| Guestbook |
| Archives |
| Contacts |
| Subscribe |
| About |
 |
| General |
| Security & Insecurity |
| Privacy & Liberties |
| Interesting Tech |
| Insights |
| Networked World |
| Languages |
| Weird & Humorous |
|
A Remarkable Prediction from 1911
This Monday's Wall Street Journal's Deja Vu column, "Perils of Prediction: Seeing Rubber Cities And an End to Cars" [subscription required for access] mentioned a remarkably accurate prediction from almost a century ago: "The time will surely come when the methods of electrical intercommunication will have been so developed and multiplied that the people of the world's different countries I looked up who was this Major General Squier. Among other things he was the US Army's Chief Signal Officer during World War I and responsible for developing US military communications systems, including the use of radio. More information on him from the US Army and from the Wikipedia. Speaking of predictions, some say that the trick is to predict things about fifty years into the future. Too far ahead to be readily proven wrong and, if one is wrong, most people have forgottent the prediction. Yogi Bera, the US baseball figure, probably said it the best, "It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future." J.D. Abolins |
||
|
|
Dave Harding / Website (12.1.07 15:32) George Orwell, going only 40 years ahead, got it pretty wrong, and his book is still required reading in many places. David Brin, one of my favourite authors, in his book _Earth_, one of my favourite books, predicts a world 50 years in the future (1990 + 50 = 2040), and in his afterword he says some interesting things: ``Half-century predictions [are] among the most difficult speculative novels to write. In order to depict a near-term future, say five or ten years ahead, a writter need only take the present world an exaggerate some current trend for dramatic effect. At the other end, portarying societies many centuries from now, the job is relatively easy also. (Anything goes, so long as you make it vaguely plausible.) But five decades is just short enough a span to require a sense of *familiarity*, and yet far enought away to demand countless surprises, as well. You must make it seem believable that many people who are walking around at this very moment would also exist in that future time, and find conditions -- if not commonplace -- then at least normal.'' Wikipedia has a list of Brin's predictions in _Earth_ that have come true: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_%28novel%29 -Dave |
|
Premarin (20.12.11 04:00) Its nice comical YouTube video, I constantly go to go to see YouTube website in favor of comic videos, for the reason that there is much more stuff available. Premarin |
|
north face clearance / Website (16.2.12 07:13) Jenny, Keene and this is coming from the panic reaction."The real big brother, really thanks for you this time." Keane thrilled road, then clearance eyes lit up, "Thunder brother. you have north face clearancelooking, waved his hand, grasp the two arrow, then waved sth The two men were killed. " Is indeed the child, forget just all of a sudden fearJenny is also grateful to see the north face: "mine thank you brother.For the north face, Jennie is a genuine gratitude.See the north face for the first time, in Jenny heart, strong of the north face is a mystery, with the great figures of the strong world of Warcraft. |
20six.co.uk