| Submitter | Predictions | Commentary |
| Derek Lewsey | PCs will still abound, and will come standard with at least a 15" flat-panel of some sort, 2 Gig of RAM, Hard drive space on the order of 1/2 Terrabyte. | Looking at Dell desktops, (and a few other places) the focus seems now to be on price. The four featured Dell machines all come in under $1,000 US, with a 17" flat panel monitor, Ram running from 256-512MB, and Diskspace at a measly 80GB. |
| The Windows du-jour will contain continuous speech recognition and simulation. | I think I might finally give up on this one. | |
| Alice and I will have moved out of Castro Valley altogether with our two kids and dog, but will still be in the U.S. | Still in Castro Valley, no dog, but yes, we have two kids. | |
| Despite the huge personal data stores, there will be a huge market for internet-accessible data stores, boasting both the security of professionally managed data and the convenience of globally accessible data. This market/concept will grow in tandem with the progression of still and motion photography more universally into the digital age. | Well, I guess there hasn't been quite the explosion of online storage that I anticipated, but with the advent of Hurricane Katrina, there has been a recent spike in interest. | |
| Napster will be gone, but gnutella-like Peer-to-peer subnetworks of the Internet will exist, where it's possible to swap music, movies, books and anything else that can take a digital form. The big record labels will have started to widely offer subscription services where you pay a monthly fee for the current New Thing in music. | Well, Napster is still around, but it is vastly different from what it was. It now seems to be operating as the record label's front in the subscription music business. Of course, despite the RIAA's lawsuits, the peer-to-peer networks are still around, with eDonkey and BitTorrent being prime examples. | |
| Our next car will be powered by a fuel cell. | This one remains to be seen, as we're still driving the same cars we had five years ago. | |
| There will be toys on the market that respond to thought. | Oh well, maybe next year. | |
| David Lewsey | Big earthquake in some part of North America 5-6.0 on the rictor scale. | Actually, a 5.0 isn't all that rare. In fact, there was a 5.0 in New Mexico in August ('05) and a 5.6 in Montana in July. (According to the USGS From 2000 through 2005, there have been a total of 5 quakes registering higher than 6.9 in the US alone (four of which occurring in Alaska). |
| The ocean will rise in level, by not much but it will rise. | Sea levels are definitely rising, and have been for centuries. For the most direct evidence, look to the Tuvaluans. | |
| Someone will predict a catastrophe that will happen in the time frame
specified. My guess is they will predict a volcanoe eruption somewhere in the world. | ||
| The cure for many mental illnesses, perhaps schizophrenia. | ||
| People will have reached a point where small changes in media developments, help to bring people to the point of high creativity and we will have better understanding of where we belong in the universe and we will have tolerance for many different beliefs that we are just starting to realize more now. Perhaps there will be a legalization of drugs or changes in laws. People with colouring their hair will not say eneough. Many changes in peoples appearances. | ||
| Law enforcement becoming a joke played on itself. Quite a few people leaving law enforcement to find a more benifiting life to themselves and others and the line that is the law now will become blurred. It will be more humanized than it is now, probably quite a bit in the U.S.A. | Heavy. | |
| We will have scientific proof which will blend every ethnic myth and belief and culture together as one unifying idea or unanswered question. Whether we choose to accept it is in the individuals hands, but we will see this clearer through science and only the ones who accept and only the ones who choose to do something creatively with their beliefs to merge humanity will thrive and be accepted to the masses. More will be needed to make an impression in this new time of the world. | ||
| Alice Lewsey | We will have a dog, either a golden lab or a golden retriever. | Current sentiment is that we will never have a dog. Two kids is plenty :) |
| Nothing will change with the CCS system. | Well, that was an easy one. | |
| We will still be living at 5125 Madison Lane but the front and back yards will finally be landscaped! | Two out of three here: The front yard is still a barren wasteland. | |
| We will finally have a green card and Derek will no longer be working for Harmony. | Check, and Check. | |
| The real estate market will be back on the rise after a 2 year decline. | According to the SF Chronicle, having seen a dip in '01, the Bay Area real estate market started off 2005 with "...the strongest year-over-year appreciation rate in four years." | |
| Connie and Ted will decide that they love the Bay Area and will still be here. | This was really more of a pipe-dream than a prediction :) | |
| Ted Maras | Macy and Alex Savic set the record for number of children born in a 5 year period, build a chalet in the Swiss Alps, change their name to Von Trapp and make a fortune from selling movie rights. | I suppose if you limit your scope to those who have any involvement in this exercise they're record holders, but I'm sure there are a few families out there who've gone beyond 3 kids in 5 years :) |
| Boris Krasevic builds a grocery empire with the high end chain (Boris'
