Culturomics, an emerging field of study that applies climate-modeling levels of supercomputing power towards predicting human behavior, using "computerized analysis of vast digital book archives, offering novel insights into the functioning of human society", has been tried with digital news archives.
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posted by nomisxid
on Sep 7, 2011 -
12 comments
A lawfirm perusing the New York Times archives has examined how physician W. J. Mayo, famed industrialist Henry Ford, anatomist and anthropologist Arthur Keith, physicist and Nobel laureate Arthur Compton, chemist Willis R. Whitney, physicist and Nobel laureate Robert Millikan, physicist and chemist Michael Pupin, and sociologist William F. Ogburn foresaw
the year 2011 from the year 1931, with commentary.
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posted by 1f2frfbf
on Dec 15, 2010 -
13 comments
Secret of AA: After 75 Years, We Don’t Know How It Works. "There is evidence that a big part of AA’s effectiveness may have nothing to do with the actual (12) steps. It may derive from something more fundamental: the power of the group. The importance of this is reflected by the fact that the more deeply AA members commit to the group, rather than just the program, the better they fare."
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posted by netbros
on Jul 6, 2010 -
145 comments
In 2009,
a remarkably gifted politician, confronting a remarkably difficult set of challenges, will
have to learn to say "No we can't",
Guantánamo will prove a moral minefield,
economic recovery will be invisible to the naked eye,
governments must prepare for the day they stop financial guarantees,
we will judge our commitment to sustainability,
scientists should research the causes of religion,
we will all be potential online paparazzi,
English will have more words than any other language (but it's meaningless),
Afghanistan will see a surge of Western (read: American) troops,
Iran will continue its nuclear quest while
diplomacy lies in shambles,
the sea floor is the new frontier,
we should rethink aging,
(non-)voters will continue to thwart the European project --
but cheap travel will continue to buoy it --
though it has some unfinished business to attend to, and
a Nordic defence bond will blossom.
The Economist: The World in 2009.
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posted by goodnewsfortheinsane
on Nov 27, 2008 -
31 comments
This is interesting. Presented by the NOAA Space Environment Center (SEC)
The official NOAA, NASA, and ISES Solar Cycle 24 prediction was
released by the Solar Cycle 24 Prediction Panel on April 25, 2007. The
Prediction Panel included members from NOAA, NASA, ISES and other US
and International representatives. Press Briefings and presentations at
the SEC Space Weather Workshop, plus additional announcements and
information from the Panel are linked below. The Panel expects to
update this prediction annually.
posted by RoseyD
on Apr 26, 2007 -
9 comments
Miracles You’ll See In The Next Fifty Years (Feb, 1950)
Some more up-to-date predictions:
science,
invention,
space travel,
colonisation,
immortality,
water
shortage,
flooding,
nanotech,
techno-apocalypse,
extinction,
mental health,
smart machines,
robots, mind uploading,
AI,
Asia,
economics,
demographics,
goverance,
cities.
What is your prediction?
posted by MetaMonkey
on Oct 5, 2006 -
54 comments
As in the 2004 elections, several useful sites have sprung up to keep track of the 2006 midterms for House, Senate and state gubernatorial races. Some have a political point of view, others don't, but they don't differ significantly on the outcome at this point. One of the veterans in this game is
ElectionProjection.com, which was
pretty close to actual results in '04. (A creation of
"the Blogging Caesar"). From the right, there's
MyElectionAnalysis.com, while
ElectionPredictions seems to come from a neutral corner. All of these track statewide polls as they are published; they may differ in how they weight results. For a more subjective approach, see
Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball or the
Cook Political Report. Overall, the consensus seems to be that the GOP will hold both houses, but with slimmer margins, and lose on the gubernatorial front.
posted by beagle
on Jul 10, 2006 -
30 comments
BT Technology Timeline 2006-2051 It's interesting to see a major company such as BT set a timeline such as this, especially as they say thier 1990 timeline has had around 80% accuracy. They predict a supercomputer as powerful as the human mind in 2006, self aware computers that pass the turing test by 2020, and the rise of a global computer dictator by and artificial brain around 2040. After that its hard to predict, you know with the singularity coming and all...
Some of the interesting things they predict: genetically engineered teddy bears; androids form 10% of the population around 2015; the Matrix is created, 2030; thought recognition as input device by 2014; the list goes on and on.
