small filing cabinet. I did the math, and my cell phone has 8,800x more storage.
  - jdietrich 8y ago
    512GB MicroSD cards are now available. You could swallow 2TB of data in a single gulp. I wouldn't recommend it, but you totally could. https://www.integralmemory.com/product/smartphone-and-tablet-microsdhc-microsdxc-class-10-uhs-i-u1-memory-card https://www.integralmemory.com/product/smartphone-and-tablet...
golergka 8y ago
As a person with severe aerophobia, I'd give a lot for air travel to feel mundane.
- elefantastisch 8y ago
  I don't know if it will help you, but I find it helpful to consider the sheer number of flights that occur without incident. Worldwide, there are roughly 100000 commercial flights per day. That's a little more than 1 per second. While it may not feel mundane to a traveler for whom flying is a fairly rare occurrence, air travel is absolutely mundane from a global perspective. I think that can be a helpful perspective to remember. (Citation: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/IS.AIR.DPRT?end=2017&start=1970 https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/IS.AIR.DPRT?end=2017&st...)
  - squarefoot 8y ago
    I don't think aerophobia is related to statistics but rather to the perception of the accident if it happens. For those who travel by air every day, a car crash still is a lot more likely than an air crash, but while in most car crashes you don't have the time to see it coming, in most air crashes you have entire minutes to process what is going on. Mildly aerophobic here: i took the plane when I had to, but definitely never enjoyed it.
- 1123581321 8y ago
  I got over mine by repeatedly mentally willing the plane to crash while over the Atlantic during one trip, and watching lots of footage of crashes and people dying in fires. I suppose exposure therapy is the term for this when professionally administered, but I just needed to come to terms with the potential pain and accept my loss of control while in the air.
C7H8N4O2 8y ago
> the loss of meaning of a word spoken one too many times https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_satiation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_satiation

martincmartin 8y ago

Have you seen "Everything's Amazing and Nobody's Happy"? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUBtKNzoKZ4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUBtKNzoKZ4

agumonkey 8y ago
couldn't help but think about that
djsumdog 8y ago
ah I remember that. I can't help but think in a modern context that this bit falls into the whole, "nostalgic for a better time that never existed fallacy" though. For example: old crufty rant about how no one talks to each other and everyone is on their phones. Get a video from the 1960s of people on a train in NYC. Everyone has their head in a book or newspaper or magazine. By the 1980s, some nerds have walkmans. By the 90s everyone has discmans, plus their book. Today every has their phone, on which their either reading a book, a magazine or listening to a podcast or music. The media is different, it's a bit more interactive, but it really hasn't changed that much.
- samatman 8y ago
  I'm reminded of one of my very favorite strips from the Far Side: https://familybreedscontent.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/beforetv.jpg https://familybreedscontent.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/befo...
- stcredzero 8y ago
  Get a video from the 1960s of people on a train in NYC. Of course people don't interact on mass transit. The media is different, it's a bit more interactive, but it really hasn't changed that much. It has been a progression. More and more interaction has been mediated electronically, where it's been widely known since at least the 80's that interpersonal cues do not work in the same way. Of course non-interaction on mass transit is going to be a constant. It's socializing in the home, day to day, where things have changed. Things have changed.
- jacobolus 8y ago
  Today they are mostly on social media or playing mindless addictive games. Which I guess is sort of like reading a magazine or watching TV, but not exactly. They are also on social media or playing mindless addictive games walking down the street, at restaurants, in stores, in the park, intermittently during the workday, in bed, on the toilet, ...

noir_lord 8y ago

It's awesome in the original meaning of inspiring awe. I get that feeling alot when I consider think like that I have a device in my pocket more powerful than a 1980's supercomputer.

Retric 8y ago
Modern cellphones would have made the top 500 chart well into the 90's. 2.0 Gflops = top 250 in 1993: https://www.top500.org/list/1993/11/?page=3 https://www.top500.org/list/1993/11/?page=3
reaperducer 8y ago
Looking at an old computer magazine last night (Byte's LISP issue), there was an ad for a storage device about the size of a small filing cabinet. I did the math, and my cell phone has 8,800x more storage.
- jdietrich 8y ago
  512GB MicroSD cards are now available. You could swallow 2TB of data in a single gulp. I wouldn't recommend it, but you totally could. https://www.integralmemory.com/product/smartphone-and-tablet-microsdhc-microsdxc-class-10-uhs-i-u1-memory-card https://www.integralmemory.com/product/smartphone-and-tablet...

golergka 8y ago

As a person with severe aerophobia, I'd give a lot for air travel to feel mundane.

elefantastisch 8y ago
I don't know if it will help you, but I find it helpful to consider the sheer number of flights that occur without incident. Worldwide, there are roughly 100000 commercial flights per day. That's a little more than 1 per second. While it may not feel mundane to a traveler for whom flying is a fairly rare occurrence, air travel is absolutely mundane from a global perspective. I think that can be a helpful perspective to remember. (Citation: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/IS.AIR.DPRT?end=2017&start=1970 https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/IS.AIR.DPRT?end=2017&st...)
- squarefoot 8y ago
  I don't think aerophobia is related to statistics but rather to the perception of the accident if it happens. For those who travel by air every day, a car crash still is a lot more likely than an air crash, but while in most car crashes you don't have the time to see it coming, in most air crashes you have entire minutes to process what is going on. Mildly aerophobic here: i took the plane when I had to, but definitely never enjoyed it.
1123581321 8y ago
I got over mine by repeatedly mentally willing the plane to crash while over the Atlantic during one trip, and watching lots of footage of crashes and people dying in fires. I suppose exposure therapy is the term for this when professionally administered, but I just needed to come to terms with the potential pain and accept my loss of control while in the air.

C7H8N4O2 8y ago

> the loss of meaning of a word spoken one too many times https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_satiation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_satiation