tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7494544263897150929.post2125846964596907421..comments2024-03-18T13:11:39.192-07:00Comments on Rocketpunk Manifesto: The Future of the FutureRickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16932015378213238346noreply@blogger.comBlogger74125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7494544263897150929.post-49374673795144746142014-02-27T21:37:10.100-08:002014-02-27T21:37:10.100-08:00The illustration at the top of the post looks a bi...The illustration at the top of the post looks a bit like a stylized version of this:<br />http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2011/01/aerial-ropeways-automatic-cargo-transport.html<br /><br />The author makes a good case for using these ropeways more under at least some conditions.Jim Baergnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7494544263897150929.post-56837072498379308752010-10-02T04:32:55.999-07:002010-10-02T04:32:55.999-07:00hum hum
so so
and<b> hum hum </b><br /><br /><i> so so </i><br /><br /><a rel="nofollow">and </a>unkown testernoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7494544263897150929.post-50559509271324053062010-10-02T04:32:14.409-07:002010-10-02T04:32:14.409-07:00[b]hum hum[/b]
[i]so so[/i]
[a]and[/a][b]hum hum[/b]<br /><br />[i]so so[/i]<br /><br />[a]and[/a]unknown testernoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7494544263897150929.post-10546610503023561422010-10-02T04:31:39.062-07:002010-10-02T04:31:39.062-07:00[b] hum hum [/b]
[i] so so [/i]
[a] and [/a][b] hum hum [/b]<br /><br />[i] so so [/i]<br /><br />[a] and [/a]unknown testernoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7494544263897150929.post-67592360457017048272010-09-14T10:49:44.024-07:002010-09-14T10:49:44.024-07:00Just questioning if eBay permits you to sell [url=...Just questioning if eBay permits you to sell [url=http://www.ticketchoice.com.au]concert tickets[/url] on the net? Do you know if you can find any restrictions depending on what country you are in?<br /><br />My parents have just referred to as me and asked if i could "get rid" of their two tickets to some concert as they wont have the ability to make it because of an additional family event.<br /><br />Apart from asking close friends etc, i thought ebay would be a good location to market them.<br /><br />But whats ebay's policy on selling tickets? Ive heard alot about it on the news but ive forgotten what happened.<br /><br />and if it matters, the concert is inside of this coming month<br /><br />Thanks in advance for your advice.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7494544263897150929.post-23239914375747805252010-09-13T10:45:00.137-07:002010-09-13T10:45:00.137-07:00Just wondering if eBay enables you to market [url=...Just wondering if eBay enables you to market [url=http://www.ticketchoice.com.au]concert tickets[/url] on the net? Do you know if there are any restrictions depending on what country you're in?<br /><br />My parents have just referred to as me and asked if i could "get rid" of their two tickets to some concert as they wont have the ability to make it due to another family event.<br /><br />Besides asking friends etc, i thought ebay would be a fantastic location to market them.<br /><br />But whats ebay's policy on selling tickets? Ive heard alot about it within the news but ive forgotten what happened.<br /><br />and if it matters, the concert is within this coming month<br /><br />Thanks in advance for your advice.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7494544263897150929.post-23510628276506881892010-02-14T11:59:57.063-08:002010-02-14T11:59:57.063-08:00That's just Father Darwin reminding you that y...That's just Father Darwin reminding you that you are after all an ape, and like all of us sometimes have to do ape stuff.Rickhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16932015378213238346noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7494544263897150929.post-1300610207524851172010-02-13T09:53:49.365-08:002010-02-13T09:53:49.365-08:00Reading this blog I am more drawn to Thucydides id...Reading this blog I am more drawn to Thucydides idea of 'increasing my bandwidth'. As much as I like this blog I notice I have to be in a certain frame of mind to tackle it, otherwise I am just wasting my time. I want to get caught up on the older posts as well as the many articles on other science and science fiction websites (esp. Atomic Rockets) but eventually my brain says ENOUGH! I definitely wish I could get a little more out of myself before that ENOUGH voice takes over and I find myself checking out ESPN to watch grown men argue over a ball.VonMalcolmhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18396555975528915948noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7494544263897150929.post-64070324485414417072010-02-04T18:31:20.284-08:002010-02-04T18:31:20.284-08:00Interesting about La compagnie des glaces! So much...Interesting about <i>La compagnie des glaces!</i> So much out there that I have no idea existed!