17 September 2015

Birthdays
Daniel Huttlestone b. 1999 (Into the Woods)
Ella Purnell b. 1996 (Maleficent, Kick-Ass 2, Intruders)
Augustus Prew b. 1987 (Kick-Ass 2)
Neill Blomkamp b. 1979 (director, Chappie, Elysium, District 9)
Bobby Lee b. 1972 (Paul)
Ian Whyte b. 1971 (Hercules, Game of Thrones, Clash of the Titans, Prometheus, Solomon Kane, Dragonball: Evolution, Aliens vs. Predator 1 & 2, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire)
Malik Yoba b. 1967 (Alphas)
Tracy Dali b. 1966 (Paranormal Movie, Space Girls in Beverly Hills, The Scorpion King Encino Man, Back to the Future Part II)
Bryan Singer b. 1965 (director, X-Men, Jack the Giant Slayer, Mockingbird Lane, Superman Returns)
Kyle Chandler b. 1965 (Super 8, The Day the Earth Stood Still [2008], King Kong [2005], Freddy’s Nightmares, Early Edition)
James Urbaniak b. 1963 (Agent Carter, Teen Wolf [TV], Futuremanity, The Venture Brothers, Futurestates, Wizards of Waverly Place, The Sarah Connor Chronicles)
William Shockley b. 1963 (Reaper, Quantum Leap, Alien Nation [TV], Freddy’s Nightmares, RoboCop)
Dustin Nguyen b. 1962 (VR.5, SeaQuest 2032, Highlander [TV], Earth Angel)
Paul Feig b. 1962 (Sabrina, the Teenage Witch, Zombie High)
Keith Cooke b. 1959 (Mortal Combat: Annihilation)
Aaron Lustig b. 1956 (Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, The Day After Tomorrow, Charmed, Star Trek: Enterprise, Bedazzled, 3rd Rock from the Sun, Brimstone, The Relic, Pinocchio’s Revenge, Star Trek: Voyager, The Shadow, Memoirs of an Invisible Man, Quantum Leap, Edward Scissorhands, Darkman, ALF, Alien Nation [TV], Ghostbusters II)
Tim Burd b. 1955 (Saw II through IV, Repo! The Genetic Opera, Resident Evil: Apocalypse, Mutant X, Odyssey 5, TekWar, Deadly Nightmares)
Cassandra Peterson b. 1951 (Elvira)
John Ritter b. 1948 died 11 September 2003 (Terror Tract, It Came From the Sky, Buffy, It, Americathon)
Bruce Spence b. 1945 (I, Frankenstein, The Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Legend of the Seeker, Nightmares & Dreamscapes, Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith, Peter Pan [2003], The Matrix Revolutions, Farscape, Queen of the Damned, BeastMaster [TV], Dark City, The Munsters’ Scary Little Christmas, Halfway across the Galaxy and Turn Left, Hercules Returns, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior, The Cars That Eat People)
Paul Benedict b. 1938 died 1 December 2008 (Attack of the 50 Ft. Woman[1993], the Twilight Zone [1987], The Addams Family, The Man With Two Brains)
Pat Crowley b. 1933 (Charmed, The Twilight Zone)
Anne Bancroft b. 1931 died 6 June 2005 (Dracula: Dead and Loving It)
David Huddleston b. 1930 (Jericho, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Capricorn One, The Sixth Sense [TV], Bewitched)
Roddy McDowall b. 1928 died 3 October 1998 (The Second Jungle Book: Mowgli & Baloo, The Alien Within, Quantum Leap, Earth Angel, Doin’ Time on Planet Earth, Fright Night 1 and 2, The Wizard, Alice in Wonderland [1985 TV], Small & Frye, The Martian Chronicles, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, The Thief of Baghdad [1978 TV], Wonder Woman, The Cat from Outer Space, Laserblast, The Fantastic Journey, Embryo, Planet of the Apes [4 movies and the TV show], Journey to the Unknown, Bedknobs and Broomsticks, Topper Returns [TV movie], It!, The Invaders, Batman, Twilight Zone)
Ib Melchoir b. 1917 died 14 March 2015 (writer, Death Race, Planet of the Vampires, The Outer Limits, The Time Travelers, Robinson Crusoe on Mars, Angry Red Planet, Men Into Space, Reptilitcus)

Notes from the birthday list.
1. The Picture Slot. In previous years, I went with James Urbaniak from The Venture Bros. and Bruce Spence from Dark City. This year it's Roddy McDowall from The Twilight Zone. On a personal note, when my mom was young she used to model in the Bay Area and sometimes when a Hollywood star was in town without a dinner date, models would be asked to "escort", a much less smutty job back in the day. Roddy McDowall was visiting San Francisco and my mom had dinner with him. She had no idea he was gay, but he was very charming and made her feel part of the conversation. To this day, I will never hear a word spoken against Roddy McDowall, a lovely gentleman with manners. From what I've heard, MGM did great work training their stars in public relations, and McDowall was also a natural at it.