Bread Basket) and the bargain chain (Krasevic's Kash 'n Karry) which takes over the National Grocer's family of companies as well as A&P/Dominion. Unfortunately, stocks take a nosedive when the company is slapped with an anti-trust ruling for violating fair competition laws in retailing. | Looks like we've got another case of someone taking this thing less than seriously. | |
| Derek Lewsey's current company goes public but he squanders his new found fortune in his quest to purchase every VHS, beta and DVD copy of the cult favorite This is Spinal Tap. Alice on the other hand, targeting the changing population demographics, shrewdly changes her specialty from pediatrics to geriatrics and corners the market in the occupational therapy of AARP members (ironic since none of them have an occupation any more, but no one seems to catch on). She keeps building additions to the Monterey coast mansion to house their video collection. |
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| Shawne Robinson | Hybrid/Electric cars will make up almost 5% of the total number of cars driven in the U.S. Outside the U.S. that number will be under 1% | According to a June 2005 report to the 73rdOregon Legislative Assembly, "HEVs captured about 0.5 percent of the light vehicle market during 2004. The expected 2005 market share is 1.6 percent." |
| Harmony Software will have either gone public or acquired (this is an easy one) | Harmony of course merged with/was acquired by Claris and essentially disolved a couple of years ago. | |
| I will be a father. | Check. | |
| Andrew Kerr | Derek & Alice will have 3 children, and will be living somewhere in the East Bay. | Two's plenty. We're actually living in exactly the same spot in the East Bay. |
| Karen McCulloch will have a kid. | Not yet. | |
| Andrew & Inge will have a kid. They will no longer be driving their Honda Civic. Andrew will still not have his station wagon. | Try two kids! As far as I know, no station wagon yet. | |
| Transplanting organs from pigs into humans will be becoming commonplace. There will be a lot of resistance from Jewish and Muslim religious groups. | Xenotransplantation is nowhere near commonplace, though the prime objections seem to be more medical than religious, with the risk of unleashing a new AIDS or SARS being the prime concerns. | |
| Bruce Johnston will not have a kid. | Since no-one seems to have heard from him in a number of years, it's a bit difficult to determine the accuracy of this one. | |
| Andrew will no longer be contracting, but will be working fulltime somewhere in Ottawa. | ||
| You will have at least one friend that is currently married that will be divorced or separated by the time this prediction is unsealed. | I can't speak for those of you reading this, but it's certainly true for me. | |
| There will be four professional hockey teams left in Canada. | Despite the lockout, I count at least 6 teams returning for '05-06: Leafs, Cannucks, Oilers, Flames, Senators and Canadien. (Do these all count) | |
| Ron Lewsey | Fidel Castro will no longer be head of the Cuban Government and that island will be on its way to a free market economy and a democratic government. It is more likely that Castro will have died than been overthrown! | Looks like that day is still a few years out. Despite a fall in October of '04 that fractured his knee, he's back on his feet, running the country. |
| China will have introduced many more free market geographic districts. The economy of the country will be much more free market than now. The outcome of all this will be to have political implications as happened in the late 80s in Eastern Europe and the USSR. Although unlikely in this 5 year time-frame, it is even possible that the Communist government in China will be finished and China too will be heading towards democracy and a free market throughout the country. | Sorry, I'm not smart enough to comment on this one. | |
| Korea will once again be a reunited country with the free market of the south prevailing. The leader of the North will either resign or be overthrown. | Oh well :) Let's hope that the nuke talks can at least lead to some universally amenable resolution. | |
| The large boob tube type of TV screen will be dead as a dodo for TV sets, computer monitors,etc. The flat screen will be everywhere, except in the homes of old codgers like myself. The home theatre concept will grow substantially with the screen being a large, flat, screen that hangs on a wall like a painting.. | Though the CRT Television isn't anywhere near dead (and I don't think it will die for a very long time) I think flat-panels have definitely hit a threshold. A 50", wall-mounted, HDTV plasma is available at Costco for $2,500 US. However, as far as computer monitors are concerned, Flat panel monitors seem to have become the norm. You can still find CRT-based monitors, but I think it won't be long before retailers finally stop advertising computer monitors as "Flat Panel", as they'll all be Flat panels. | |
| Despite predictions to the contrary now, Canada & the USA will have had another fairly serious economic recession at some time during the five years between 2000 and 2005. | The US National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) declared the nation's tenth recession to have started in March of '01. | |
| Derek & Alice Lewsey will have had a second child, which child will have been a boy. | Dead on! | |
| David Lewsey will be happily working at a job in the music industry in the city of ....? | ||
| September and November will continue to have only 30 days, despite Derek Lewsey's indications to the contrary on the predictions section of this web site. | And people wonder why I'm a smart-ass :) | |
| Inge VanderHorst | Derek and Alice will have their second child by now. | One for one! |