6 January 2014

Birthdays
Rinko Kikuchi b. 1981 (47 Ronin, Pacific Rim)
Johnny Yong Bosch b. 1976 (Mighty Morphin Power Rangers)
Aron Eisenberg b. 1969 (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager)
Andrea Thompson b. 1960 (Babylon 5, Quantum Leap, Heroes: Destiny)
Mark Forest b. 1933 (Goliath and the Dragon, Mole Men Against the Son of Hercules, Hercules Against the Sons of the Sun, Colossus of the Arena)
Professor Toru Tanaka b. 1930 died 22 August 2000 (Last Action Hero, Alligator II: The Mutation, Darkman, The Running Man)

Not a long birthday list today, but it certainly has range. A Jaeger pilot, a Power Ranger, a Ferengi, a telepath, Hercules and a professional wrestler. Guess how many times I've typed that sentence in my life.

Good guess.

Many happy returns to all the living on the list and to Professor Toru Tanaka, BOOOOOOOO! (He was a bad guy wrestler, known in the business as "a heel". I'm sure he's used to it.)

In the year 2000!

Predictor: OMNI Future Almanac, published 1982


Prediction (actual Fortune 500 position in 2000 in parentheses): The top ten companies in the United States in the year 2000.

1] Warner-Amex Compunications Services (merged with Time #45, American Express separate at #71)
2] CitiCorp (#7)
3] AT&T (#8)
4] Exxon (merged with Mobil #3)
5] IBM (#6)
6] Mobil (Merged with Exxon #3)
7] General Motors (#1)
8] Cetus and Genentech (neither are Fortune 500 in 2000)
9] Time Inc.(merged with Warner #45)
10] Johnson & Johnson (#43)

Even more reality: Compunications?? Not a typo. “Compunications is a coined word to describe the fusion of computations with communications.”

Oh no.
The hell.
It’s not.

They way overstated how much money was in biotech, but other than that, the list isn't awful. The top ten in 1982 was dominated by oil companies, seven out of ten. There was only one oil company in the top ten in 2000, there are four in 2013.

Here's who they missed in 2000.

2] Wal-Mart. This would have been a crazy guess to make in 1982. Wal-Mart was still just regional back then, not even on the Fortune 500. All the rest were top 100 companies back in 1982.
4] Ford
5] General Electric
9] Altria
10] Boeing

Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE!

We get one last prediction from our Tuesday regular H.G. Wells, and you can be sure it will be pessimistic.

Join us then... IN THE FUTURE!

5 January 2014

Birthdays
Oscar Isaac b. 1980 (Sucker Punch)
Paul Jarrett b. 1979 (Continuum, Fringe, Twilight: Eclipse, Smallville, Stargate, The Grudge 2, Dead Like Me, Stephen King’s Dead Zone, Millennium, The X-Files, Sliders)
January Jones b. 1978 (X-Men: First Class)
Bradley Cooper b. 1975 (Limitless)
Paul McGillion b. 1969 (Once Upon a Time, Fringe, Sanctuary, V [2010], Star Trek, Stargate: Atlantis, Smallville, The X-Files)
Vinnie Jones b. 1965 (X-Men: The Last Stand, Mysterious Island [2005])
Clancy Brown b. 1959 (Sleepy Hollow, John Dies at the End, Cowboys & Aliens, A Nightmare on Elm Street [2010], The Burrowers, Lost, Carnivale, Star Trek: Enterprise, Starship Troopers, The Outer Limits [1996], Earth 2, Highlander, The Bride, The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai)
Jeep Swenson b. 1957 died 18 August 1997 (Batman and Robin)
Robert Catrini b. 1950 (G.I. Joe: Retaliation, True Blood, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, SeaQuest 2032)
Roger Spottiswode b. 1945 (director, The Sixth Day)
Cliff Potts b. 1942 (Silent Running, Star Trek: The Next Generation)
Hayao Miyazaki b. 1941 (Ponyo, Howl’s Moving Castle, Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, Kiki’s Delivery Service, My Neighbor Totoro, Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind)
Robert Duvall b. 1931 (Deep Impact, The Sixth Day, The Handmaid’s Tale, THX 1138, The Time Tunnel, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, The Outer Limits, Twilight Zone)
George Reeves b. 1914 died 16 June 1959 (The Adventures of Superman)
Stella Gibbons b. 1902 died 19 December 1989 (Cold Comfort Farm)

A very long list today, and I had to break a three way tie for the Picture Slot. It was either going to be:

a) Hayao Miyazaki, my favorite artist on the list
b) Robert Duvall, an honest to Odin movie star who did a lot of genre early in his career or
c) Clancy Brown, the guy glaring out at you. We have a lot of "oh, THAT guy" actors here, and Mr. Brown is the most recognizable of that group.