2. Nepotism FTW. John Ritter is now more famous than his father Tex Ritter, but the elder was a big damn deal when Westerns were the most important genre in Hollywood.

3. Spot the Canadian! I would say Tim Burd is only semi-spottable.

4. MST3K. Roddy McDowall was in Laserblast.

Many happy returns to all the living on the list and to the dead, thanks for all the memories.

Predictor: Morris Ernst in the 1955 book Utopia 1976

Prediction: By 1976, the weather control business will be controlled by the federal government. We will not only predict to tornado but prick it to death. We will place rain where it is needed and move it from acres and people where it is unwelcome.

Reality: This is of course wrong, but it lets me use my favorite twin labels "Humans to nature: Be our bitch" and "Nature to humans: BITCH PLEASE".
 
Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE!

H.G. Wells gets something right in 1901, but it's not as big a deal in the rest of the 20th Century.
  
Join us then... IN THE FUTURE!

27 September 2013

Birthdays
Thomas Mann b. 1991 (Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters)
Anna Camp b.1982 (True Blood)
Zita Görög b. 1979 (Underworld)
Gwyneth Paltrow b. 1972 (Iron Man, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow)
Tamara Taylor b.1970 (Serenity)
Patrick Muldoon b. 1968 (Starship Troopers)
Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa b. 1950 (Mortal Kombat, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Heroes)
Tom Braidwood b. 1948 (The X-Files)
Denis Lawson b. 1947 (Star Wars)
Roger C. Carmel b. 1932 died 11 November 1986 (Star Trek)

An all-actor list of birthdays today. Putting Gwyneth Paltrow in the Picture Slot can be justified by the Pretty Girl rule and the fact she is the only A-list movie star in this group. If the decision was instead based on most iconic sci-fi roles, Denis Lawson was Wedge in the original Star Wars and Roger C. Carmel was Harcourt Fenton Mudd on Star Trek.

Many happy returns of the day to those still alive.
 

In the Year 2000!

Prediction: A machine will turn eggs into chicks almost immediately.

Predictor: French postcards from the first decade of the 1900s predicting the year 2000.

Reality: From what I can gather, artificial incubators get eggs to hatch at about the same speed as do the eggs that hens sit on. It's about the rates at which cells grow and split, a process humans have done very little to change. This illustration is one of many that appear to be whimsical, like the one about modern educational processes.

Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE!

We are back in 1893 asking prominent folk to look 100 years into the future, and tomorrow we hear from a fellow whose fame has survived because of the company he founded, W.R. Grace.

Join us then... IN THE FUTURE! 

18 September 2013

 Birthdays
Chris Riggi b. 1985 (Vampires Suck)
James Marsden b. 1973 (X-Men)
Jada Pinkett Smith b. 1971 (Matrix)
Jack Warden b. 1920 died 19 July 2006 (Twilight Zone)
June Foray b. 1917 (Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Twilight Zone)

The Picture Slot today belongs to my favorite actor on the list, June Foray, who turns 96. She is best known for her work on Jay Ward cartoons as the voice of Rocky, Natasha, Nell Fenwick and nearly every other female character, but she also worked for Warner Brothers and Hanna-Barbera and several other studios as well.

Many happy returns of the day to the living.

Predictor: T. Baron Russell in A Hundred Years Hence, published in 1905

Prediction: There is nothing to daunt the engineers of a hundred years hence in the project of erecting on the sea a vast floating city, fully as convenient as the present cities of terra firma, and, while vastly more healthful, quite substantial enough to resist storm and every motion of the sea, except the tides on which the city will rise and fall tides which will no doubt furnish the motive power of many conveniences in ocean cities.

