I just had a "Wow!" moment while chatting with a friend who made the comment "Isn't technology amazing?", or something similar. So I evaluated what technology was doing for me at that instant. I was, simultaneously:
- Chatting with a friend over Google Talk using a Jabber-compatible client (iChat)
- Viewing the screen of a coworker on another continent
- Having a VOIP telephone conversation with said coworker
- Hosting a development web server for another coworker to make some database updates to
- Downloading and installing an operating system upgrade for my iPhone
- Downloading, via BitTorrent, two albums (that I already own, Mr. RIAA!)
- Streaming live video from a helicopter flying over Houston during the attack of Hurricane Ike
All without peaking much over 300 kibibytes per second of bandwidth. Pretty amazing.