Birthdays
David Thewlis b. 1963
Chris Wedge b, 1957 (director, Ice Age)
John De Lancie b. 1948
Damn. The guy who played Q is 65. This wins the daily contest for "What's the first thing today that will make me feel really old?"
Many happy returns, Mr. De Lancie. You were really good on Breaking Bad as well.
Prediction: Peas as Large as Beets.
Peas and beans will be as large as beets are to-day.
Strawberries as Large as Apples will be eaten by our great-great-grandchildren for their Christmas dinners a hundred years hence. Raspberries and blackberries will be as large.
One will suffice for the fruit course of each person.
Cranberries, gooseberries and currants will be as large as oranges. One cantaloupe will supply an entire family.
Roses will be as large as cabbage heads.
Violets will grow to the size of orchids.
A pansy will be as large in diameter as a sunflower.
A century ago the pansy measured but half an inch across its face.
Predictor: John Elfreth Watkins in The Ladies' Home Journal, published in 1900
Reality: Hmm. Okay, this is disturbing. My historical man crush seems to have a thing for Big Fruit.
Not that I'm judging. Longtime readers of my original blog are fully aware that I am the last person who should judge these sorts of things.
Still, that's a whole lotta Big Fruit. Big Flowers, too.
I talked to my historian friend Jodi who put this in perspective. Back in the late nineteenth century, Luther Burbank and George Washington Carver were among the Heroic Scientists bringing us a better tomorrow. Larger plants and longer growing seasons were a big part of the exciting innovations of the day and as usual, Watkins isn't making stuff up out of whole cloth but extrapolating the recent developments of his era one hundred years into the future.
These examples are taken from three separate predictions Watkins made about agriculture. I'll publish the rest of the agricultural predictions next week, the ones that aren't fixated on largeness.
Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE!
Thursdays belong to Arthur C. Clarke, this time taking a date from his fiction instead of his published predictions.
Join me then... IN THE FUTURE!
to be fair, I have seen some ginormous strawberries served as dessert that are verging on the size of smaller apples.
ReplyDeleteOkay, I'll grant the strawberries are a little out of hand. But if you give a girl a dozen roses and they weigh fifteen pounds, I think the romantic part of the gesture may be lost.
ReplyDeleteI think the idea would be that one would suffice at that point.
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