Reality: Actually, there is plenty to daunt the engineers of the 21st Century to producing vast floating cities. Sea water does a great job over time of wearing away the things humans build and storms at sea can be much worse than storms after landfall. One big change from 1905 to today is the container ship, so there would be a chance for import and export from a floating city, provided that city could have a safe harbor big enough to take in a container ship and with waters calm enough to facilitate loading and off-loading.

I gotcher daunt right here, buddy.

Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE!

For about a month now, the regular Thursday predictor has been pre-empted by exact dates and the like, but tomorrow we will hear again from one Mr. Herbert George Wells.

Join us then... IN THE FUTURE!      

27 August 2013

Birthdays
Alexa Vega b. 1988 (Spy Kids)
Peter Stormare b. 1953 (Armageddon, Minority Report)
Paul Rubens b. 1952 (Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie)
Barbara Bach b. 1947 (Caveman)

Besides being one of the Cute Girls on the list, Ms. Vega earns the Picture Slot over the other actors on the list because Spy Kids is a defining role for her, while the other actors are better known for non-genre work, Stormare in Fargo, Rubens as Pee-Wee Herman and Bach as a Bond girl.

Many happy returns to all.
 

In the year 2000!

Prediction: A major objective of applied physics will be to control gravity

Predictor: Robert A. Heinlein in his 1950 set of predictions for the future

Reality: Some of Einstein's ideas kinda sorta became part of popular culture, but his view of gravity and the conclusions that should be drawn from it haven't quite sunk into consciousness of the general public. (Objects warp spacetime locally, the more massive the object, the greater the warp.)

Getting into outer space and colonizing it are major concepts in science fiction and even actual scientists like Stephen Hawking and Neil DeGrasse Tyson have bought into the idea that outer space is our future. If we do achieve it, it won't be by "taming" gravity. Gravity is a core concept of the universe and a hell of a lot bigger than we are.

Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE!

Because progress hadn't quite reached the dizzying speeds of the mid 20th Century, futurists from the early 20th Century tend to be more sensible and get more stuff right that their later counterparts. We will see a fine example of this in another prediction about the 21st Century from 1905 by T. Baron Russell.

Join us then... IN THE FUTURE!

8 July 2013

 Birthdays
Billy Crudup b. 1968 (Watchmen)
Kevin Bacon b. 1958 (X-Men: First Class)
Keith Carradine b. 1949 (Dollhouse, Star Trek: Enterprise)
Jeffrey Tambor b. 1944 (Hellboy)

Four good actors are celebrating birthdays today, all with long successful careers that have very few roles in genre films or TV.

Many happy returns to them all.

Movies released

Fantastic Four released 8 July 2005

I was a big fan of FF when I was a kid, but the movies have been a huge disappointment.

Predictor: British Royal Society of Medicine (BRSM) in OMNI Future Almanac, published 1982

Prediction (reality): These medical advances will be available by 1990.

New generations of antibacterials perfected (Um, fellas? The process of evolution would like to have a word with you on the definition of "perfected".)

Dental caries conquered (not yet)

Male contraceptives developed (What's wrong with the stuff the womenfolk use? Unless it's Viagra, the menfolk are wary of drugs messing with the basic operation of the equipment.)

Asthma controlled (Inhalers have been around since 1955, the drugs have improved but the treatment is just about the same as before)

Bacterial and viral illnesses fall to new drugs (True enough, but some mutate into antibiotic resistant strains)

Anxiety and tension control achieved (There have been treatments since benzodiazepine was invented in 1955, but some people still have very severe panic attacks.)

====

This is one of the great things about the OMNI Future Almanac. I can open it up, flip a few pages and find a gold mine of predictions with dates. There are twenty four predictions from the BRSM that would be achieved before the end of the 20th Century, so I'm going to split them into four sections and dole them out over the next few weeks.

Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE!


Larry Niven will make a prediction about space exploration and it will be completely wrong.





Join us then... IN THE FUTURE!

23 June 2013

Birthdays
Melissa Rauch b. 1980 (True Blood, The Big Bang Theory)
Joss Whedon b. 1964 (Whedonverse... d'uh!)
Woody Harrelson b. 1961 (The Hunger Games)
Frances McDormand b. 1957 (Transformers, Darkman)

The Picture Slot = Cute Girl rule should mean either Ms. Rauch or Ms. McDormand should be smiling at us here, and I give the nod to Ms. Rauch not because she is cuter (arguable) or younger (undeniable), but because her career is associated with two genre TV shows while Ms. McDormand's longer and very successful career is not defined by her few roles in sci-fi films.