Many happy returns of the day to all our living birthday boys and girls, and a brief mention for the three on the list who are dead.

Stella Gibbons' Cold Comfort Farm is a very unlikely book to be called genre, but she did set it in the future (written in the 1930s, takes place in the 1950s) and there are a few futuristic touches in the few scenes set in London, but much of the story takes place on a farm that could be set in the 19th Century.

George Reeves played Superman on TV and died of a gunshot wound. There are several competing theories as to exactly what happened. The under-rated movie Hollywoodland, starring Ben Affleck and Adrian Brody, does a good job explaining the three most popular theories.

Jeep Swenson was a professional wrestler. He was listed as 6'4" and 405 lbs. (1m93 and 184 kg for readers more comfortable with the metric measurements), and that weight was mostly muscle. He played Bane in Batman and Robin, the movie credited with finally killing the 20th Century Batman franchise. Swenson died of a heart attack at the age of 40.
 

Predictor: Ray Bradbury in The Martian Chronicles, published 1950

Prediction: In September 2005, The LaFarges, an old couple that have moved to Mars, are visited by their son Tom, who died years earlier on Eath.

Reality: As has been written many times, Bradbury is really a fantasy storyteller rather than a science fiction author. The Martians have magical abilities and no scientific explanations are ever given. Bradbury killed the Martians off in an early chapter, but they keep popping up through unexplained time warps or unexplained lone survivors.

Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE!

The OMNI Future Almanac tells us what will be the ten leading companies... in the year 2000!

Join us then... IN THE FUTURE!

4 January 2014

Birthdays
Olivia Tennet b. 1991 (The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, Power Rangers R.P.M., Xena: Warrior Princess)
Erin Cahill b. 1980 (Power Rangers Time Force, Supernatural, Sleepy Hollow)
Julia Ormond b. 1965 (Witches of East End, Exploding Sun)
Gary Jones b. 1958 (Stargate, Supernatural, Painkiller Jane, Andromeda, Highlander, Sliders)
Matt Frewer b. 1958 (Witches of East End, Falling Skies, Orphan Black, Eureka, Supernatural, Alice, Watchmen, Dawn of the Dead, Taken, PSI Factor, Apollo 11, Lawnmower Man 2, The Stand, Eerie, Indiana, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, Max Headroom, Supergirl)
Jim Norton b. 1938 (Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Babylon 5, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Memoirs of an Invisible Man)
Barbara Rush b. 1927 (Batman, The Outer Limits, It Came From Outer Space, When Worlds Collide)
Jacob Grimm b. 1785 died 20 September 1863 (collector, Grimm’s Fairy Tales)

When Joseph Ruskin died, I wrote in the comments that the step up from "Oh, THAT guy" in public recognition is "Hey, it's Abe Vigoda!" Upon further review, I think "Hey, it's Max Headroom!" is a category in between those two, where an actor is known by a character's name. Matt Frewer has done a lot of work since and Max Headroom's heyday came and went about thirty years ago, so I expect younger people are completely unaware of it. In any case, he gets the Picture Slot today. The other person I would like to mention in passing is Jacob Grimm of the Brothers Grimm, whose great work is in comparative linguistics. In their research, they collected fairy tales from all over Europe and published them, which is their claim to fame with the public.

Many happy returns to all the living on the list and to Jacob Grimm, thanks for all the nightmares. And, oh yeah, Grimm's Law.
 

Predictor: John W. Noble, Secretary of the Interior, 1889-1893, asked for his predictions about the 20th Century in honor of the 1893 Columbian Exhibition

Prediction: One hundred years hence, these United States will be an empire such as the world never before saw, and such as will exist nowhere else upon the globe. In my opinion, the richest part of it, and a section fully as populous as the East, will be in the region beyond the Mississippi River.

Reality: The United States is a country like no other and a mighty empire, and in 1893, that was big talking. This was before the Spanish American War, and the center of power was definitely in Europe at the time. As for the east/west split at the Mississippi, the Eastern half of the country definitely still has more people, but it's much closer to even than it was in Noble's day. I would say this counts as about 2 out of 3 for 66.7%, but I'll bump him up to 70% and a passing grade for excellent facial hair.

Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE!

By 2005, the Martians were thought to be extinct. Hmm, maybe not.

Join us then... IN THE FUTURE!
 

