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Hermit
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by Hermit » Wed Jul 16, 2014 10:20 am
OK, so we had
a thread about predictions that turned out to be well off the mark. This one is for the more prescient ones.
To start, here is one predicting a mobile phone with video capability. Dated 1929.

I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops. - Stephen J. Gould
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JacksSmirkingRevenge
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by JacksSmirkingRevenge » Wed Jul 16, 2014 3:08 pm
I'm pretty sure there was a machine that did exactly what a fax does in John Sladek's Alien Accounts (1982)...

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by Xamonas Chegwé » Wed Jul 16, 2014 3:20 pm
JacksSmirkingRevenge wrote:I'm pretty sure there was a machine that did exactly what a fax does in John Sladek's Alien Accounts (1982)...

The fax machine was actually invented 11 years before the telephone!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fax#History
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by JacksSmirkingRevenge » Wed Jul 16, 2014 9:58 pm
Fuckin' smart ass...

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JimC
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by JimC » Wed Jul 16, 2014 10:03 pm
JacksSmirkingRevenge wrote:Fuckin' smart ass...

Lord preserve us from overly intelligent donkeys!
Perhaps the classic was Arthur C. Clark's prediction of geostationary satellites...
Nurse, where the fuck's my cardigan?
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by JacksSmirkingRevenge » Wed Jul 16, 2014 10:05 pm
I knew you were going to say that.
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by klr » Wed Jul 16, 2014 10:06 pm
This from the early 1900s:
http://www.visualnews.com/2012/01/17/sc ... years-ago/
... a lot right, but a lot wrong. On balance though, still very impressive, because it's very hard to be right about the future.
JimC wrote:JacksSmirkingRevenge wrote:Fuckin' smart ass...

Lord preserve us from overly intelligent donkeys!
Perhaps the classic was Arthur C. Clark's prediction of geostationary satellites...
Do he do more than predict? I thought he worked out the basic details as well.
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by JimC » Wed Jul 16, 2014 10:46 pm
klr wrote:This from the early 1900s:
http://www.visualnews.com/2012/01/17/sc ... years-ago/
... a lot right, but a lot wrong. On balance though, still very impressive, because it's very hard to be right about the future.
JimC wrote:JacksSmirkingRevenge wrote:Fuckin' smart ass...

Lord preserve us from overly intelligent donkeys!
Perhaps the classic was Arthur C. Clark's prediction of geostationary satellites...
Do he do more than predict? I thought he worked out the basic details as well.
It was certainly a detailed, rational prediction, not vague speculation. But it was still regarded as fantasy at the time.
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by Brian Peacock » Thu Jul 17, 2014 12:13 am
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Hermit
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by Hermit » Wed Jul 23, 2014 1:09 pm
Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Armies Marshal Ferdinant Foch said of the Versaille Treaty on the day it was signed: "This is not a peace. It is an armistice for twenty years".
I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops. - Stephen J. Gould
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by laklak » Wed Jul 23, 2014 1:30 pm
I can't count the number of times I've said "this isn't going to end well" and was right.
Yeah well that's just, like, your opinion, man.
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Hermit
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by Hermit » Wed Jul 23, 2014 1:33 pm
laklak wrote:I can't count the number of times I've said "this isn't going to end well" and was right.
Well done. I predict you will die. Amiright?
I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops. - Stephen J. Gould
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