Wired magazine, in an unreadable, messy yarn pile of a chart, posits that 1993--year of the first World Trade Center attack, the Apple Newton's launch, the debut of Star Trek:Deep Space 9, the famous "on the Internet, no one knows you're a dog" cartoon, and establishment of HDTV standards, among other events, including my high school graduation--is the year that "invented the future" and responsible for current things like Battlestar Galactica, current U.S. foreign policy, and iPhone lust.

Though there some undeniable connections in some of those items (Newton > iPhone, Ron Moore), I am more amused than convinced.

A bit of Friday afternoon fun...Stephen Abram points to a fun list of the Top 87 Bad Predications about the Future. A few of my favorites:

• «And for the tourist who really wants to get away from it all, safaris in Vietnam»
  Newsweek, predicting popular holidays for the late 1960s. [Likewise, I remember how shocked I was to learn that one of my grandfathers used to go on business trips to Cuba!]

• «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.» TIME, 1966, in one sentence writing off e-commerce long before anyone had ever heard of it. [Ha! This woman avoids shopping in stores whenever she possibly can.]

• «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.» Simon Cameron, U.S. Senator, on the Smithsonian Institute, 1901. [Scary, because Cameron's attitude seems to live on all over government. See the Bad Astronomer's post about Hillary Clinton on science for more detail. (Like the Bad Astronomer, I am also still undecided, and not endorsing Hillary.)]

• «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.» Martin Luther, German Reformation leader, Table Talk, 1530s [Luther reminds me of Michael Gorman on bloggers!]