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37 Comments
- lolwutpear, on 12/14/2008, -1/+34I read that title as 14-century old predictions and was very confused when they were from 1900.
- Claverhouse, on 12/14/2008, -7/+26I read it as '14th Century ------ Old environmental predictions' and imagined some old monk in the Middle Ages vowing that all the forests that now cover most of the land will be gone in 600 years, and the waters will batter down the sea-walls; whilst dragons will crouch upon the mountains and breathe fire upon all sinners.
Much like Al Gore. - greenfyre, on 12/12/2008, -1/+15So far ... but we're well on the way.
- iisabelle, on 12/12/2008, -0/+14Pretty strangely accurate. Are we that predictable?
- Tarkaan, on 12/14/2008, -0/+13"The bodies of these ships will be built above the waves. They will be supported upon runners, somewhat like those of the sleigh. These runners will be very buoyant. Upon their under sides will be apertures expelling jets of air. In this way a film of air will be kept between them and the water’s surface. This film, together with the small surface of the runners, will reduce friction against the waves to the smallest possible degree."
Over a hundred years ago, this man fairly accurately described the rudimentary concept of a hydrofoil. This is a really amazing article. - aaronbrodeur, on 12/12/2008, -0/+11The predictions were both pessimistic and optimistic. I'm glad we missed the prediction of "no wild animals".
- soomprimal, on 12/14/2008, -0/+9Anyone else think they were talking about predictions from the year 600AD?
- coloneldeath, on 12/13/2008, -0/+8Now, can we predict what the U.S. will be like in 100 years?
I doubt it.. - CindyDiggs, on 12/12/2008, -1/+8Interesting
- ahpro, on 12/14/2008, -1/+6Why am i not surprised that they managed to get a 9/11 reference in there somewhere?
- Wolfghost, on 12/14/2008, -3/+8You'll need to go back to the 70s for the global cooling scare.
In the 1980s, the concern was global warming. The hole in the ozone layer was one of the top stories of the decade. - funkywood, on 12/15/2008, -0/+4Very. Reading about the rose and strawberry breeding the irony struck me how humans are the one species devolving. We have bred plants to be bigger, dogs to be friendlier and have acute sense of smell, horses to be faster while mosquitoes and rats have evolved to counter our attacks.
Imagine how amazing humans could be if it weren't for the idiocracy rule. - Wolfghost, on 12/14/2008, -1/+5Yes, it was poorly written. I took it to mean that refrigeration (the subject of the paragraph) is energy inefficient, but since producing "layers of plastic" is also an energy hog, the sentence makes sense either way you look at it.
- Wolfghost, on 12/14/2008, -1/+5The title is a bit clumsy, but appears to be accurate. Maybe it would have been easier to read as "Fourteen Century-Old Environmental Predictions: Where Are They Now", or "Fourteen 100 Year-old Environmental Predictions: Where Are They Now".
- hiPpymIck, on 12/13/2008, -1/+4abundant cheap clean energy from nature - instead of from coal - might finally happen in the next few decades
- GlobalRef, on 12/14/2008, -0/+3Nice digg! Interesting.
- Stevethegreat, on 12/14/2008, -0/+3Pretty enlightening (and most probably enlightened) that Watkins guy, I would like to meet him if he had not been dead for more than a century. It gotta show you than not all futurists are talking ***** to capitalize on people's hope, some of them have their minds well screwed in their heads, now which of them are the right ones? Hmmm...
- karmastic, on 12/14/2008, -1/+4Obviously a highly enlightened man, ahead of his time. One hundred years ago they could understand that "The earth’s hard coal will last until the year 2050 or 2100; its soft-coal mines until 2200 or 2300" and that renewables have to be constructed.
I wonder if John Elfreth Watkins would be red, blue or green. - Kapitaine, on 12/14/2008, -0/+3The whole idea of making predictions like this to help humanity is a contradiction in terms; for the prediction MUST become true for it to be a successful prediction. It's interesting!
- inactive, on 12/15/2008, -0/+2Yeah, what I was referring to was this:
"many foods that are refrigerated are still exposed to open air as they are displayed in your grocer’s food-case"
followed by:
"the foods are largely over-wrapped in layers of virtually impenetrable plastic" - acca, on 12/13/2008, -2/+4And what Nostradamus said about that?
- jave8u, on 12/15/2008, -0/+2Dugg for mosquito prediction fail.
- KushDiesel, on 12/15/2008, -0/+1Wow this guy definetely made some good predictions. Now if only he could predict lottery numbers....
- inactive, on 12/14/2008, -0/+1O RLY?
- didgital, on 12/15/2008, -0/+1I predict we'll go into enough debt, Canada and Mexico will then seize on the opportunity, invade us, then divvy up the spoils.
- cjh24, on 12/14/2008, -3/+4Mistitled, although a riveting read.
- KushDiesel, on 12/15/2008, -0/+1green!
- inactive, on 12/14/2008, -3/+41970's: A new ice age is coming -- we're all going to die
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… … … … … |. . . . . . . . .. . . . |http://xn----ymcabdc6dzce8hf.com/ . . . . . . . /. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . - C4Aries, on 12/14/2008, -3/+3"The trains do not need to stop for water, but they will often need to stop and give priority to a passing freight train one of the big four railroads who still own the vast majority of the tracks in the U.S."
Strictly speaking this is untrue, passenger service has the highest priority on the railway. Sometimes things just happen, a crew moves slower than expected, some malfunction happens, or simply poor planning on the dispatchers part. - inactive, on 12/14/2008, -4/+2same here.
- mattsull, on 12/14/2008, -6/+4lame
- handsomeramin, on 12/14/2008, -6/+3The real question is, will earth come to its doom in 2012? That prediction goes a little further than the 14th century.
- borez, on 12/13/2008, -5/+2"Hot and Cold Air from Spigots."
- inactive, on 12/14/2008, -7/+4"What happened: Refrigeration along all points of the food distribution chain is now ubiquitous in the U.S. Ironically, however, many foods that are refrigerated are still exposed to open air as they are displayed in your grocer’s food-case. While not an unhealthy practice, per se, because the foods are largely over-wrapped in layers of virtually impenetrable plastic, saying it is energy inefficient would be an understatement."
THAT DOES NOT _ MAKE _ SENSE!!! - yeahboss, on 12/14/2008, -9/+5Why not go back to the 1980s' and look at the climate predictions then, you'll find that everyone assumed there would be a global cooling.
- 4eloBek, on 12/14/2008, -9/+4fake
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