The one in the back is already sleeping. The one in the front on the left is sleepy but down for some wrestling in between. The one on the right can't sleep till he gets the mischievous demons out of his system.
One of the most important ones that a lot of people use every day are the huge advancements that have been made in creating modern chips. It might not be something new and exciting, but it actually involves very groundbreaking work and huge breakthroughs. Not just the crazy machines that ASML makes, thought to be breaking the laws of physics just years ago. But also advancements in manufacturing, being able to create super advanced 3D structures and large scale manufacturing at a very high level, yet with a surprising consistency in quality and low cost. Not just for ever bigger, more efficient and faster chips, but also things like MEMS at tiny sizes and low cost.
Often it's taken for granted what we have. People saying stuff to the sentiment that this isn't the future, everything is boring, we haven't got flying cars or people living on Mars. But the fact we all got this ultra powerful computer, with a high resolution high framerate self emitting screen, no active cooling, a bunch of sensors, lots of memory and storage and hyper connected to all sorts of networks, all powered by a high capacity high power low wear battery should be mind blowing. And not just that, but it fits in our pockets and they are so cheap everyone has at least one. Just because we've chosen to spec our tech tree into the small stuff instead of the large stuff, doesn't mean we haven't come a long way.
I think people look at the past at new "inventions" and think that's the way progress is. New revolutionary stuff. It's why people often invest in crowd funding of obvious scam products. They want something that changes the game. In reality it's a lot of little steps that create a big change over time. And imho this has always been the case. We always hear about the Wright brothers "inventing" the airplane. Like they had some magic sauce and thought of something nobody else thought of before. Then made it and bam the world was changed. In reality they didn't invent anything, they developed it. They made prototypes and iterative refinements. And they were far from the only ones working on the exact same concept. If they didn't finish first, someone else would have within the same time frame. But the romantic story of two American blokes with the right stuff changing the world all on their own just sounds good.
So let's also celebrate the thousands of smaller breakthroughs that got us where we are today.
I keep a very sharp scalpel next to my printer. It's super thin and a bit flexible, but still has a sturdy handle to hold on to. With it I can get in between the glass and the PETG no matter how stuck it is. Once I cut a little bit, usually the whole print lifts right away.
The current US economy is completely dependent on two things. One: low unemployment and steady growth in available jobs. Two: AI getting a return on investment by replacing millions of jobs with computers.
And somehow we are still going about our business like this is totally normal and won't blow up any second now.
My keyboard these days is much much stronger than the keyboard I had in the 90s. In the 80s the back was full metal and some had the case be metal as well. Then in the 90s it went all plastic and super fragile. For the past 15 years or so I've had a keyboard with a thick metal frame. I've smashed it lots of times and it doesn't care at all. If you'd pick it up and smash the monitor with it, it would totally destroy the monitor. My desk is a metal frame with solid wood, but the average IKEA desk probably wouldn't stand a chance.
The one we used to have for our cats would make a little jingle before dispensing the food. Whenever that jingle went off the cats came RUNNING!