#predict

Have you ever played Maximum Happy Imagination?" "Sounds like a Japanese game show." Kat straightens her shoulders. "Okay, we're going to play. To start, imagine the future. The good future. No nuclear bombs. Pretend you're a science fiction writer." Okay: "World government... no cancer... hover-boards." "Go further. What's the good future after that?" "Spaceships. Party on Mars." "Further." "Star Trek. Transporters. You can go anywhere." "Further." "I pause a moment, then realize: "I can't." Kat shakes her head. "It's really hard. And that's, what, a thousand years? What comes after that? What could possibly come after that? Imagination runs out. But it makes sense, right? We probably just imagine things based on what we already know, and we run out of analogies in the thirty-first century. ↗

— Robin Sloan

#futurism #game #imagination #inspirational #imagination

I knew by the signs it would be a hard winter. The hollies bore a heavy crop of berries and birds stripped them bare. Crows quarreled in reaped fields and owls cried in the mountains, mournful as widows. Fur and moss grew thicker than usual. Cold rains came, driven sideways through the trees by north winds, and snows followed. ↗

— Sarah Micklem

#folklore #nature #predictions #weather #winter

There will be certain points of time when everything collides together and reaches critical mass around a new concept or a new thing that ends up being hugely relevant to a high percentage of people or businesses. But it's really really hard to predict those. I don't believe anyone can. ↗

— Marc Andreessen

#around #being #believe #businesses #certain

I come back to the same thing: We've got the greatest pipeline in the company's history in the next 12 months, and we've had the most amazing financial results possible over the last five years, and we're predicting being back at double-digit revenue growth in fiscal year '06. ↗

— Steve Ballmer

#back #being #come #company #double-digit

I'm just very wary that once you start military operations in any country, it's very difficult to predict what the outcome is. ↗

— King Abdullah II

#country #difficult #i #just #military

I think it's almost impossible for any expert to predict for the rapid changes we see in the Middle East. They are rapid and they will continue for quite a while. ↗

— King Abdullah II

#any #changes #continue #east #expert

But in practice master plans fail - because they create totalitarian order, not organic order. They are too rigid; they cannot easily adapt to the natural and unpredictable changes that inevitably arise in the life of a community. ↗

— Christopher Alexander

#arise #because #cannot #changes #community

At first everyone predicted that it would be impossible to hold these divergent people together, but aside from the skilled men, some of whom belonged to craft unions, comparatively few went back to the mills. And as a whole, the strike was conducted with little violence. ↗

— Ray Stannard Baker

#back #belonged #comparatively #conducted #craft

Children are unpredictable. You never know what inconsistency they're going to catch you in next. ↗

— Franklin P. Jones

#children #going #inconsistency #know #never

I don't think I've had any great success in predicting politics or social change, nor have I really tried. ↗

— Paul Krugman

#change #great #great success #had #i