3 January 2014

Birthdays
Jennifer Lynn Warren b. 1979 (Creature, American Horror Story, The School in the Woods)
Alisen Down b. 1976 (Supernatural, Lost Girl, Stargate, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Battlestar Galactica, Smallville)
Danica McKellar b. 1975 (The Big Bang Theory, Tasmanian Devils, Heatstroke, Path of Destruction, Babylon 5)
Nicholas Gonzalez b. 1974 (Sleepy Hollow, Witches of East End, Grimm, Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid)
Matt Ross b. 1970 (Revolution, American Horror Story, Invasion , 12 Monkeys)
Mel Gibson b. 1956 (Signs, Mad Max)
Glen A. Larson b. 1937 (writer, Battlestar Galactica)
Dabney Coleman b. 1932 (WarGames, The Invaders, The Outer Limits)
Robert Loggia b. 1930 (Independence Day, The Six Million Dollar Man, The Bionic Woman, Wonder Woman)
Mara Corday b. 1930 (Tarantula, The Giant Claw, The Black Scorpion)
Ray Milland b. 1905 died 10 March 1986 (Battlestar Galactica, Frogs, X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes, Panic in Year Zero!, Premature Burial)
J.R.R. Tolkien b. 1892 died 2 September 1973 (author, Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit)

Nice mix on today's list. Mel Gibson as Mad Max was definitely a possibility for The Picture Slot as were the several fabulous babes, but instead we are looking at Tolkien. Until special effects got as good as they are now, Tolkien looked to be stuck with cheesy cartoon adaptations and that awful song Leonard Nimoy sang.  But thanks to improved special effects and the vision of Peter Jackson, we now get these big bloated movies that make my butt twitch something fierce.

Many happy returns of the day to the living, and to Ray Milland and J.R.R. Tolkein, thanks for the memories.
  

Predictor: Ray Kurzweil at TED Talks in 2005.

Prediction: By 2010, computers will disappear from view and be embedded in our clothing. The images will be written directly to our retinas for fully immersive virtual reality.

By 2020, high end computers will sell for about $10.

Reality: 2010 was too early, but Google Glass and computer wrist watch technology are both hoping to get some market share in 2014. They aren't actually "embedded in our clothing" and "fully immersive virtual reality" is like fusion reactors, always just a few years away. (I worked on some VR goggles in the 1990s. The technology wasn't ready and they were just large clumsy headache and nausea inducers.) It remains to be seen if these products will be iPhone sized hits or Segway sized flops.

As for ten dollar high end computers in 2020, the chips might get cheap, but input and output devices are still going to cost some money. I've been wrong before, but I would be surprised if this comes to pass.

Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE!

We return to 1893, and a prediction about the wonderful progress that will be seen in the lands to the west of the Mississippi.

Join us then... IN THE FUTURE!

2 January 2014

 Birthdays
Kate Bosworth b. 1983 (Superman Returns)
David Gyasi b. 1980 (Cloud Atlas, The Dark Knight Rises, Doctor Who, Torchwood)
Dax Shepard b. 1975 (Idiocracy, Zathura: A Space Adventure)
Lucy Davis b. 1973 (Shaun of the Dead)
Taye Diggs b. 1971 (Equilibrium, House on Haunted Hill)
Evan Parke b. 1968 (American Horror Story, King Kong, Charmed, Planet of the Apes [2001])
Cuba Gooding jr. (Hardwired, The Devil’s Tomb, What Dreams May Come, Outbreak)
Tia Carrere b. 1967 (Warehouse 13, Relic Hunter, Kull the Conqueror, Quantum Leap, Zombie Nightmare)
Deborah Watling b. 1948 (Doctor Who, H.G. Wells Invisible Man [1959])
Charles Beaumont b. 1929 died 21 February 1967 (writer, Queen of Outer Space, Burn, Witch, Burn, Premature Burial, Twilight Zone, 7 Faces of Dr. Lao, The Masque of the Red Death)
Jason Evers b. 1922 died 13 March 2005 (The Bionic Woman, The Fantastic Journey, Escape for the Planet of the Apes, The Illustrated Man, Star Trek, The Invaders, The Brain That Wouldn’t Die)
Isaac Asimov b. 1920 (or not) died 4/6/1992 (definitely)
(won 1973 Nebula and Hugo for The Gods Themselves)
(won 1983 Hugo for Foundation’s Edge)

Long birthday list today, a lot of actors from recent genre TV and films. A short explanation of the names of people born in the first half of the 20th Century. Deborah Watling was a companion to the Second Doctor (Patrck Troughton), Jason Evers' role on Star Trek was as the balding guy who was jealous of Kirk when he was accelerated in Blink of an Eye, one of the many episodes where aliens wore shiny costumes. Charles Beaumont was a very prolific writer who died at the age of 38 and the guy in the Picture Slot needs no introduction.

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

Predictor: Isaac Asimov in 1964, predicting the world of 2014

Prediction: In 2014, there is every likelihood that the world population will be 6,500,000,000 and the population of the United States will be 350,000,000. Boston-to-Washington, the most crowded area of its size on the earth, will have become a single city with a population of over 40,000,000.