<br /><br />There have been a few historical battle trains, and one was portrayed in the movie 'Dr. Zhivago.'<br /><br />I once read an SF novel - alas, forget both author and title - with the most unusual FTL I have encountered. People traveled through some para-landscape in wagons pulled by 'waybeasts,' but the wagons were hitched together train-wise, with a diner, a lounge car, sleepers, and so on.Rickhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16932015378213238346noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7494544263897150929.post-9231581362381889442010-02-04T18:30:23.683-08:002010-02-04T18:30:23.683-08:00If you want FTL train SF then there's Timothy ...If you want FTL train SF then there's Timothy Zahn's <i>Quadrail</i> series, starting with <i>Night Train to Rigel</i> and Peter F. Hamilton's <i>Commonwealth</i> books starting with <i>Pandora's Star</i>. Of course there's the anime series Galaxy Express 999. The granddaddy of them all however is a mention in Jules Verne's <i>From the Earth to the Moon</i> of future trains to the moon.<br /><br />It would appear that the second most used star travel metaphor after naval vessels is the train. Interesting.Jean-Remyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07186948442919090289noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7494544263897150929.post-47201812945646510002010-02-03T06:44:10.536-08:002010-02-03T06:44:10.536-08:00On rails, there is a whole series of novels regard...On rails, there is a whole series of novels regarding a future ice age where whole armies battle each-other's nuclear-powered steam locomotives on rails criss-crossing an ice-covered Earth. That is "<strong><em>La compagnie des glaces</em></strong>" ("<em>The ice company</em>"*) by Georges-Jean Arnaud. There are over 98 books published in the series.<br /><br />* A bad pun, as "<em>compagnie des glaces</em>" could very well be an ice-cream stands franchise... Here, the name is of the railroad company that builded it's network on the frozen oceans, following the naming traditions of past french railroads.emdxnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7494544263897150929.post-77690806661309742232010-01-29T08:58:35.484-08:002010-01-29T08:58:35.484-08:00I thought exactly that re the atomic vacuums. In m...I thought exactly that re the atomic vacuums. In my little <a href="http://www.rocketpunk-manifesto.com/2007/12/are-aether-ships-ever-dreadnoughts.html" rel="nofollow">rail oriented alt-universe</a>, in the mid 60s the Santa Teresa transit system labels one of its streetcars a Nuclear Powered Vehicle, complete with stylized electrons orbiting the headlight.<br /><br />On 'global cooling' your quotes confirm my recollection: It had a modest place in the geek pop culture of the time, but was not a subject of much actual scientific discussion or concern.Rickhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16932015378213238346noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7494544263897150929.post-74982718522283547132010-01-28T08:47:58.978-08:002010-01-28T08:47:58.978-08:00#103 "Nuclear-powered vacuum cleaners will pr...#103 "Nuclear-powered vacuum cleaners will probably be a reality in 10 years." <br />- Alex Lewyt, president of vacuum cleaner company Lewyt Corp., in the New York Times in 1955.<br /><br />By 1965 there were a few nuclear plants supplying electricity to the grid & plenty of vacuum cleaners plugged into the grid, so technically that prediction is correct.<br /><br />Re: the global cooling quotes.<br />See <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/illconsidered/2006/02/they-predicted-cooling-in-1970s.php" rel="nofollow">this</a><br /><br />and <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/illconsidered/2006/03/what-about-mid-century-cooling.php/" rel="nofollow">this</a>Jim Baergnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7494544263897150929.post-34200281704399387602010-01-28T07:57:23.056-08:002010-01-28T07:57:23.056-08:00Those are a hoot! Though I suspect that a few of t...Those are a hoot! Though I suspect that a few of them - mainly to do with pop culture - may be urban legends.<br /><br />One thing that surprised me was the 'global cooling' quotes. Growing up in the 60s, I took for granted that another ice age was coming, but only in the distant future. I never heard of it as a near-term concern, or really even heard much about it at all. <br /><br />It was just one of those funky things that all science geeks knew, like the meaning of 'long pig.'Rickhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16932015378213238346noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7494544263897150929.post-53350566866674111492010-01-28T07:09:05.213-08:002010-01-28T07:09:05.213-08:00Health
