Guest Author • May 17, 2019 •
Predicting technology is the first step towards predicting the labour market impacts of technology. But history tells us that technology prediction is like a game of chance. Make enough predictions and you’re sure to get some right… and many wrong, sometimes spectacularly. The president of IBM, Thomas Watson, purportedly said in 1943 that “I think there is a world market … Read More
Robert Hickson • Mar 03, 2019 •
“One-way thinking on a two-way street” is a line from Ogden Nash’s poem “Oh, Stop Being Thankful All Over The Place.” I see it as particularly apt for a lot of the futures speculation and prediction going on all over the place. There is a rapidly expanding market of “futures pundits” who confidently predict what is going to come to … Read More
Peter Griffin • Feb 10, 2014 •
Picking what science and technology trends will dominate the future is a tricky business. Some of the best minds in the world have turned out to be flat-out wrong in their predictions, as this infographic demonstrates… … Read More
Michael Edmonds • Jan 28, 2012 •
The Your Weekend insert in the Christchurch Press today contained an article listing the predictions for 2012 by several “mystics”. However, it appears that gone are the days of grand and outrageous claims (I guess these are too obvious when they prove to be wrong). Don Murray, astrologer, tells us that there is a “difficult clash of Pluto and Uranus” … Read More
Michael Edmonds • Sep 29, 2011 •
It seems that every week or so there is someone claiming to predict some sort of natural disaster. As a resident of Christchurch, it gets particularly tiresome, given the previous earthquakes seem to attract every mediocre medium or attention seeking astrologer to have a go and guessing when another quake might occur. It is pointless to try and prevent these people from … Read More
Jim McVeagh • Nov 23, 2009 •
One of the hallmarks of emergency departments is the unpredictable nature of the throughput. Accidents, in particular, are relatively unforeseeable although certain types do tend to cluster. Cuts with knives seem to congregate around mealtimes (for obvious reasons) and minor traffic-related injuries have an obviously predictable flurry at rush hour. I recall analysing the data from [...] Related posts: … Read More