Tink
Well-Known Member
That is not me in any way you can imagine. I'm just an old guy with an old Mopar needing restored. This membership here helps folks restore their cars with real good information. I have some information that is useful to few.
The most significant event ever witnessed?
- Thread starter Tink
- Start date
We were given this device (GPS) during the Gulf War with a 5 minute class on how to operate it. We were conducting artillery raids more than a month before the ground war started (bet you didn't hear about that on CNN). Anyways, this device was pretty scary new technology (that we never heard about before and didn't trust just like the anti-nerve agent pills we were taking Pyridostigmine bromide (PB). You enter your location (in military coordinates) and entered your destination (in military coordinates) and then waited...It took 5-10 minutes to triangulate off the dang satellites and all it would tell you was move 5 degrees west or 3 degrees north if you got off track. If the wind was blowing too hard, or clouds blocking the sat's it would lose communication and you would have enter the coordinates again and wait another 5-10 minutes for the sat's to triangulate again which you hoped that was working correctly and not leading in to the Republican Guard. Pretty trying on the nerves during movement to contact operations...especially during darkness.
CanCritter
Senior Member
starlights......after rethinking that and the 50 year old tech would assume its been updated somewhat at that point
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Wildaugust
Senior Member
I still gonna stick with the walk on the moon as the most significant, although all of those others definitely belong on the list. I guess the way I'm lookin' at it is, we can always invent new technology, we can always build deadlier weapons and so on, but that was the first time humans ever left this world and walked on another world.
A contested Republican Convention might be in the works for 2016 and might be the most significant event for those born after 9/11....so far. The last contested convention was 1952 and the leading candidate didn't win the nomination.
This Graphic Shows What Happened at the Last Real Brokered Convention
This Graphic Shows What Happened at the Last Real Brokered Convention
Lotta things caught my eye in this post..I will focus on the GPS thing to add a thought about human achievements.
As many of us know (or not) that GPS technology "works" in part because an obscure Swiss patent office clerk over 100 years ago (using mathematics only) figured out that time actually passes slower on the Earth's surface than it does at satellite altitude. The "clocks" have to adjust for this tiny but real time difference otherwise the system is wildly inaccurate.
Sorry, its nerdy, headache-inducing stuff, but you can trace the lines, from 1905 when Einstein articulated the "quantum effect" and the postulated the existence of a thing called a "photon" among other things, to today's technologies - computers, cell phones, smoke alarms, television, nuclear energy, on and on - we take for granted/didn't know that were built on that fundamental work.
Would somebody else have come up with Einstein's stuff? Sure - lotsa smart people in the world back then. "when" and "who" is idle and pointless speculation, but likely because it happened WHEN it did in 1905, that world we see today looks as it does.
thank goodness for smart people, or not-so-smart but lucky ones, to advance the human race forward.
patrick66
Old Man with a Hat
I was thinking after reading the responses, of a couple of personal experiences (versus "group" experiences such as the Moon landing, 9/11, etc) that will always be with me. First is the Murrah bombing in OKC in 1995. I was just five miles from downtown when the truck exploded. I was on an AF blue bus, instructing several young airmen on the fine nuances of driving a 44-passenger Diesel bus. A young girl was driving, and I was sitting behind her, coaching her as she had never driven anything larger than her Nissan pickup before that. A loud "BOOM!". I initially thought "did we have a blow-out?"...it's a new bus, no. Then I saw this HUGE plume of smoke downtown. I thought a small plane hit a building, as there used to be an airpark near that location. We ended up downtown as hundreds of people were running away from the buidling. We had no radio, and this was pre-cellphone times, so we were clueless as to WTF happened! Three hours later, when we got out of downtown and back to Tinker, we found out what happened. Of the 168 people killed, I knew four. It was a terrible, terrible thing.
Several months later, an E-3 AWACS crashed at Elmendorf AFB, AK. It hit a flock of Canadian geese on takeoff, and never got over 240' in altitude before crashing, killing all 24 aboard. I knew 18 of the crew personally. That crash ****** me up for nearly a year. It took a LONG time to wrap my mind around what occurred.