#135 "Louis Pasteur's theory of g...Health<br /><br />#135 "Louis Pasteur's theory of germs is ridiculous fiction."<br />- Pierre Pachet, Professor of Physiology at Toulouse, 1872.<br /><br />#136 "The abdomen, the chest, and the brain will forever be shut of from the intrusion from the wise and humane surgeon."<br />- Sir John Eric Ericksen, British surgeon, appointed Surgeon-Extraordinary to Queen Victoria, 1873.<br /><br />#137 "X-rays will prove to be a hoax."<br />- Lord Kelvin, President of the Royal Society, 1883.<br /><br />#138 "If excessive smoking plays a role in the production of cancer, it seems to be a minor one."<br />- W. C. Heuper, National Cancer Institute, 1954.<br /><br />#139 "That virus is a pussycat." <br />- Dr. Peter Duesberg, molecular-biology professor at U.C. Berkeley, on HIV, 1988.<br /><br />#140 "There will be one million cases of AIDS in Britain by 1991." <br />--World Health Organisation in a 1989 report. It over-estimated by 992,301 cases.<br /><br /><br />End Of The World<br /><br /># 141 Any number of Doomsday Predictions set to happen before January 27, 2010.<br /><br /><br />Links to sources:<br /><br />http://www.2spare.com/item_50221.aspx<br />http://www.ixibo.com/2009/03/30-failed-predictions-about-future-of-technology/<br />http://www.oddee.com/item_96635.aspx<br />http://listverse.com/2007/10/28/top-30-failed-technology-predictions/<br />http://www.thatsweird.net/facts13.shtml<br />http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/business/soa/Top-10-worst-tech-predictions-of-all-time-/0,139023166,339284671,00.htm<br />http://www.angelfire.com/la/raeder/Germany4.html<br />http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_spf419YwE<br />http://www.peopleforglobalwarming.com/Stupid_Quotes.htm<br />http://www.badpets.net/Humor/Dumb/SillyQuotes.html <<< HILARIOUS!!!<br />http://newsgroups.derkeiler.com/pdf/Archive/Comp/bit.listserv.ibm-main/2008-01/msg01025.pdfVonMalcolmhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18396555975528915948noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7494544263897150929.post-42900156210942794832010-01-28T07:08:08.817-08:002010-01-28T07:08:08.817-08:00Various
#113 "The multitude of books is a gr...Various<br /><br />#113 "The multitude of books is a great evil. There is no limit to this fever for writing; every one must be an author; some out of vanity, to acquire celebrity and raise up a name, others for the sake of mere gain."<br />- Martin Luther, German Reformation leader, Table Talk, 1530s(?).<br /><br />#114 "I see no good reasons why the views given in this volume should shock the religious sensibilities of anyone."<br />- Charles Darwin, in the foreword to his book, The Origin of Species, 1869.<br /><br />#115 "Law will be simplified [over the next century]. Lawyers will have<br />diminished, and their fees will have been vastly curtailed."<br />- journalist Junius Henri Browne, 1893<br /><br />#116 "It doesn't matter what he does; he will never amount to anything."<br />- Albert Einstein's teacher to his father, 1895.<br /><br />#117 "The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a 'C,' the idea must be feasible." (not exact quote?)<br />- A Yale University management professor in response to Fred Smith's paper proposing reliable overnight delivery service, 1962. (Smith went on to found Federal Express Corp.)<br /><br />#118 "If anything remains more or less unchanged, it will be the role of women."<br />- David Riesman, conservative American social scientist, 1967.<br /><br />#119 "If I were a gambler, I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000."<br />- Paul Ehrlich 1969<br /><br />#120 "If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder by the year 2000...This is about twice what it would take to put us in an ice age."<br />- Kenneth E.F. Watt, 1970<br /><br />#121 "This cooling has already killed hundreds of thousands of people. If it continues and no strong action is taken, it will cause world famine, world chaos and world war, and this could all come about before the year 2000."<br />- Lowell Ponte, 1976<br /><br />#122 "If I had thought about it, I wouldn't have done the experiment. The literature was full of examples that said 'you can't do this'."<br />- Spencer Silver on the work that led to the unique adhesives for 3-M "Post-It" Notepads.<br /><br />#123 "The case is a loser." <br />- Johnnie Cochran, on soon-to-be client O.J.'s chances of winning, 1994.<br /><br /><br />Sports/Entertainment<br /><br />#124 "Ours has been the first [expedition], and doubtless to be the last, to visit this profitless locality."<br />- Lt. Joseph Ives, after visiting the Grand Canyon in 1861.<br /><br />#125 "The phonograph has no commercial value at all."<br />- Thomas Edison, American inventor, 1880s.<br /><br />#126 "Converting the best left-handed pitcher in baseball and converting him into a right fielder is one of the dumbest things I ever heard."<br />- Tris Speaker, baseball Hall-of-Famer, talking about Babe Ruth,1919.<br /><br />#127 "Can't act. Can't sing. Slightly bald. Can dance a little."<br />- A film company's verdict on Fred Astaire's 1928 screen test.<br /><br />#128 "You ought to go back to driving a truck."<br />--Concert manager, firing Elvis Presley in 1954.<br /><br />#129 "It will be gone by June."<br />- Variety, passing judgment on rock 'n roll in 1955.<br /><br />#130 "A short-lived satirical pulp."<br />- TIME, writing off Mad magazine in 1956.