13 February 2013

 Birthdays
Neal McDonough b. 1966
Pernilla August b. 1958

Happy birthday to Ms. August, best known in genre films for playing Anakin's mom in that movie most sci-fi fans are trying to forget.

She is totally not to blame for the suckitude. Her last name is neither Lucas or Binks, if you get my drift.

In the Year 2000!

Prediction: There will be air-ships, but they will not successfully compete with surface cars and water vessels for passenger or freight traffic. They will be maintained as deadly war-vessels by all military nations. Some will transport men and goods. Others will be used by scientists making observations at great heights above the earth.

Predictor: John Elfreth Watkins, 1900 in The Ladies' Home Journal

Reality: Regular readers will know I have as soft spot for old John E., owner of the least hipster-ish soul patch in human history. He's writing this way before Kitty Hawk, so when he thinks about "air-ships" he's thinking about blimps. He makes some bold predictions, but nearly all of them are extensions of things already in existence in 1900. if he had predicted huge pressurized aircraft traveling hundreds of miles an hour at altitudes of six miles of more, he would have had to be wacky.

That is not the facial hair of a wacky person.

Looking ahead one day... INTO THE FUTURE! Arthur C. Clarke predicts men living on the moon... in the year 2000!

Join me then... IN THE FUTURE!