# Anti-Nostradamus. **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [February 25, 2009, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-nostradamus/487373 "2009-02-25T15:58:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![wolfman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/a8b319/32.png) [@wolfman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfman)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2009, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-nostradamus/487373/1 "2009-02-25T15:58:22Z")
'Fess up time šŸ˜‰ What are the _worst_ predictions you have made in your life. Mine? 1. ā€œiMac??? What a piece of crap! can you believe the damn thing is convection cooled? No fans. Jobs has finally lost it, he is gonna get kicked out of the business world forever after this nail in Appleā€™s coffin.ā€ 2. ā€œI canā€™t believe they picked Manning. Just an overrated chump with a famous daddy. Leaf is the real stud, he has the talent to be the best ever.ā€ 3. ā€œWhat is this ā€˜Netscapeā€™ crap. Nobody is going to use it. Mosiac is the standard and will be forever cause itā€™s at all the universities. Netscape is a waste of time to learn.ā€ ---
**Author:** ![DianaG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7ab992/32.png) [@DianaG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DianaG)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2009, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-nostradamus/487373/2 "2009-02-25T16:02:35Z")
Reality television? Who the hell watches television for ā€œrealityā€? Write a script, you lazy bastards! No oneā€™s gonna watch this crap! ---
**Author:** ![Ferret\_Herder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e47774/32.png) [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2009, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-nostradamus/487373/3 "2009-02-25T16:04:27Z")
I remember saying on an E-mailing list something to the effect of ā€œNo one will switch over to DVD unless it comes out at the same time with easy recording ability - people are not going to want to ditch their VCRs and VHS tapes for these little discs.ā€ :smack: Yup, DVDs were a smash hit even without recording capacity on the players. ---
**Author:** ![Yorikke](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yorikke/32/4335_2.png) [@Yorikke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yorikke)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2009, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-nostradamus/487373/4 "2009-02-25T16:20:39Z")
Mel Gibson is crazy! Thereā€™s no way people are going to sit through [Passion of the Christ](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passion_of_the_christ)! I guess my Atheistic hubris was misguided. In my defense, he IS crazy, and, when I said that, the word was that it would be in Aramaic, with **no subtitles**. ETA : The Detroit Lions are going to be the team of the 90ā€™s! The new 49ers! :smack: Joe ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2009, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-nostradamus/487373/5 "2009-02-25T16:24:28Z")
The Manning reference makes me think that the most recent (not necessarily the worst) bad call I made was when the Titans came to Tennessee. I just knew Nashville wouldnā€™t support a pro football team. Now we have about as strong a fan base as there is, although not as snooty as older teams have. I guess besides that I figured American Idol didnā€™t have a chance. ---
**Author:** ![Yorikke](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yorikke/32/4335_2.png) [@Yorikke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yorikke)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2009, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-nostradamus/487373/6 "2009-02-25T16:26:20Z")
> [@DianaG](#): > > Reality television? Who the hell watches television for ā€œrealityā€? Write a script, you lazy bastards! No oneā€™s gonna watch this crap! Youā€™re not the only one. I was _convinced_ that Survivor would failā€¦ And one more from me : I will be so vindicated when ā€œMen in Blackā€ totally fucking tanks! Joe ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2009, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-nostradamus/487373/7 "2009-02-25T16:32:35Z")
The ā€œmeā€ decade of the 70s was passing fluke. The 80s will be a return to the 60s, complete with free love, music from the heart, and liberal politics. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2009, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-nostradamus/487373/8 "2009-02-25T17:07:40Z")
Itā€™s spring of 1975. Iā€™m working in the dorm cafeteria at Michigan State and the radio station is going on and on about the Spartan basketball program just signed a kid from Lansing Everett, Earvin Johnson. I thought to myself- ā€œso we signed a local kid. Big deal. How good can he be?ā€ ---
**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2009, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-nostradamus/487373/9 "2009-02-25T18:21:27Z")
The one that stands out most in my brain: The internet will never last - who will be willing to wait for downloads that long? And if it \*does \*catch on, the backbone wonā€™t be able to support it! :smack: Oh and: If they arenā€™t selling something, how would anyone make money off a web site? ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2009, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-nostradamus/487373/10 "2009-02-25T19:52:12Z")