<br /><br />#131 "We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out."<br />- Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962.<br /><br />#132 "The Beatles? They're on the wane."<br />- The Duke of Edinburgh in Canada, 1965. They went on to produce a string of No 1s.<br /><br />#133 "The lead singer [Mick Jagger] will have to go; the BBC won't like him."<br />- First Rolling Stones manager Eric Easton to his partner after watching them perform.<br /><br />#134 "And for the tourist who really wants to get away from it all, safaris in Vietnam"<br />- Newsweek, predicting popular holidays for the late 1960s.VonMalcolmhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18396555975528915948noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7494544263897150929.post-77603620324389286862010-01-28T07:06:41.519-08:002010-01-28T07:06:41.519-08:00Other Technology
#104 "Inventions have long ...Other Technology<br /><br />#104 "Inventions have long since reached their limit, and I see no hope for<br />further developments." <br />- Roman engineer Julius Sextus Frontinus, A.D. 100<br /><br />#105 "Drill for oil? You mean drill into the ground to find to find oil? You're Crazy."<br />- Associates of Edwin L. Drake refusing his suggestion to drill for oil in 1859.<br /><br />#106 "Fooling around with alternating current is just a waste of time. Nobody will use it, ever."<br />- Thomas Edison, American inventor, 1889 (Edison often ridiculed the arguments of competitor George Westinghouse for AC power).<br /><br />#107 "Everything that can be invented has been invented."<br />- Charles H. Duell, an official at the US patent office, 1899.<br /><br />#108 "I am tired of all this sort of thing called science here... We have spent millions in that sort of thing for the last few years, and it is time it should be stopped."<br />- Simon Cameron, U.S. Senator, on the Smithsonian Institute, 1901.<br /><br />#109 "I must confess that my imagination refuses to see any sort of submarine doing anything but suffocating its crew and floundering at sea."<br />- HG Wells, British novelist, in 1901.<br /><br />#110 - An official of the White Star Line, speaking of the firm's newly built flagship, the Titanic, launched in 1912, declared that the ship was unsinkable.<br /><br />#111 "The world potential market for copying machines is 5000 at most."<br />- IBM, to the eventual founders of Xerox, saying the photocopier had no market large enough to justify production, 1959.<br /><br />#112 "[By 1985], machines will be capable of doing any work Man can do."<br />- Herbert A. Simon, of Carnegie Mellon University - considered to be a founder of the field of artificial intelligence - speaking in 1965.VonMalcolmhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18396555975528915948noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7494544263897150929.post-3936639740303365292010-01-28T07:02:31.487-08:002010-01-28T07:02:31.487-08:00Space Travel
#93 "To place a man in a multi-...Space Travel<br /><br />#93 "To place a man in a multi-stage rocket and project him into the controlling gravitational field of the moon where the passengers can make scientific observations, perhaps land alive, and then return to earth - all that constitutes a wild dream worthy of Jules Verne. I am bold enough to say that such a man-made voyage will never occur regardless of all future advances."<br />- Lee DeForest, American radio pioneer and inventor of the vacuum tube, in 1926<br /><br />#94 "Space travel is utter bilge."<br />- Richard Van Der Riet Woolley, upon assuming the post of Astronomer Royal in 1956.<br /><br />#95 "Space travel is bunk."<br />- Sir Harold Spencer Jones, Astronomer Royal of the UK, 1957 (two weeks later Sputnik orbited the Earth).<br /><br />#96 "There is practically no chance communications space satellites will be used to provide better telephone, telegraph, television, or radio service inside the United States."<br />- T. Craven, FCC Commissioner, in 1961 (the first commercial communications satellite went into service in 1965).<br /><br /><br />Atomic and Nuclear Power<br /><br />#97 "There is no likelihood man can ever tap the power of the atom."<br />- Robert Millikan, American physicist and Nobel Prize winner, 1923.<br /><br />#98 "There is not the slightest indication that nuclear energy will ever be obtainable. It would mean that the atom would have to be shattered at will."<br />- Albert Einstein, 1932.<br /><br />#99 "The energy produced by the breaking down of the atom is a very poor kind of thing. Anyone who expects a source of power from the transformation of these atoms is talking moonshine."<br />- Ernest Rutherford, shortly after splitting the atom for the first time.<br /><br />#100 "Atomic energy might be as good as our present-day explosives, but it is unlikely to produce anything very much more dangerous."<br />- Winston Churchill, British Prime Minister, 1939.<br /><br />#101 "That is the biggest fool thing we have ever done [research on]... The bomb will never go off, and I speak as an expert in explosives."