Predictions made in 1998.
| Submitter | Predictions | Commentary |
| Paul Pacholski |
I will become a manager at IBM |
Granted, this one proved true, but as I recall, it was actually known to the prognosticator to be true before the prediction was even rendered :) |
| Human cloning for body parts will become routine (seen the mouse with human ear growing from its back on TV) | |
| Red wine made in Ontario will beat the best of red Bordeaux first growths in an international competition. | |
| Yi He |
10 TTC tokens will cost $22 or more. (As of Sept. 1998, they cost $16) |
As of Jan. '03, 10 tokens have been selling for $19. (Halfway there...) |
| Within the next 5 years, more mechanisms will be established
in many countries to control the flow of capital, in order
to protect economies and currencies from destructive trading
speculation. (Can't quantify it or be more specific, but I
think it will be measurable). | |
| Alice Lewsey |
Andrew and Inge will have 1 child. |
Check... |
| Derek and Alice will have 2 children. | Check... |
| We will have made our first million. Specifically, we will have assets totaling at least 1 million. | I wish :( |
| There will be no more going to the video store for videos. Instead, you will just download them directly off of the internet. | |
| Everyone with Internet access would have constant access, 7/24/365. | Broadband is certainly gaining ground, but while arguably pervasive, it's by no means universal. |
| Derek & Alice will be living in their dream home in Toronto. | Not exactly our dream-home, but I do like to think of the Bay Area as the GTA-West :) |
| Andrew Kerr |
Derek and Alice will be living in Palo Alto, having spent 75% of that first million on a fabulous house. Alice will be driving a BMW. Derek will be driving a (dirty) Civic. |
I realize this one was submitted tongue-in-cheek, but:
- We spent more like 45% of our first million on the house we're living in (of course it looks like it's going to take 30 years to accumulate that first million)
- The house isn't quite in Palo Alto (on a good day, we could get to Palo Alto in about 45 minutes)
- Alice is still driving her Accord (though we've thought about getting a mini-van).
- Yes, I'm driving a very-dirty Civic.
|
| Derek and Alice will have 2 children, with a third in the oven. | Yes we have 2 kids, but frankly, I don't think I even have the ingredients for a third! |
| Andrew and Inge iwll be living in Ottawa, with one baby (a girl) | Right on the money! |
| Andrew will be working full-time (as opposed to consulting) | |
| There will have been another referendum in Quebec, with a similarly close result (federalists will squeak by again) | |
| Jean Chretien will still be Prime Minister | |
| Paul will be a 'profile-holding' manager at IBM.
He will no longer tell jokes at the expense of IBM, managers,
or bureaucracy in general. | |
| Karen will also be a manager. Karen and Paul will both be VisualAge C++ managers, and they will be enemies. | |
| VisualAge C++ 4.1 will be in beta. | VisualAge C++ is actually up to version 6.0 on AIX and Linux. (It's still in Beta for Mac OS X) |
| We will finally own a house. | Congratulations on yet another positive, accurate prediction! |
| There will have been a serious global recession, worse than any we've lived through. | Can you say Internet-bubble? |
| Inge Vander Horst |
All of us will at least know of someone who has an electric car. |
Well, I guess we all "know of" Ed Begley Jr. |
| Derek and Alice will have 2 children (or 3 if they have twins), and will (sadly) still be living in NOCAL. | I'd argue the "sadly" part (though without tremendous conviction), but otherwise on the money (thankfully no twins, or I don't think I'd have time for this little project.) |
| Derek will be unable to tear himself from the successful, though ill-named, Harmony Software. | No I couldn't tear myself away from Harmony, but only because they downsized my ass before I had a chance :) |
| The current American President will be caught smoking a joint with a transsexual prostitute (who he's just trying to help out by giving a ride home).
No one will really care, having been numbed by the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal. | I'm sure this one will prove out very shortly, although I think everyone will simply believe it was an honest mistake :) |
| Derek Lewsey |
Andrew and Inge will be living in downtown Toronto with their first child. |
Well, geography has never been my best subject. |
| Consumer PC mass-storage (hard-disk-drives or their successor) size will start to be advertised in Terabytes,
while the common size for such mass storage will be in the 100 Gig range. | Well, I have yet to see an add for a consumer drive using TB as the unit of measure,
but 120 GB drives have certainly become common.
(The first three computers featured under Gateway's "Desktop Computer" section come with drives ranging from 160 - 250 GB.) |
| RAM will commonly be expressed in GB | Again: not quite. In the aforementioned Gateway add, the first three computers come with "512 MB" - "1024 MB" |
| The currently available version of Windows (possibly only in beta) will include native speech recognition and generation. | Looks like there's still a bit of a wait for this one to become a reality. |
| 20% of homes with a PC will have a network set up for sharing files, printers and I/Net access | More like 12% right now. |
| Dozens of drugs will be commercially available that will have been produced by genetically altered animals, particularly cows. | |
| Consumer PC clock speed will have reached the 2 GHz level | Gateway is currently selling a 3 GHz machine for $1400. |
| Alice and Derek will have a network consisting of at least two machines, at least one of which will be a laptop with a 15"+ screen. | We currently have two machines networked, and before leaving Harmony, one of the two machines was a laptop with a 15" screen. (Now, both are desktops) |
| Derek and Alice will have at least one kid, and will most likely have another on the way. | A little ahead of schedule here :) |
| Derek's salary will be beyond 200 K | What a naive Dreamer! |
| The stock options/buyout will be worth 2 million +, but will not have been entirely cashed in. | Not entirely cashed in?! Try not exercised! (This is very painful :) |
| We will have bought a second house. | True. |
| Karen will still be with IBM, still be with Andrew, and will either already have a kid or will at least have one on the way. | - True (back with, not still with)
- True and
- "only the Shadow knows..."
|
| Paul will have left IBM, but in support of Feroozeh's career, not his own. | |
| The first manned mission to Mars will have begun. | Nope. Not yet and nothing appears to remain on the horizon any more, either. (At one point there was talk of a mission in 2017, but I think that idea has been abandoned.) |
| E-money will be as common as debit card use is today. | What the heck is E-money? I suppose "Pay-Pal" has become quite popular, but I don't think this is quite what I had in mind at the time. |