BirthdaysJessica Stevenson Hynes b. 1972 (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Doctor Who, Shaun of the Dead)
Kevin J. O’Connor b. 1963 (G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, Van Helsing, The Mummy)
Bob Gunton b. 1945 (Star Trek: The Next Generation, Demolition Man)
Yaphet Kotto b. 1939 (The Puppet Masters, SeaQuest 2032, The Running Man, Alien)
Gloria Foster b. 1933 died 29 September 2001 (The Matrix)
J.G. Ballard b. 1930 died 19 April 2009 (writer, The Drowned World, The Burning World, Crash)
No A-List stars today, but I go with Yaphet Kotto from Alien in the Picture Slot. While Star Wars and Star Trek are the franchises that made Hollywood change the way they looked at science fiction, there also needed to be other financial success stories to make the genre work, and Alien certainly qualifies.
Many happy returns to all the living on the list.
Movies released
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets released 2002
Prediction: In 2007, 65 million compact flourescent light bulbs were purchased, and in 2008 this will rise to 100 million.
Predictor: John Doerr, venture capitalist at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, speaking at a TED talk in 2007
Reality: Welcome to TED Talks predictions! Exciting, dynamic, important people will give you twenty minutes of their valuable time and your mind will be B-L-O-W-N! (No dinner and a movie first.)
This first one is a bust. According to EnergyStar, 2007 was a peak year and this guy was predicting a 50% increase, which is hard to accomplish even when things are going great. Not being a regular consumer of right wing news, I don't know when the "CFB bad! Evil librul plot!" stories started to be circulated, but in any case, these things are still selling. As of 2012, they are mandated in Europe and Australia, but the big increase Doerr predicted for 2008 failed to materialize.
Is your mind feeling kind of... unblown? Yeah, get used to it on Fridays.
Source: On Netflix, I found a video called TED Talks: Humanity's Future, so I felt I had to watch it.
Understand, I watched it SO YOU DON'T HAVE TO! That's the basic premise of the blog, though you are welcome to read or watch any of the stuff I use as prediction material or even watch some movie or read a book because one of the birthdays made you think something would be cool. A lot of them are cool.
This one. Not cool. Four hours of your life that won't be coming back.
The things I do for this hobby. Oi! Still, it's better than keeping track of the supermarket gossip rags. There are a lot more chances for finding out interesting things looking at sci-fi and predictions than there are reading about the Kardashians and Teen Mom week after week.
Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE!
Another trip back to 1893, with a former Commissioner of Indian Affairs predicting the fate of the native Americans in the 20th Century.
Join us then... IN THE FUTURE!
my wife is addicted to watching TED talks while she uses the treadmill.
ReplyDeleteIt's very sad.
Anything that keeps you on the treadmill those extra minutes is doing some good.
DeleteI suppose.
They aren't all ridiculous wankers, but these 16 qualify almost without exception.
out of how many thousands of talks, it's hard to find the good ones.
DeleteHeck, even Mike Rowe's TED talk wasn't all that hot. even if it was a bit gross.
Thanks for watching them so I don't have to, I can continue to watch sci fi movies with the exception of anything produced by SyFy.
ReplyDeleteAlso, when it comes to light bulbs, I wonder how the advent of LEd bulbs pirated sales of CFLs.
ReplyDeleteAlso, if you want to get some LED bulbs, good color rendering and dimmable and high quality. as well as supporting a good cause that inspires kids to investigate STEM careers, call a local FIRST robotics team:
http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprograms/first-green-e-watt-saver
I help mentor a local high school team and it is a very worthy cause. I will go back to being a snarky zombie tomorrow.
On Netflix, I found a video called TED Talks: Humanity's Future, so I felt I had to watch it.
ReplyDeleteI knew you had a thing about giantesses, but this is the first inkling that you are a masochist.
It reminds me of a quote from one of the MST 3K folks (Mary Jo, maybe?) about their mockery of these really crappy movies. In that producing a TV show about these crappy movies, they need to watch these crappy movies OVER and OVER and OVER and OVER and OVER and OVER. Within the structure that has a dude being forced to watch these bad movies as torture. As I recall, the interview talks about it as a potential Twilight Zone episode....
So, you know, welcome to your own hell!
I followed the supermarket gossip rags scupulously for nearly two years and made that a blog. My masochistic tendencies have been on display for quite some time now.
Delete