<br />- Admiral William D. Leahy, U.S. Admiral working in the U.S. Atomic Bomb Project, advising President Truman on atomic weaponry, 1944.<br /><br />#102 "The basic questions of design, material and shielding, in combining a nuclear reactor with a home boiler and cooling unit, no longer are problems... The system would heat and cool a home, provide unlimited household hot water, and melt the snow from sidewalks and driveways. All that could be done for six years on a single charge of fissionable material costing about $300." <br />- Robert Ferry, executive of the U.S. Institute of Boiler and Radiator Manufacturers, 1955.<br /><br />#103 "Nuclear-powered vacuum cleaners will probably be a reality in 10 years." <br />- Alex Lewyt, president of vacuum cleaner company Lewyt Corp., in the New York Times in 1955.VonMalcolmhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18396555975528915948noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7494544263897150929.post-32404294364606144392010-01-28T06:59:49.002-08:002010-01-28T06:59:49.002-08:00Automobiles
#77 "The ordinary "horseles...Automobiles<br /><br />#77 "The ordinary "horseless carriage" is at present a luxury for the wealthy; and although its price will probably fall in the future, it will never, of course, come into as common use as the bicycle."<br />- Literary Digest, 1899.<br /><br />#78 "The horse is here to stay but the automobile is only a novelty, a fad."<br />- The president of the Michigan Savings Bank advising Henry Ford's lawyer not to invest in the Ford Motor Co., 1903.<br /><br />#79 "That the automobile has practically reached the limit of its development is suggested by the fact that during the past year no improvements of a radical nature have been introduced."<br />- Scientific American, Jan. 2 edition, 1909.<br /><br />#80 "With over fifteen types of foreign cars already on sale here, the Japanese auto industry isn't likely to carve out a big share of the market for itself."<br />- Business Week, August 2, 1968.<br /><br /><br />Airplanes<br /><br />#81 "Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible."<br />- Lord Kelvin, British mathematician and physicist, president of the British Royal Society, 1895.<br /><br />#82 "It is apparent to me that the possibilities of the aeroplane, which two or three years ago were thought to hold the solution to the [flying machine] problem, have been exhausted, and that we must turn elsewhere."<br />- Thomas Edison, American inventor, 1895.<br /><br />#83 "Man will not fly for 50 years."<br />- Wilbur Wright, American aviation pioneer, to brother Orville, after a disappointing flying experiment, 1901 (their first successful flight was in 1903).<br /><br />#84 "Flight by machines heavier than air is unpractical (sic) and insignificant, if not utterly impossible." <br />- Simon Newcomb; The Wright Brothers flew at Kittyhawk 18 months later. Newcomb was not impressed.<br /><br />#85 "Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value."<br />- Marechal Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre, 1904.<br /><br />#86 "The Americans are good about making fancy cars and refrigerators, but that doesn't mean they are any good at making aircraft. They are bluffing. They are excellent at bluffing."<br />- Hermann Goering, Commander-in-Chief of the Luftwaffe, 1942.<br /><br />#87 "There will never be a bigger plane built."<br />- A Boeing engineer, after the first flight of the 247, a twin engine plane that holds ten people.<br /><br />#88 "Very interesting Whittle, my boy, but it will never work."<br />- Cambridge Aeronautics Professor, when shown Frank Whittle's plan for the jet engine.<br /><br /><br />Rockets<br /><br />#89 "Professor Goddard does not know the relation between action and reaction and the need to have something better than a vacuum against which to react. He seems to lack the basic knowledge ladled out daily in high schools."<br />- 1921 New York Times editorial about Robert Goddard's revolutionary rocket work.<br /><br />#90 "A rocket will never be able to leave the Earth's atmosphere."<br />- New York Times, 1936.<br /><br />#91 "... too far-fetched to be considered."<br />- Editor of Scientific American, in a letter to Robert Goddard about Goddard's idea of a rocket-accelerated airplane bomb, 1940 (German V2 missiles came down on London 3 years later).<br /><br />#92 "Before man reaches the moon, your mail will be delivered within hours<br />from New York to Australia by guided missiles. We stand on the threshold<br />of rocket mail."<br /> - Arthur Summerfield, U.S. Postmaster General under Eisenhower, 1959.VonMalcolmhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18396555975528915948noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7494544263897150929.post-1002880199427297482010-01-28T06:57:50.562-08:002010-01-28T06:57:50.562-08:00Computers