Several months later, an E-3 AWACS crashed at Elmendorf AFB, AK. It hit a flock of Canadian geese on takeoff, and never got over 240' in altitude before crashing, killing all 24 aboard. I knew 18 of the crew personally. That crash ****** me up for nearly a year. It took a LONG time to wrap my mind around what occurred.
rags
Senior Member
2004 indian ocean tsunami. 230,000 dead. sorry tink.
Lotta things caught my eye in this post..I will focus on the GPS thing to add a thought about human achievements.
As many of us know (or not) that GPS technology "works" in part because an obscure Swiss patent office clerk over 100 years ago (using mathematics only) figured out that time actually passes slower on the Earth's surface than it does at satellite altitude. The "clocks" have to adjust for this tiny but real time difference otherwise the system is wildly inaccurate.
Sorry, its nerdy, headache-inducing stuff, but you can trace the lines, from 1905 when Einstein articulated the "quantum effect" and the postulated the existence of a thing called a "photon" among other things, to today's technologies - computers, cell phones, smoke alarms, television, nuclear energy, on and on - we take for granted/didn't know that were built on that fundamental work.
Would somebody else have come up with Einstein's stuff? Sure - lotsa smart people in the world back then. "when" and "who" is idle and pointless speculation, but likely because it happened WHEN it did in 1905, that world we see today looks as it does.
thank goodness for smart people, or not-so-smart but lucky ones, to advance the human race forward.
Einstein was a very smart man and I'm impressed with his life's work. However.....that wasn't my first thought when were maneuvering in the desert (with no distinguishable landmarks) with the never before seen or heard of "GPS". Just hoping the damn thing worked! LOL!
I put the question to my Mother, soon to be 99 years young, and she voted for indoor plumbing, tap water, the electric light, the crank telephone and her kitchen radio.
I could understand all those as being life altering, but the kitchen radio? The kitchen radio was her conduit to the world, which for the first time provided news from a multitude of sources. Later came shows, similar to the afternoon soaps years later on TV. I remember sitting in the kitchen every night after dinner listening to The Lone Ranger, The Scarlet Pimpernel, Cisco Kid, Three Musketeers, etc. Unfortunately I guess, those days are long gone.
I could understand all those as being life altering, but the kitchen radio? The kitchen radio was her conduit to the world, which for the first time provided news from a multitude of sources. Later came shows, similar to the afternoon soaps years later on TV. I remember sitting in the kitchen every night after dinner listening to The Lone Ranger, The Scarlet Pimpernel, Cisco Kid, Three Musketeers, etc. Unfortunately I guess, those days are long gone.
tbm3fan
Old Man with a Hat
I remember that. Read the report years ago. Probably on the web somewhere. Can't allow birds, especially geese, from establishing themselves.
tbm3fan
Old Man with a Hat
Makes complete sense. Some that age might say penicillin.
67Monaco
Go Woke, Go Broke.
The most significant moments I can remember are the instant I watched two peoples lives end about 3 car lengths in front of me. And the other, watching my son being born.
Tink
Well-Known Member
Einstein's theories inspired many but it was Arthur C. Clarke working as a radar operator in England during WWII that imagined the concept of satellites in orbit that could provide accurate radio location on earth after his pointing radar at the moon. That gave birth to global positioning technology. Mathematics worked out the geostationary orbit altitudes and technology eventually made it portable. Now it on everyone's smart phone.Lotta things caught my eye in this post..I will focus on the GPS thing to add a thought about human achievements.
As many of us know (or not) that GPS technology "works" in part because an obscure Swiss patent office clerk over 100 years ago (using mathematics only) figured out that time actually passes slower on the Earth's surface than it does at satellite altitude. The "clocks" have to adjust for this tiny but real time difference otherwise the system is wildly inaccurate.
Sorry, its nerdy, headache-inducing stuff, but you can trace the lines, from 1905 when Einstein articulated the "quantum effect" and the postulated the existence of a thing called a "photon" among other things, to today's technologies - computers, cell phones, smoke alarms, television, nuclear energy, on and on - we take for granted/didn't know that were built on that fundamental work.
Would somebody else have come up with Einstein's stuff? Sure - lotsa smart people in the world back then. "when" and "who" is idle and pointless speculation, but likely because it happened WHEN it did in 1905, that world we see today looks as it does.
thank goodness for smart people, or not-so-smart but lucky ones, to advance the human race forward.