Discuss. [
via]
posted by daHIFI
on Dec 23, 2005 -
43 comments
Experts can suck at predicting the future. Their intuitive sense of probability is no more developed than lay-people's. A classic experiment is to present two indistinguishable choices are presented, but with unequal probability of reward. Humans look for complex patterns, which don't exist, and preform quite poorly. Rats quickly recognize the choice with higher probability, and preform optimally.
posted by jeffburdges
on Dec 11, 2005 -
34 comments
Consensus View New Yorker columnist James Surowiecki's book
The Wisdom of Crowds "explores a deceptively simple idea that has profound implications: large groups of people are smarter than an elite few, no matter how brilliant—better at solving problems, fostering innovation, coming to wise decisions, even predicting the future." Now this idea has been put into practice with
Consensus View, a site where you can enter your predictions on stocks, commodities, and currencies, and view the group consensus. (from
wsj.com)
posted by reverendX
on Sep 18, 2005 -
46 comments
Review of "A Possible Declining Trend for Worldwide Innovation," by Jonathan Huebner, who says the rate of human innovation has been steadily declining since the industrial revolution, and is headed toward an "economic limit" of very low apparent innovation that will be reached circa 2038. As one potential explanation, we must consider the possibility that human-initiated innovation, like energy consumption and population growth, is a process that naturally saturates with rising global income levels and technological intelligence--as technological progress increasingly satisfies current human needs, individuals become less concerned with technological development and turn more toward personal growth. More articles from
Acceleration Watch.
posted by stbalbach
on Jun 2, 2005 -
24 comments
It is more likely than not that most of America’s enemies in the near future will continue to be at least as awkwardly and inconveniently asymmetrical as they have been over the past 15 years. However, it would be grossly imprudent to assume that they will all be led by politicians as incompetent at grand strategy as Saddam Hussein or Slobodan Milosevic. There is probably a General Aideed lurking out there, not to mention a General Giap. A no-less-troubling thought is recognition of the certainty that America’s strategic future will witness enemies initially of the second-rate, and eventually of the first... One may choose to recall the old aphorism that “unless you have fought the Germans, you don’t really know war.” That thought, though one hopes not its precise national example, holds for the future.
How Has War Changed Since the End of the Cold War? The answer seems to be not that much at all:
The truth of the matter is that war is not changing its character, let alone miraculously accomplishing the impossible and changing its nature.
posted by y2karl
on Mar 15, 2005 -
8 comments
Imagining the Internet. What will become of the internet? And how far off have prognosticators been about it thus far? Submit your own predictions, if you dare.
posted by rushmc
on Jan 10, 2005 -
27 comments
Two weeks from today, John Kerry will win the popular vote by "23% or more" over George W. Bush, according to
5 Star Psychic Advice. See if you can do better than the spirit world by predicting the electoral and popular vote totals in the
second quadrennial MetaFilter Presidential Contest ...
posted by rcade
on Oct 19, 2004 -
127 comments
Based on a software analysis of 250,000 CDs for mathematical patterns, and further analysis of the last 5 years of Billboards' Top 30,
Polyphonic HMI thinks they know what it takes to rock your world (i.e., cause a song to shoot up the charts). Of course, major labels
are interested (NYT link, scroll halfway down). Will this cause
mainstream radio to be overrun with inane, soul-crushingly similar music, and crowd out anything different or interesting? Because I wouldn't like that!
posted by luser
on Mar 12, 2003 -
39 comments
Now this is eerie. A discussion on Airliners.net from 2000, regarding a plane hitting the WTC.
'When the two towers that make up the World Trade Center were built, they were designed to withstand the impact of the largest airliner of the day, the Boeing 707 Intercontinental. The Empire State Building survived a B-25 medium bomber crashing into it on very foggy day. Anyone wanna bet that the World Trade Center could survive an 767-300 impact?'
posted by Atom Heart Mother
on Sep 14, 2001 -
19 comments
Dave Winer offers us 2 views of the scripting world in 2005. He says that 'in one view, we are all inside Microsoft's box, sharing a common set of libraries and object hierarchies. In the other, we use our favourite tools and runtimes, our communities stay independent.' Frighteningly, he may well be absolutely right. What a great diagram; it reminds me of drawing when I was a kid.
posted by Atom Heart Mother
on Aug 31, 2001 -
17 comments