Computer Animation. I figured that using computers you would finally be able to get rid of the massive drudgery of animation, having the computer do all the ā€œin betweeningā€, and finally freeing up the animators to do what they wanted. I suspect that they must have made lots of trials of this, from the late 1950s onward (Hanna-Barbera was doing computer-assisted TV toons very early), but that it proved to be unsatisfactory, for some reason. Decades later, well into the modern computer animation era, I still saw bank upon bank of names of animatoes on traditional-style animated feature cartoons. Maybe they were all to jerky, or something. Computer animation took off in a comletely different direction ā€“ the full texturing and 3D rendering of objects, so that nowadays i mostly looks like PIXAR stuff. Of course, there are plenty of 'fully animated on computers" cartoons, like ā€œFosterā€™s House for Imaginary Friendsā€, but I donā€™t think they ever ended up doing computer-assisted animation quite the way I thought they would. ---
**Author:** ![TroubleAgain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e480ec/32.png) [@TroubleAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroubleAgain)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2009, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-nostradamus/487373/11 "2009-02-25T19:53:54Z")
ā€œIā€™ll never take a job working with computers.ā€ TroubleAgain IT monkey for 22 years, currently in management ---
**Author:** ![Arglefraster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3bc359/32.png) [@Arglefraster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arglefraster)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2009, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-nostradamus/487373/12 "2009-02-25T20:01:40Z")
ā€œMicrosoft canā€™t hope to compete with Sony in the gaming console market.ā€ - said by me shortly after hearing about the upcoming XBox. ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2009, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-nostradamus/487373/13 "2009-02-25T20:04:12Z")
> [@TroubleAgain](#): > > ā€œIā€™ll never take a job working with computers.ā€ This, but add in a triple dose of ā€œWhen Iā€™m 22 and a rock starā€¦ā€ ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2009, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-nostradamus/487373/14 "2009-02-25T20:08:32Z")
Mid-2001. - of course I shouldnā€™t sell. The market will keep going up, especially my company, so my options will be worth a lot more. :smack: - about 500K of them. ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2009, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-nostradamus/487373/15 "2009-02-25T20:25:05Z")
About 25 years ago, with awareness of Mooreā€™s Law, and just for fun, I calculated that a 3.5 minute, stereo-track pop song could fit on a single computer ROM chip with hifidelity, and drawing a trendline from the prices of common chip sizes at the time to the necessary sizes to store a song, I reached a date in the 1990ā€™s where you could buy one song in a chip that would replace a 45RPM record for about the same price. I envisioned a music fan carrying around a pocket full of his favorite songs, each in a single ROM, perhaps in some kind of durable package compared with DIP chips used internally in computers. I never considered storing multi-songs on a hard drive or portable player, and my calculations were off by at least a factor of 10 since I didnā€™t factor in lossy compression. ---
**Author:** ![Laughing\_Lagomorph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/6bbea6/32.png) [@Laughing\_Lagomorph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Laughing_Lagomorph)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2009, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-nostradamus/487373/16 "2009-02-25T20:41:14Z")
ā€œBledsoeā€™s out for the season? Thatā€™s it, stick a fork in the Patriots, they are done!ā€ :smack: ā€œThe Yankees are up 3 games to 0, they have the lead in the ninth innning and Riveraā€™s pitching. This 2004 ALCS is in the bag!ā€ :smack::smack: ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2009, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-nostradamus/487373/17 "2009-02-25T21:47:57Z")
Episode III of Star Wars would certainly be completely computer animated since Lucas works so poorly with real actors. Not a completely horrible prediction since its scope was so small, but itā€™s one of the rare times I do make a prediction and be completely off. For instance about the only other thing I remember prognosticating other than stock markets (in which Iā€™m about average,) I bet my step mom $5 that my the time I was driving that cars would _not_ have entirely digital displays ā€“ she said they would. ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2009, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-nostradamus/487373/18 "2009-02-25T22:33:16Z")
My highschool physics teacher, Mr. Wiggins, predicted in the 1960ā€™s that by the time his students had kids old enough to drive, the internal combustion engine would be obsolete. He thought the most likely substitute would be the gas turbine, and his second choice was electric. Seemed logical at the time. Alas, the 1980ā€™s came & went and the infernal combustion engine is still with us and going strong. Even if you stretch his prediction to grandchildren, it didnā€™t come true. ---
**Author:** ![ArrMatey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/arrmatey/32/3522_2.png) [@ArrMatey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ArrMatey)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2009, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-nostradamus/487373/19 "2009-02-25T22:41:15Z")
Musicians whom, when I first listened to them, I thought were never going to make it big: Michael Jackson Bruce Springsteen Madonna. Yeah, I got taste. ---
**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2009, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-nostradamus/487373/20 "2009-02-25T22:50:49Z")
Last season I said that while the Steelers (my favorite team) had an awesome defense, they did not have a strong enough offense to go to the Superbowl. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-nostradamus/487373.md?page=2)