# 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:** 11\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![sherrylynn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3be4f8/32.png) [@sherrylynn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sherrylynn)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2009, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-nostradamus/487373/41 "2009-02-26T19:34:09Z")
Cable TV? Who’d pay money every month just to watch TV? ---
**Author:** ![EpicNonsense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c37758/32.png) [@EpicNonsense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EpicNonsense)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2009, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-nostradamus/487373/42 "2009-02-26T19:46:22Z")
Quitting my job a few months ago wasn’t a horrible idea, I can easily get another one. ---
**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 27, 2009, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-nostradamus/487373/43 "2009-02-27T02:07:40Z")
> [@tdn](#): > > The actual quote from Bill Gates is “640k ought to be enough for anybody.” Except he didn’t actually say that. Where did I say I was quoting Bill Gates? I was actually quoting a friend of mine, Gill Bates, who shall forever be RAM-challenged. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Man\_With\_The\_Golden\_Gun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dc4da7/32.png) [@The\_Man\_With\_The\_Golden\_Gun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Man_With_The_Golden_Gun)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2009, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-nostradamus/487373/44 "2009-02-27T04:44:02Z")
September 1999: My life sucking is only temporary. Things will get better soon. November 1999: My life sucking is only temporary. Things will get better soon. August 2000: My life sucking is only temporary. Things will get better soon. April 2001: My life sucking is only temporary. Things will get better soon. September 2001: My life sucking is only temporary. Things will get better soon. January 2002: My life sucking is only temporary. Things will get better soon. September 2002: My life sucking is only temporary. Things will get better soon. March 2004: My life sucking is only temporary. Things will get better soon. May 2005: My life sucking is only temporary. Things will get better soon. August 2006: My life sucking is only temporary. Things will get better soon. October 2006: My life sucking is only temporary. Things will get better soon. June 2007: My life sucking is only temporary. Things will get better soon. September 2007: My life sucking is only temporary. Things will get better soon. December 2007: My life sucking is only temporary. Things will get better soon. May 2008: My life sucking is only temporary. Things will get better soon. January 2009: My life sucking is only temporary. Things will get better soon. You get the idea. ---
**Author:** ![EvilTOJ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee59a6/32.png) [@EvilTOJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EvilTOJ)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2009, 8:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-nostradamus/487373/45 "2009-02-27T08:52:14Z")
When I was a kid in the 80’s I believed them when they said we’d have flying cars by the year 2000. Back To The Future confirmed it. CONFIRMED IT! So where are they? Where are my flying cars? They have 6 more years to get me my goddamn flying DeLorean. ---
**Author:** ![Lust4Life](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ecc23a/32.png) [@Lust4Life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lust4Life)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2009, 6:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-nostradamus/487373/46 "2009-03-01T06:27:34Z")
Safari Parks will never work,the dangerous animals will keep escaping. Mini skirts will never go out of fashion,men like them too much. The only people who need mobile phones are those travel a lot while they’re working,I’ll never need one myself. ---
**Author:** ![Suburban\_Plankton](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/suburban_plankton/32/219_2.png) [@Suburban\_Plankton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Suburban_Plankton)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2009, 8:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-nostradamus/487373/47 "2009-03-01T08:10:26Z")
There’s no way in the world a a guy named “Barack Obama” can get elected president. To Mr. & Mrs. Middle America, he sounds like a Vulcan terrorist. Ain’t ever gonna happen. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2009, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-nostradamus/487373/48 "2009-03-01T18:12:50Z")
> [@tdn](#): > > The actual quote from Bill Gates is “640k ought to be enough for anybody.” Except he didn’t actually say that. He did say this, however: Back in 1981 Clive Sinclair was quoted as saying that the 16k memory expansion pack for the [ZX81 (aka TS-1000)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zx81) was more than anyone would need. Or something similar. I can’t find a cite, other than my own memory. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2009, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-nostradamus/487373/49 "2009-03-01T18:14:57Z")
I made a $5 bet that Shaquille O’Neal would never win a NBA championship. I thought Cyndi Lauper would be much bigger than Madonna. ---
**Author:** ![Revtim](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/revtim/32/1042_2.png) [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2009, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-nostradamus/487373/50 "2009-03-01T18:21:09Z")
When a coworker showed me Mosaic and the 1st web page (copied locally to his computer, since internet access at work at that time was as likely as getting an on-site brothel) I thought it was neat and useful for those particle physics guys, and might take off for the geek crowd, but never thought for a second it would become what it did. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2009, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-nostradamus/487373/51 "2009-03-01T19:38:08Z")
A day or so before the 2000 election I was having a conversation with my girlfriend on the subject of fortunetelling. I said “Even if it worked, I don’t really understand the desire to know the future. You’re going to find out anyway. All you have to do is wait and see what happens!” She said “The only thing I’d want to know would be who the next president is going to be.” I said “That’s just the kind of thing I’m talking about, though. In a couple of days the election will be over and we’ll all know.” Little did I know that it would be weeks before there’d be a final ruling on who the next president would be, and that years later there’d still be controversy over who “really” won. About four years later, when watching the presidential debates, I thought “There’s no way Kerry will not win. People watching this are going to see how much smarter and more thoughtful he is than Bush, and they’re going to vote for him.” I was sure that my fellow Americans weren’t going to make the same mistake twice. Also on Hurricane Katrina: > [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > August 2005: I was watching the news with some co-workers and there was a report about a new hurricane named Katrina that had formed out in the Gulf and was expected to hit land hard. I confidently said that the news always exaggerates how bad storms are going to be and this hurricane would not be as bad as predicted. I thought so too. And then it hit, and it _wasn’t_ as bad as predicted, and I thought “So _there_, fearmongering newscasters! Another non-story!” And then the levees broke. > [@Lisa-go-Blind](#): > > This is what I always think of when I hear people complaining that the citizens of New Orleans “had it coming” and “why didn’t they just evacuate?” When it seems like every hurricane comes with a side of predicted mass devastation, there’s no reason to believe that this time, it might be true. I was living in the Midwest at the time, but I had grown up in Pensacola and found myself explaining to a lot of people I knew that Gulf Coast residents don’t just evacuate anytime there’s a hurricane warning. And if I’d been living in a poor neighborhood in New Orleans, I sure wouldn’t have trusted the NOPD to protect whatever property I’d left behind. I can well understand that many residents rationally weighed the risks and decided they were better off staying home. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-nostradamus/487373.md?page=2)