#58 "I think there is a world mark...Computers<br /><br />#58 "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."<br />- Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM 1943.<br /><br />#59 "Where a calculator on the ENIAC is equipped with 18,000 vacuum tubes and weighs 30 tons, computers in the future may have only 1,000 vacuum tubes and weigh only 1.5 tons."<br />- Popular Mechanics, March 1949.<br /><br />#60 "It would appear we have reached the limits of what it is possible to<br />achieve with computer technology." <br />- computer scientist John von Neumann, 1949<br /><br />#61 "I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won't last out the year."<br />The editor in charge of business books for Prentice Hall, 1957.<br /><br />#62 "But what... is it good for?"<br />- IBM executive Robert Lloyd, speaking in 1968 microprocessor, the heart of today's computers.<br /><br />#63 "There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home."<br />- Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp. (DEC), maker of big business mainframe computers, arguing against the PC in 1977.<br /><br />#64 "We don't need you. You haven't got through college yet."<br />- Hewlett-Packard's rejection of Steve Jobs, who went on to found Apple Computers.<br /><br />#65 "640K ought to be enough for anybody."<br />- Bill Gates, 1981.<br /><br />#66 "By the turn of the century, we will live in a paperless society."<br />- Roger Smith, chairman of General Motors, 1986<br /><br />#67 "I predict the internet ... will go spectacularly supernova and in 1996<br />catastrophically collapse." <br />- Robert Metcalfe, InfoWorld, 1995."<br /><br />#68 The Millennium Bug<br /><br />#69 "We are on a tear to be the undisputed winner in China."<br />- eBay CEO Meg Whitman on 10 February, 2005. By December 2006, eBay said it would close its operation in China.<br /><br />#70 "Next Christmas the iPod will be dead, finished, gone, kaput."<br />- Amstrad founder, Sir Alan Sugar, in February 2005.<br /><br />#71 "There's just not that many videos I want to watch."<br />- lamented Steve Chen, a co-founder of YouTube, in March 2005. <br /><br />#72 The death of spam<br />- Another bad prediction from Gates, who declared in January 2004 at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland that spam would be dead in 24 months. Two years later, security firm Barracuda said that in 2007, 95-percent of e-mail messages were spam.<br /><br />#73 "We will never make a 32 bit operating system."<br />- Bill Gates, the CEO of Microsoft. The prediction turned false when Windows 98 was released by Microsoft, at launch of MSX in 1983.<br /><br /><br />Railroads<br /><br />#74 "Rail travel at high speed is not possible, because passengers, unable to breathe, would die of asphyxia."<br />- Dr Dionysys Larder (1793-1859), professor of Natural Philosophy and Astronomy, University College London.<br /><br />#75 "What can be more palpably absurd than the prospect held out of locomotives traveling twice as fast as stagecoaches?"<br />- The Quarterly Review, March edition, 1825.<br /><br />#76 "Dear Mr. President: The canal system of this country is being threatened by a new form of transportation known as 'railroads' ... As you may well know, Mr. President, 'railroad' carriages are pulled at the enormous speed of 15 miles per hour by 'engines' which, in addition to endangering life and limb of passengers, roar and snort their way through the countryside, setting fire to crops, scaring the livestock and frightening women and children. The Almighty certainly never intended that people should travel at such breakneck speed."<br />- Martin Van Buren, Governor of New York, 1830(?).VonMalcolmhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18396555975528915948noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7494544263897150929.post-34394412637857764292010-01-28T06:54:52.723-08:002010-01-28T06:54:52.723-08:00Radio
#44 "Radio has no future."
- Lord...Radio<br /><br />#44 "Radio has no future."<br />- Lord Kelvin, Scottish mathematician and physicist, former president of the Royal Society, 1897.<br /><br />#45 "Lee DeForest has said in many newspapers and over his signature that it would be possible to transmit the human voice across the Atlantic before many years. Based on these absurd and deliberately misleading statements, the misguided public ... has been persuaded to purchase stock in his company ..."<br />- A U.S. District Attorney, prosecuting American inventor Lee DeForest for selling stock fraudulently through the mail for his Radio Telephone Company in 1913.<br /><br />#46 "The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to no one in particular?"<br />- Associates of David Sarnoff responding to the latter's call for investment in the radio in 1921.<br /><br />#47 "Home Taping is killing music."<br />- A slogan for a 1980 campaign started by BPI claiming that people recording music off the radio onto cassette would destroy the music industry. <br /><br /><br />Film<br /><br />#48 "The cinema is little more than a fad. It's canned drama. What audiences really want to see is flesh and blood on the stage."<br />- Charlie Chaplin, actor, producer, director, and studio founder, 1916.<br /><br />#49 "Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?"<br />- H. M. Warner, co-founder of Warner Brothers, 1927.