Wednesday, August 7, 2013

7 August 2013


Birthdays
Cirroc Lofton b. 1978 (Deep Space Nine)
Charlize Theron b. 1975 (Hancock, Aeon Flux, Prometheus)
Michael Shannon b. 1974 (Man of Steel)
Harold Perrineau b. 1963 (Lost)
David Duchovny b. 1960 (The X-Files)
Paul Dini b. 1957 (writer, Justice League)
Wayne Knight b. 1955 (Jurassic Park)

A whole lotta birthdays today. If anyone has complaints about my choice of who gets the Picture Slot, I have set up a suggestion box on the far side of the moon.

Movie released
G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra released, 2009  

In the year 2000!

Prediction: The new age will be a clean age. A lady of the year 2000 who could be miraculously transported back to London at the present moment would probably faint (they will not have ceased fainting) at the intolerable disgustingness of what is, I suppose, now one of the cleanest cities in the world…

Predictor: T. Baron Russell, A Hundred Years Hence (The Expectations of an Optimist), published 1905

Reality: Here's another hit from our new pal from a century ago. Looking online, the estimates of horses in 1900 in the two major English speaking cities were 300,000 in London and 200,000 in New York City. Checking several online estimates of the amount of manure and urine the average horse produces, that would mean thousands of tons of manure and a half million gallons of urine on the streets.

Produced every day.

If Russell gets docked any points, we should note that women don't faint like they used to. That tendency had much more to do with the popularity of corsets than it did with the innate weakness of the gender that gives birth.

Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE!

While H.G. Wells was around at the turn of the 20th Century, most of the predictions used here, including the one we will see tomorrow, are from his 1933 book The Shape of Things to Come.

Join us then... IN THE FUTURE!

3 comments:

  1. T. Baron wouldn't have been such an optimist if he had known what movie he was going to be paired with.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. For 20th Century movies, I have to consider them important. In the 21st Century, I also include anything that makes $100 million in domestic box office, hence the worse signal to noise ratio this century.

      Delete
    2. I think you should also allow for crapitude.

      Delete

Traveler! Have you news... FROM THE FUTURE?