Predicting the future is favorite pastime for a lot of people. Nostradamus, Edgar Casey, and many other people are famous for it. Science fiction is partly based on this, and especially predicting changing in technology. I am always reminded of a commercial that aired in 2000. It starred Avery Brooks, and it started with him saying, “It’s the year 2000. Where are the flying cars? I was PROMISED flying cars!” This little collection from John Elfreth Watkins in 1900 was fun to read. My grandfather, who worked on the railroad his whole life, supposedly echoed prediction #7. Sadly, he did live to see air travel supplant rail travel. Some of the predictions that looked good thankfully did not come to pass.
Prediction #11 sort of hit me as naïve. Fish, birds, and other animals consume mosquitoes and flies. Without them, the ecology as we know it would collapse. The main concern with them is that they spread disease. That is the problem I think he was trying to address.
I am not any better. I would have thought that telecommuting would have been much bigger than it is, and I thought the World Wide Web was a pretty neat idea, but I had no clue it would be as successful as it was.
There are a couple of urban legends going around about the Presidential election. One is that if the Washington Redskins lose at home, the incumbent will also lose. The Redskins lost this weekend. The other is that because the Boston Red Sox won the World Series and the Democratic National Convention was held in Boston, it means John Kerry will win. Urban Legends has another tongue in cheek page about this.
This week will probably tell.
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