<br /><br />#50 "Forget it. No Civil War picture ever made a nickel."<br />- MGM executive, advising against investing in Gone With The Wind.<br /><br />#51 "That rainbow song's no good. Take it out."<br />- MGM memo after first showing of The Wizard Of Oz.<br /><br />#52 "You better get secretarial work or get married."<br />- Emmeline Snively, advising would be model Marilyn Monroe in 1944.<br /><br />#53 "Reagan doesn't have that Presidential look."<br />- United Artist Executive rejecting Reagan as lead in 1964 film.<br /><br /><br />Television<br /><br />#54 "While theoretically and technically television may be feasible, commercially and financially it is an impossibility, a development of which we need waste little time dreaming."<br />- Lee DeForest, American radio pioneer and inventor of the vacuum tube, 1926.<br /><br />#55 "Television won't matter in your lifetime or mine."<br />- Radio Times editor Rex Lambert, 1936.<br /><br />#56 "Television won't last because people will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night."<br />- Darryl Zanuck, movie producer, 20th Century Fox, 1946.<br /><br />#57 "Television won't last. It's a flash in the pan."<br />- Mary Somerville, pioneer of radio educational broadcasts, 1948.VonMalcolmhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18396555975528915948noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7494544263897150929.post-13963150789136227812010-01-28T06:49:50.600-08:002010-01-28T06:49:50.600-08:00Politics
#24 "Sensible and responsible women...Politics<br /><br />#24 "Sensible and responsible women do not want to vote."<br />- Grover Cleveland, U.S. President, 1905.<br /><br />#25 "Our country has deliberately undertaken a great social and economic experiment, noble in motive and far reaching in purpose." <br />- Herbert Hoover, on Prohibition, 1928.<br /><br />#26 "Democracy will be dead by 1950."<br />- John Langdon-Davies, A Short History of The Future, 1936.<br /><br />#27 "We will bury you."<br />- Nikita Krushchev, Soviet Premier, predicting Soviet communism will win over U.S. capitalism, 1958.<br /><br />#28 "It will be years - not in my time - before a woman will become Prime Minister."<br />- Margaret Thatcher, future Prime Minister, October 26th, 1969.<br /><br />#29 "Read my lips: NO NEW TAXES."<br />- George Bush, 1988.<br /><br /><br />Economics<br /><br />#30 "Capitalist production begets, with the inexorability of a law of nature, its own negation."<br />- Karl Marx.<br /><br />#31 "Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau."<br />- Irving Fisher, economics professor at Yale University, 1929.<br /><br />#32 "In all likelihood world inflation is over."<br />- International Monetary Fund CEO, 1959.<br /><br />#33 "Remote shopping, while entirely feasible, will flop - because women like to get out of the house, like to handle merchandise, like to be able to change their minds."<br />- TIME, 1966, in one sentence writing off e-commerce long before anyone had ever heard of it.<br /><br />#34 "This antitrust thing will blow over."<br />- Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft on 11 July, 1995.<br /><br /><br />Light Bulb<br /><br />#35 "When the Paris Exhibition [of 1878] close, electric light will close with it and no more will be heard of it."<br />- Erasmus Wilson, Oxford Professor<br /><br />#36 "... good enough for our transatlantic friends ... but unworthy of the attention of practical or scientific men."<br />- British Parliamentary Committee, referring to Edison's light bulb, 1878.<br /><br />#37 "Such startling announcements as these should be deprecated as being unworthy of science and mischievous to its true progress."<br />- Sir William Siemens, on Edison's light bulb, 1880.<br /><br />#38 "Everyone acquainted with the subject will recognize it as a conspicuous failure."<br />- Henry Morton, president of the Stevens Institute of Technology, on Edison's light bulb, 1880.<br /><br /><br />Telephone/Telegraph<br /><br />#39 "A man has been arrested in New York for attempting to extort funds from ignorant and superstitious people by exhibiting a device which he says will convey the human voice any distance over metallic wires so that it will be heard by the listener at the other end. He calls this instrument a telephone. Well-informed people know that it is impossible to transmit the human voice over wires."<br />- News item in a New York newspaper, 1868.<br /><br />#40 "It's a great invention, but who would want to use it anyway?"<br />- Rutherford B. Hayes, U.S. President, after a demonstration of Alexander Bell's telephone, 1876.<br /><br />#41 "This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us."<br />- A memo at Western Union, 1878 (or 1876).<br /><br />#42 "The Americans have need of the telephone, but we do not. We have plenty of messenger boys."<br />- Sir William Preece, Chief Engineer, British Post Office, 1878.<br /><br />#43 "Transmission of documents via telephone wires is possible in principle, but the apparatus required is so expensive that it will never become a practical proposition."<br />- Dennis Gabor, British physicist and author of Inventing the Future, 1962.VonMalcolmhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18396555975528915948noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7494544263897150929.post-69216525817462616642010-01-28T06:46:14.660-08:002010-01-28T06:46:14.660-08:00Top 141 Bad Predictions about the Future