I have a soft spot for the ginger headed killer of so many favorite characters, but Joss turns 49 this year. He will certainly get the Picture Slot next year on his 50th. Many happy returns to everyone on this list.

 

Prediction: "Long before the next century dawns, systematic reforestation and the scientific management of natural resources will have made an end of all devastating droughts, forest fires, and floods. The universal utilization of water power and its long-distance transmission will supply every household with cheap power and will dispense with the necessity of burning fuel. The struggle for existence being lessened, there should be development along ideal rather than material lines."

Predictor: Nikola Tesla in the Feb. 9, 1935 issue of Liberty magazine

Reality: First things first. The quote is from 1935 and the picture from 1890. I should have used a picture of a much older Tesla, but this is my favorite.

A lot of the predictions he makes in this article are about 2035, so they are too far in the future for the rules of this blog. Fortunately, this one specifically talks about what things should look like around the end of the 20th Century. He was certainly an optimist, but "the scientific management of natural resources" turned out to be a trickier problem than what we first imagined. Cutting down of old growth made fires worse when they came, and floods and droughts are still with us, with the distinct possibility that climate change will make them worse instead of better in the future. Water power is used, but the environment can't be sustained if we dam every river, and of course we are still burning fossil fuels.

As for development along ideal instead of material lines, it turns out the rich still want to get richer. Who knew?

So do I end with a kind word for Our Pal Nikola™? Oh, absolutely.

Alternating current? Great idea, buddy.

And as a young man, you could really rock the porn-stache.

Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE!

Alternate Mondays belong to OMNI Future Almanac. I'm not sure what it will be about, because I can open the book to nearly any page and get a prediction with a date attached. It's one of my favorite parts of this little hobby.

Join us then... IN THE FUTURE!

21 June 2013

Movies released
Minority Report released, 2002

I know it's Tom Cruise, but it's also Steven Speilberg and Philip K. Dick, so I don't that bad saying I actually liked Minority Report, though it did feel like it could have ended thirty minutes earlier than it did. The world looked both futuristic and a little run down, which adds to the realism.

The action is supposed to take place in 2054, which is too far into the future for me to consider it to be verifiable or falsifiable.
 

In the year 2000!

Prediction: People in diving suits will ride giant mutant sea horses for entertainment.

Predictor: French postcards published in 1900

Reality: In a recent comment thread, I said that John Elfreth Watkins was good but tended to be on the cautious side, and his record is better than the later sci-fi writers who are making predictions decades later about 2000 because of his caution and not being enamored of space travel like Clarke, Niven and Heinlein. Space travel didn't exist and did not even look like an option in 1900, and Watkins was not a fiction writer who enjoyed flights of fancy.

I could compare him to the French and German postcards, who are making predictions from 1900 about 2000.

Watkins whips them like red-headed stepchildren.

Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE!

We get a look at a racist's future wet dream.

No, I'm not talking about Paula Deen on a sugar and butter rush.

Join us then... IN THE FUTURE!

17 May 2013

Birthday
Nikki Reed b. 1988

Ms. Reed's best known role in genre is as Rosalie Hale in the Twilight Saga films. Many happy returns to her.
 

In the year 2000!

Prediction: Cities will have enormous transparent roofs to keep out the rain.


Predictor: A series of postcards from Hildebrands German Chocolate, published in 1900

Reality: The authors of the German chocolate postcards missed a whole lot of stuff. As you can see, people are still riding horses as regular transportation in this picture and we don't see any skyscrapers, so this roof might only be about 100 feet up. Even with today's technology, a transparent roof strong enough to hold tons of water would be a challenge and of course, eventually the water would have to drain somewhere. Keeping the roof clean so the light coming in wouldn't become hazy and depressing is no small task either. While I love the artwork on these cards, the ability to predict the future is not at the level of John Elfreth Watkins, whose work is contemporary with this.

Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE!

Another prediction from Jack London's The Iron Heel, a novel in which people with jobs do not think the corporations running the economy have the workers' best interests at heart. What a strange idea!

 
Join us then... IN THE FUTURE!

 

12 April 2013

Birthdays

Nicholas Brendon b. 1971
Kelly Donovan b. 1971

The actor who played Xander Harris on Buffy has a twin who did stunt work for him. There's an episode where he splits in half and Kelly has several scenes but only a few lines. Many happy returns to both.

