Birthday
Kal Penn b. 1977
Best known for the Harold and Kumar movies, Mr. Penn was also in Superman Returns, which earns him a birthday mention on this blog and a wish for many happy returns of the day.
In the Year 2000!
Predictions:
Fish and yeast will become our principal sources of proteins. Beef will be a luxury; lamb and mutton will disappear.
We'll all be getting a little hungry by and by.
Predictor: Robert A. Heinlein in 1950
Reality: It was the common assumption that population growth would outpace the food supply and everyone would feel the pain. I'm a little surprised that a writer as pro-capitalist as Heinlein wouldn't realize that people with money would always have enough to eat. It's also interesting to compare the 1950s writers to the 1900s writers. John Elfreth Watkins is completely confident that advances in agriculture will create miracles and wonders, while middle century sci-fi writers didn't share that conviction. I don't know anybody who predicted that obesity would become a serious problem among the poor, which is not surprising because it's so counter-intuitive.
I still have a lot of Heinlein predictions in the pipeline, but if I'm as generous as I possibly can be, only one of them is even close to correct. If nothing changes, Wednesday will be spent staring at the this ridiculous sportscoat unless I make a change. To that end, I'm now going to have Heinlein share the Tuesday spot with another hard SF writer who made a lot of predictions with dates in his work, Larry Niven. I don't promise that Niven's predictions are any more accurate, only that is sartorial choices are not as disturbing.
Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE!
Wednesday means John Elfreth Watkins or at least it does for another month or two. Tomorrow, he looks at the future of education... in the year 2000!
Join us then... IN THE FUTURE!
It's not the sportcoat so much as the scowl.
ReplyDeletethe scowl and the mustache.
Together, they say "serial killer with at least one body in his trunk RIGHT NOW"
That picture is good old fashioned nightmare fuel.
The kids I mentor for FIRST robotics are all about the Slenderman gmes, which feature a faceless entity; but when I see the entity, all I can see is this picture of Old SlenderBob.