I threw ...Top 141 Bad Predictions about the Future<br /><br />I threw this list together from several sites; I make no claims to its veracity!<br /><br /><br />War<br /><br />#1 King George II said in 1773 that the American colonies had little stomach for revolution.<br /><br />#2 "Four or five frigates will do the business without any military force." <br />- British prime minister Lord North, on dealing with the rebellious American colonies, 1774.<br /><br />#3 "What, sir, would you make a ship sail against the wind and currents by lighting a bonfire under her deck? I pray you, excuse me, I have not the time to listen to such nonsense."<br />- Napoleon Bonaparte, when told of Robert Fulton's steamboat, 1800s.<br /><br />#4 "They couldn't hit an elephant at this dist-"<br />- Last words of Gen. John Sedgwick, spoken as he looked out over the parapet at enemy lines during the Battle of Spotsylvania in 1864.<br /><br />#5 "You will be home before the leaves have fallen from the trees." <br />- Kaiser Wilhelm, to the German troops, August 1914.<br /><br />#6 "Caterpillar landships are idiotic and useless. Those officers and men are wasting their time and are not pulling their proper weight in the war."<br />- Fourth Lord of the British Admiralty, 1915.<br /><br />#7 "The idea that cavalry will be replaced by these iron coaches is absurd. It is little short of treasonous."<br />- Comment of Aide-de-camp to Field Marshal Haig, at tank demonstration, 1916.<br /><br />#8 "War to end All Wars."<br />Woodrow Wilson, April 2,1917.<br /><br />#9 "This is the second time in our history that there has come back from Germany to Downing Street peace with honor. I believe it is peace for our time." <br />- Neville Chamberlain, British Prime Minister, September 30th, 1938.<br /><br />#10 "Where Napoleon failed, I shall succeed: I shall land on the shores of Britain." <br />- Adolf Hitler. May 30, 1940?.<br /><br />#11 "Mr. Churchill tells his people that England will win, but I tell you that victory will belong to Germany."<br />- Adolf Hitler, Nazi Dictator (after the first initial battles in the Battle of England). <br /><br />#12 "England has already lost the war. It is only a matter of having the intelligence to admit it."<br />Adolf Hitler, April 4, 1941.<br /><br />#13 "Whatever happens, the U.S. Navy is not going to be caught napping." <br />- Frank Knox, U.S. Secretary of the Navy, on December 4, 1941.<br /><br />#14 "A thousand years hence Germans will speak of this battle [of Stalingrad] with reverence and awe, and will remember that in spite of everything Germany's ultimate victory was decided there… In years to come it will be said of the heroic battle on the Volga: When you come to Germany, say that you have seen us lying at Stalingrad, as our honor and our leaders ordained that we should, for the greater glory of Germany."<br />- Reich Marshall Hermann Göring, Commander-in-Chief of the Luftwaffe (1942).<br /><br />#15 "We should declare war on North Vietnam. . . .We could pave the whole country and put parking strips on it, and still be home by Christmas."<br />- Ronald Reagan, 1965.<br /><br />#16 "I see light at the end of the tunnel."<br />- Walt W. Rostow, National Security Adviser, Dec. 1967.<br /><br />#17 "I'm not going to be the first American president to lose a war."<br />- Richard Nixon, Oct. 1969.<br /><br />#18 "We believe that peace is at hand."<br />- Henry Kissinger, Oct. 1972.<br /><br />#19-22 "History, Schmistory."<br /> * Custer, at Little Big Horn: "Indians, schmindians!"<br /> * Crockett, at The Alamo: "Mexicans, schmexicans!"<br /> * Castle guards in full armor: "Genghis, schmengis!"<br /> * Two Mastodons: "Neanderthals, schmeanderthals!" <br />- From Gary Larson's Far Side strip, 1994:<br /><br />#23 "There is no doubt that the regime of Saddam Hussein possesses weapons of mass destruction. As this operation continues, those weapons will be identified, found, along with the people who have produced them and who guard them."<br />- General Tommy Franks, March 22nd, 2003.VonMalcolmhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18396555975528915948noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7494544263897150929.post-46789802240764861612010-01-28T00:27:39.486-08:002010-01-28T00:27:39.486-08:00nice post. thanks.nice post. thanks.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7494544263897150929.post-9037872878022756692010-01-27T20:31:03.276-08:002010-01-27T20:31:03.276-08:00Because some of our basic assumptions are wrong (w...<i>Because some of our basic assumptions are wrong (which ones? Got me...)</i><br /><br />Truer words never spoken, on this subject.Rickhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16932015378213238346noreply@blogger.com