In the year 2000!

Prediction: Enormous portable fans will be able to push weather systems around.

Predictor: Postcards printed by Hildebrands German Chocolate Company, circa 1900

Reality: This giant fan isn't anywhere near big enough to push clouds around. There are plenty of smokestacks on factories in the real world this big or bigger, and they can't break up weather systems.

 Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE!
 
What will London be like in 1950? A popular novel of the 1930s hazards several guesses, possibly the most incongruous piece of speculative fiction ever. 
 

Join us then... IN THE FUTURE!

 

20 March 2013

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.

 

In the Year 2000!

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!

13 March 2013

Birthdays
Harry Melling b. 1989
Tim Story b. 1970
Joe Johnston b. 1950
William H. Macy b. 1950
Roger Zelazny b. 1937 died 6/14/1995
(won 1966 Hugo for … And Call Me Conrad)
(won 1968 Hugo for Lord of Light)

We've got actors and directors on the birthday list today. Melling was in the Harry Potter series, Story and Johnston are on the other side of the camera. Macy doesn't have a lot of work in genre films, but he was in the third Jurassic Park.

But I gave the picture to Zelazny, who won Hugos for two of his novels.

In the Year 2000!

Prediction: No Mosquitoes nor Flies. Insect screens will be unnecessary. Mosquitoes, house-flies and roaches will have been practically exterminated. Boards of health will have destroyed all mosquito haunts and breeding-grounds, drained all stagnant pools, filled in all swamp-lands, and chemically treated all still-water streams. The extermination of the horse and its stable will reduce the house-fly.

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


Reality: Yeah, well... It pains me somewhat when Watkins swings and misses. As regular readers must already know, I have a man crush on old John Elfreth. Sometimes I even imagine he had a lovely speaking voice.

To be fair to him, while these pest insects still exist, the problem is much smaller than it was back in 1900. The biggest goof here is "the extermination of the horse". He was right that they were on their way out as essential beasts of burden, but even the human race that had wiped out the passenger pigeon and Steller's sea cow wouldn't be so callous as to kill all the horses. I mean, how would we have that cute Budweiser ad if we killed all the Clydesdales?

Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE! 

Thursday means Arthur C. Clarke, and tomorrow he gets one right when predicting what we'll know... in the Year 2000!

Join me then... IN THE FUTURE!

1 March 2013

Birthdays
Zach Snyder b. 1966

His best known movie is 300, which does not count as a genre film, but Watchmen, Sucker Punch and the soon to be released Man of Steel certainly do.
 

In the Year 2000!

Prediction: Fleets of blimp trolleys will take vacationers on summer vacations to the North Pole

Predictor: postcards printed in 1900 by Hildebrands German Chocolates

Reality: The reality is I love the German chocolate postcards. I'll be sorry when they are all used up. I have plenty of material for the predictions, but these illustrations are really keen. I'm especially fond of the two by two nature of the critters looking up at the blimps, the polar bears, walruses, seals, even two of the three dogs near the Eskimos in the foreground. North Pole = Eden, not a visual metaphor you see every day.

Oh, wait... "reality" is supposed to be where I say if the prediction is any good, not give a little art critique.  Oops, my bad. 

The prediction is weak. There is some tourism to polar regions, cruise ships and the like, but blimps flying in close formation is just asking for Hindenburg size disasters. The winds can be vicious near the poles in any season.

Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE! Here's two words I don't get to type often enough. Sonny Chiba! And, oh yeah, we all die in a plague in 1982.

 Join us then... IN THE FUTURE! 

21 February 2013

Birthdays
Ashley Greene b. 1987
Kelsey Grammer b. 1955
Anthony Daniels b. 1946
Alan Rickman b. 1946

Today we get birthdays of actors from the Twilight, X-Men, Star Wars and Harry Potter series. I love same date, same year birthdays. C-3PO and Snape! Who knew?

Alan Rickman gets the picture because All Sentient Beings Love Alan Rickman.
  

What life will be like... in the year 2001!

Predictor: Robert A. Heinlein in the 30th Anniversary issue of Amazing Stories, 1956

Predictions: lab outpost on Pluto...
the Sahara Sea...
Telepathy for military purposes...
We finished World War III with 100,000,000 more people than when we started...
Five billion sometime in the 21st Century...
Still no cure for the common cold.
 