Tink
Well-Known Member
Hey Rags, I hope you don't feel like I dissed you, that was never my intent. I appreciate praise as much as anyone does. You are absolutely correct about the Indian Ocean tsunami. That was the most catastrophic natural event since the plague. I too live on the coast as most of humanity does and it can rear up and get you. Great choice of events for this thread.
Tink
Well-Known Member
Now that is just interesting. Thanks for sharing. I know it is not classified any longer but it was cutting edge when you got it. Our military rocks and you guys fighting Saddam's republican guard made all off us stateside as proud as it gets. Thank you for your service.We were given this device (GPS) during the Gulf War with a 5 minute class on how to operate it. We were conducting artillery raids more than a month before the ground war started (bet you didn't hear about that on CNN). Anyways, this device was pretty scary new technology (that we never heard about before and didn't trust just like the anti-nerve agent pills we were taking Pyridostigmine bromide (PB). You enter your location (in military coordinates) and entered your destination (in military coordinates) and then waited...It took 5-10 minutes to triangulate off the dang satellites and all it would tell you was move 5 degrees west or 3 degrees north if you got off track. If the wind was blowing too hard, or clouds blocking the sat's it would lose communication and you would have enter the coordinates again and wait another 5-10 minutes for the sat's to triangulate again which you hoped that was working correctly and not leading in to the Republican Guard. Pretty trying on the nerves during movement to contact operations...especially during darkness.
Tink
Well-Known Member
Number 2 is the Hubble Telescope. It has revealed images we never could have seen by earthly means. Nasa is in the public domain so they have to publish what they do. Astronomy Picture of the Day Archive There is a new telescope, the James Webb, that will see into what they hope to be the beginnings of space in the works.
As I have been reading this tread and thinking about it, I really have been hard pressed to decide what events changed my life. The major disasters, man made or natural don't have as great a connection when you don't know any of the victims personally.
I have seen some bad accident vehicles after the fact, and they can be gruesome. I have witnessed traffic fatalities, but didn't know those victims. I do feel for those of you who have lost someone, and I have lost people myself. Hats off to survivors of any event that cost someone their life, you have been through something many of us haven't. Combat Veterans have an experience that few civilians can truly relate to... I respect that as well.
Technology changes really depend on you were born and your exposure... I still know too many folks my age who can't send an email. How do they function?
The things that most change my life can be broken down to personal decisions and things beyond my control. For better or worse, personal decision induced change has an ownership aspect. The biggest thing that changed my life that was beyond my control was my back injuries... 2008 I was rear ended twice. My world is small. I know I am effected like the rest by world events, but I can't really do much about that. When I first experienced my "new normal", I was at a loss what I could do. I have been fortunate that I have a job that I can survive doing and a stable existence. I know others who haven't been so fortunate.
I have seen some bad accident vehicles after the fact, and they can be gruesome. I have witnessed traffic fatalities, but didn't know those victims. I do feel for those of you who have lost someone, and I have lost people myself. Hats off to survivors of any event that cost someone their life, you have been through something many of us haven't. Combat Veterans have an experience that few civilians can truly relate to... I respect that as well.
Technology changes really depend on you were born and your exposure... I still know too many folks my age who can't send an email. How do they function?
The things that most change my life can be broken down to personal decisions and things beyond my control. For better or worse, personal decision induced change has an ownership aspect. The biggest thing that changed my life that was beyond my control was my back injuries... 2008 I was rear ended twice. My world is small. I know I am effected like the rest by world events, but I can't really do much about that. When I first experienced my "new normal", I was at a loss what I could do. I have been fortunate that I have a job that I can survive doing and a stable existence. I know others who haven't been so fortunate.
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hey tink..see post 18. great minds think alike!
within 20 years we are gonna find 'ET" with the Webb. a planet, in the "Goldilocks" zone (distance from its sun where water can exist as a liquid on planet's surface) - with an oxygen spectra.
gotta be "something" else out there - the math suggests it must be true.
there's a billion planets in THIS galaxy alone, and there are 100 billion galaxies like this one JUST in the universe we can still SEE (which may be 1/4 of ALL there is really out there but the LIGHT coming from them will NEVER get here).
maybe its just "us" -- maybe not?
Where's the Carl Sagan smiley when we need it??
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