system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Do any of you ever take a step back and marvel at the magic-like capabilities of modern computing?

Like I understand enough about the underlying physical properties of modern computers as well as operating system construction and computer architecture/organization to perceive computers as more than just magical black boxes. At the same time, the speed at which they operate and the complexity of the hardware at a transistor-level is sometimes too mind-boggling for my ape brain to handle.
gpt
Yep.  The first time that you make a program that has to process a large amount of data to complete its task, it really opens your eyes to how fast modern computers are.  

Prior to taking CS courses (and at the beginning levels) most of what a computer does seems almost magical.  You may know it is fast but you don't really have a good perspective for how fast it is.  The first time you hand design something that is going to run through thousands of data points to complete its task, hit run, and watch it finish in only a couple seconds (or practically instantly in some cases), you finally get a taste for how absolutely ludicrous the speed of modern computers are.  Then you consider that the code you write relies on lower-level code (and may even take a peak at some of it) and you realize the speed at which the computer is processing instructions is several times faster than your initial perception gained just from running your own code.  The more and more you learn the greater your appreciation becomes until it reaches a point where your understanding of the speed at which modern computers run reaches a number that is so incomprehensibly high that things pretty much wrap around to where you started and it all becomes magical again.