Population pressure will force increasing penetration of desert and polar areas. Most surprising and, in some ways, heartening, 2014 will see a good beginning made in the colonization of the continental shelves. Underwater housing will have its attractions to those who like water sports, and will undoubtedly encourage the more efficient exploitation of ocean resources, both food and mineral. General Motors shows, in its 1964 exhibit, the model of an underwater hotel of what might be called mouth-watering luxury. The 2014 World's Fair will have exhibits showing cities in the deep sea with bathyscaphe liners carrying men and supplies across and into the abyss.

Reality:  Along with nuclear war, overpopulation was one of the two great worries of futurists in the mid 20th Century. The first didn't happen, at least not yet, and the second did happen, but not exactly in the way people thought it would. Asimov undershot the world population, now estimated at 7.1 billion, and overestimated the United States, now at about 317,300,000. This is because the growth rate has been less than exponential in industrialized nations and is finally slowing in the developing world as well. Boston-to-Washington is not a single city and the population of the top ten cities in that stretch combined does not add up to 20,000,000. The most crowded areas on earth of that size are likely in India or China.

I'll give Asimov a point for increasing penetration of desert areas. The so-called Sun Belt in the United States is mostly desert. In the past 50 years, Albuquerque doubled, Phoenix tripled and Las Vegas has nine times more people than it did in the 1960s, even more if you count its suburbs, which barely existed back in the day.

But then there's the polar and continental shelf stuff. Not so much, Isaac.

I rate this one at about 30% to 40%. Not a passing grade.

Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE!

TED Talks! Movers! Shakers! Completely inaccurate pinheads!

Join us then... IN THE FUTURE!

Never to be Forgotten: Joseph Ruskin 1924-2013

Character actor Joseph Ruskin died last Saturday, 28 December 2013, at the age of 89. In his career that spanned six decades, he had roles on such genre shows as Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, The Time Tunnel, Land of the Giants and Star Trek, as the thrall master Galt in the episode entitled The Gamesters of Triskelion. And that's just in the 1960s.

Other roles in genre TV include Rod Serling's Night Gallery, The Six Million Dollar Man, Planet of the Apes, The Bionic Woman, Wonder Woman, Project U.F.O and a whole slew of new Star Trek shows, including Deep Space Nine, Voyager and Enterprise as well as the movie Star Trek: Insurrection.

Ruskin's credits stretch from 1955 to 2006. He was never a regular on any series, though he did return to some series in different roles. He just kept working, one role at a time for a half a century, a total of 151 credits on imdb.com. It's not an easy way to make a living, but I for one am glad he did it, because he had some very memorable roles. On Twilight Zone, he played a genie in an episode called The Man in the Bottle and he was the voice of the alien in the classic To Serve Man.

Best wishes to the family and friends of Joseph Ruskin, from a fan. He is never to be forgotten.

1 January 2014

Birthdays
Verne Troyer b. 1969 (The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Mighty Joe Young, Men in Black)
Stanley Kamel b. 1943 died 8 April 2008 (Dark Skies [1996], Star Trek: The Next Generation)
Frank Langella b. 1938 (Superman Returns, The Ninth Gate, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Masters of the Universe, Dracula [1979])
Dana Andrews b. 1909 died 17 December 1992 (Twilight Zone, Curse of the Demon)
E.M. Forster b. 1879 died 7 June 1970 (author, The Machine Stops)

Welcome to the future, friends! 2014, oh what wonders await us!

The birthday list is short today and The Picture Slot is given to Frank Langella, who gets my vote as the prettiest Dracula of all time. Dana Andrews had a good career in the movies, but did show up in one low budget 1950s monster movie and also had a role on the original Twilight Zone, which is almost always worth a mention on this blog. E.M. Forster is best known for the book that were turned into movies, including A Passage to India, A Room with a View and Howard's End, but he did write some speculative fiction as well, most notably The Machine Stops in 1909, which is a strong metaphor for what the Internet has become in modern life.

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

Prediction: Account books, invoices, and all similar documents will doubtless be written by a convenient and compendious form of combined calculating machine and typewriter, which we may suppose to be called the numeroscriptor. It will, of course, be capable of writing anywhere on a book or on a loose sheet, on a flat surface or on an irregular one. It will make any kind of calculation required. Even such operations as the weighing and measurement of goods will all be done by automatic machinery, capable of recording without any possibility of error the quantity and values of goods submitted to its operation.

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

Reality: Before the Internet showed up, a "combined calculating machine and typewriter" was a very good description of a personal computer, and he's right about the automation of weighing and measuring goods. I'll give him 9.5 of 10 on this one, docking a half point for the awful coined word "numeroscriptor".

This month's splash illustration: Bruno Delussu designs concept cars that definitely have the retrofuture feeling to them. This one is the Bugatti Stratos, a completely impractical contraption that looks so damn cool, I don't even care that you could probably do about $20,000 body damage hitting a pothole. It's just so pretty, isn't it?

Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE!

A double dose of our favorite 20th Century muttonchops.

Join us then... IN THE FUTURE!