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News Briefs 17-12-2010

”I don’t pretend we have all the answers. But the questions are certainly worth thinking about…”

A multiverse of thanks to Greg and RPJ!

Quote of the Day:

“All explorers are seeking something they have lost. It is seldom that they find it, and more seldom still that the attainment brings them greater happiness than the quest.”

Arthur C. Clarke

    1. Trouble is…
      [quote=red pill junkie]You surpassed yourself once again, sir ;)[/quote]

      I’m worried I’m missing secret messages everywhere. Now I’m going to have to run checks for acrostics, anagrams, Caesar shifts etc. everytime he emails me!

      Bravo Grant, and Happy Holidays to you too!

      1. No hidden sacred numbers?
        If you divide the number of vowels by the number of consonants in my news briefs, you get Pi. 😛

        I’m surprised no one noticed my “Randi is a ****” hidden message earlier this year… oh wait, we don’t hide that around here. 😉

        Nice work, Grant. 🙂

  1. Experts on Parade
    Re: Experts’ 1931 predictions for 2011.
    URL: http://www.abnormaluse.com/2010/12/views-of-2011-from-1931.html

    Quotes
    From sociologist, William F. Ogburn…
    (Comments are my own 🙂

    -The population of the United States eighty years hence will be 160,000,000 and either stationary or declining, and will have a larger percentage of old people than there is today.
    +(Try 300+ million. There was just no way to predict the Baby Boom… but the rest is pretty spot-on.)

    -The magic of remote control will be commonplace.
    +(Magic or not, it is now very commonplace. In fact, I am not sure if a manual-tune TV could even be operated by those younger than 50.)

    -Humanity’s most versatile servant will be the electron tube.
    +(Did someone say that the transistor was a gift from ET?)

    -There will be fewer farmers, more wooded land with wild life. Personal property in mechanical conveniences will be greatly extended.
    +(Fewer farms? Yes. More woodlands and wildlife? No.
    The riding lawnmower and automatic dishwasher come to mind as far as ‘mechanical conveniences’ go.)

    -Inevitable technological progress and abundant natural resources yield a higher standard of living.
    +(For most? Yes. For all? No.)

    -Poverty will be eliminated and hunger as a driving force of revolution will not be a danger. Inequality of income and problems of social justice will remain. Crises of life will be met by insurance.
    +(Poverty seems as eternal as our society’s need for a class of poor ready to do any job for a few pennies.
    Social justice, or injustice… probably a refernce to racism, has been largely dealt with from the legal aspect. But the problem remains and will never be solved by legeslation as much as time.
    Oh, and we all know about the insurance industry. (gak, choke, gurgle…))

    -The role of government is bound to grow. Technicians and special interest groups will leave only a shell of democracy.
    +(Hot damn! Got that one right!)

    -The family cannot be destroyed but will be less stable in the early years of married life, divorce being greater than now. The lives of woman will be more like those of men, spent more outside the home.
    +(How did he know that?)

    The principle of expediency will be the dominating one in law and ethics.
    +(This is a very vague statement that is, at first blush, most easily assumed to mean that the law of profit will usurp that of safety and health in the workplace.)

    We now return control of your television set to you… if you know where the remote is.

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