27 January 2014

Birthdays
Patton Oswalt b. 1969 (Caprica, Dollhouse, The Venture Brothers)
Tamlyn Tomita b. 1966 (True Blood, Heroes, Eureka, Stargate, The Day After Tomorrow, The Burning Zone, The Last Man on Planet Earth, Highlander [TV], Babylon 5: The Gathering, Quantum Leap)
Alan Cumming b. 1965 (X2, Riverworld, Tin Man, Spy Kids)
Bridget Fonda b. 1964 (Army of Darkness, Snow Queen, Monkeybone, Lake Placid, Frankenstein Unbound)
Julie Caitlin Brown b. 1961 (Babylon 5, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine)
Susanna Thompson b. 1958 (Arrow, Star Trek: Voyager, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Next Generation, Alien Nation: Dark Horizon)
Mimi Rogers b. 1956 (The X-Files, Lost in Space [film])
Richard Bremmer b. 1953 (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone)
Steve Leialoha b. 1952 (illustrator, Peter & Max)
Frank Miller b. 1957 (writer/artist, The Dark Knight Returns, Sin City, 300)
James Cromwell b. 1940 (American Horror Story, Spider-Man 3, I, Robot, Salem’s Lot, Star Trek: Enterprise, Deep Impact, Species II, Star Trek: First Contact, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: The Next Generation)
Michael Craig b. 1928 (Doctor Who, Mysterious Island [1961])
Sabu b. 1924 died 2 December 1963 (The Jungle Book, The Thief of Bagdad)
Lewis Carroll b. 1832 died 14 January 1898 (Alice in Wonderland, The Hunting of the Snark)

Lots of familiar names and faces on the list today. To my mind Richard Bremmer is the most interesting piece of trivia, since he was credited as He Who Must Not Be Named in the first Harry Potter film, before the Dark Lord could completely manifest himself. While I could have put any of a number of people in the Picture Slot, I went with a cover from one of The Dark Knight Returns books by Frank Miller, who along with Alan Moore and others help create the "grim and gritty" style of comic books back in the 1980s.

Many happy returns to the living on the list and to Lewis Carroll and Sabu, thanks for all the memories.

 

Predictor: The OMNI Future Almanac, published in 1982

Prediction (reality in parentheses): The Components of American Population growth in 2000

Population: 260,000,000 (280,000,000)
Growth rate: 1.0% (1.1%)
Birth rate per 1000: 18 (15)
Death rate per 1000: 9 (9)
Life expectancy: 76 (74.8)
Immigration rate per 1000: 1 (3)

The 1980 population was 227,000,000, so the country gained about 50 million instead of the 30 million the almanac predicted. That might seem pretty far off, but if we look at the difference in the average growth rate over those twenty years, it's the difference between 1.0% a year and 1.1% a year. This big gap is due to "the miracle of compound interest" as my father likes to call it.

Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE!

It's Ray Kurzweil's chance again to look at 2009 from a vantage point in 1999.

Join us then... IN THE FUTURE!