Reality: I found this picture of Heinlein weeks ago, but decided to use another because this makes him look ridiculous. With this set of predictions, I realized I should have two pictures, The Sensible Heinlein and The Ridiculous Heinlein.

This set of predictions deserves this awful sports coat.

We don't have a lab outpost on the Moon, much less Pluto. We didn't flood the Sahara. We don't use ESP for military purposes. We didn't have World War III, we passed five billion in the 1980s.

He's right about the common cold, though.  I don't know how he does it.

 Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE! Still plumbing the depths of this issue of Amazing Stories, a reader named Clarence W. Van Tilburg wins the prediction contest and while not perfect, he does a hell of a lot better than Heinlein.

Join us then... IN THE FUTURE!

1 February 2013

Birthday
Bill Mumy b. 1954

Next year I'll use a still from Babylon 5 for Mr. Mumy. Promise.

In the Year 2000!

Prediction: Humans, many now living underwater, will enjoy watching races where large fish are ridden like ponies.

Predictor: French postcards from 1900

Reality: Once again, the French have people in THE FUTURE acting like dicks. The exact species of the fish is hard to determine, but my best guess would be something related to barracuda.

Taming barracuda. Yeah, good luck with that. I'll watch from over here. No, on second thought I'll just wait until it's on the news, with the heart-wrenching interviews with the survivors.

Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE! In 1990, 82.4% of the world's population will be under 21 years old.

Hmmm, that could spell trouble. Run, Logan, run!

Join me then... IN THE FUTURE!

10 January 2013

In the year 2000!

Prediction: "In the world of the future, we will not be the only intelligent creatures. On of the coming techniques will be what we might call bio-engineering, the development of intelligent and useful servants among the other animals on this planet, particularly the great apes, the dolphins and whales.

"It's a scandal that pre-historic man tamed all the domesticated animals we have today. We haven't added one in the past five thousand years. With our current understanding of animal psychology and genetics, we could certainly solve the servant problem with the help of the monkey kingdom.

"Of course, our super-chimpanzees would start forming trade unions and we'd be right back where we started."

Predictor: Arthur C. Clarke on the 1964 BBC TV show Horizon.

Accuracy: Well, some monkeys are used as helper creatures for people who do not have the use of their arms, but the great apes have not been pulling their weight so far and we aren't doing much in the way of actual bio-engineering, other than making siamese cats much uglier. There is also the United States Navy Marine Mammal Program, but if you can trust Wikipedia, the Navy has decided it would be more humane to turn the mine detection business over to aquatic robots.

And as much as I might like old ACC, his quip about super-chimp trade unions smacks of the condescending attitude of that less talented futurist Newt Gingrich.

Birthday

Fran Walsh b. 1959

Ms. Walsh is a screenwriter and partner of director Peter Jackson.








Looking one day... INTO THE FUTURE! Friday is Antique Postcard Day! We will discover why predictions about life in a hundred years is a terrific way to sell chocolates to Germans.

Or maybe not.

Join me then... IN THE FUTURE!

4 January 2013

In the year 2000!

Prediction: Underwater vehicles are pulled by whales

Predictor: French postcards from the 1900 Paris Exhibition


Accuracy: Not good. A lot of predictions of what the future should look like are going to get the label "Humans to nature: Be our bitch" Most of these predictions will also have the label "Nature to humans: BITCH, PLEASE".

But when you think of it, putting harnesses on whales and making them swim where we want to go isn't nearly as cruel as killing them for meat and oil we don't really need.

Explanation for the young people: There was a time in the distant past when porn was scarce and difficult to obtain. (No, really. You can look it up or maybe ask your grandpa.) Back in those days, "French postcards" meant "pictures of nekkid wimmens". But in fact not all French postcards were smutty. Some were made for people whose unquenchable thirst was not for the dirty pictures and tingly feelings down there, but instead for knowledge of the future and the tingly feelings IN THE BRAIN! 

Fridays will be Antique Postcard Day. Besides these French postcards from the 1900 Paris Exhibition, there are also German postcards from the same era predicting THE YEAR 2000 distributed by a chocolate maker.

What does chocolate have to do with the future? I have no idea.

Looking ahead one day... INTO THE FUTURE! Our first prediction with an exact date, a date important in the history of time travel.

Join me then... IN THE FUTURE!