A politician needs the ability to foretell what is going to happen tomorrow, next week, next month, and next year. And to have the ability afterwards to explain why it didn’t happen. – Winston Churchill
OH YEAH?
QUOTES THAT PROVE HOW “STUPID” SMART PEOPLE CAN BE (submitted by Kirk M. at
Digital Equipment Corporation)
“I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.”
* Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943
“There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.”
* Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977
“Everything that can be invented has been invented.”
* Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, US Office of Patents, 1899.
“Louis Pasteur’s theory of germs is ridiculous fiction.”
* Pierre Pachet, Professor of Physiology at Toulouse, 1872
“Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons.”
* Popular Mechanics, forecasting the relentless march of science, 1949
“The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a ‘C,’ the idea must be feasible.”
* A Yale University management professor in response to Fred Smith’s paper proposing reliable overnight delivery service. (Smith went on to found Federal Express Corp.)
“A cookie store is a bad idea. Besides, the market research reports say America likes crispy cookies, not soft and chewy cookies like you make.”
* Response to Debbi Fields’ idea of starting Mrs. Fields’ Cookies.
“We don’t like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out.’
* Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962.
“So we went to Atari and said, ‘Hey, we’ve got this amazing thing, even built with some of your parts, and what do you think about funding us? Or we’ll give it to you. We just want to do it. Pay our salary, we’ll come work for you.’ And they said, ‘No.’ So then we went to Hewlett-Packard, and they said, ‘Hey, we don’t need you. You haven’t got through college yet.”‘
* Apple Computer Inc. founder Steve Jobs on attempts to get Atari and HP interested in his and Steve Wozniak’s personal computer.
“640K ought to be enough for anybody.”
* Bill Gates, 1981
ADVICE; WISDOM; FUTURE; TECHNOLOGY; HUMOR; COMPUTERS
Here are some more
REALLY BAD PREDICTIONS
In an article in The Futurist magazine, writer Laura Lee catalogues some of the worst predictions of all time:
“Inventions have long since reached their limit, and I see no hope for further developments.” —Roman engineer Julius Sextus Frontinus, A.D. 100
“The abdomen, the chest, and the brain will forever be shut from the intrusion of the wise and humane surgeon.” —John Eric Ericksen, surgeon to Queen Victoria, 1873
“Law will be simplified [over the next century]. Lawyers will have diminished, and their fees will have been vastly curtailed.” —journalist Junius Henri Browne, 1893
“It doesn’t matter what he does, he will never amount to anything.” —Albert Einstein’s teacher to Einstein’s father, 1895
“It would appear we have reached the limits of what it is possible to achieve with computer technology.” —computer scientist John von Neumann, 1949
“The Japanese don’t make anything the people in the U.S. would want.” —Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, 1954
“Nuclear powered vacuum cleaners will probably be a reality within ten years.” —Alex Lewyt, president of the Lewyt Vacuum Cleaner Company, quoted in The New York Times, June 10, 1955
“Before man reaches the moon, your mail will be delivered within hours from New York to Australia by guided missiles. We stand on the threshold of rocket mail.” —Arthur Summerfield, U.S. Postmaster General under Eisenhower, 1959
“By the turn of the century, we will live in a paperless society.” —Roger Smith, chairman of General Motors, 1986
“I predict the Internet . . . will go spectacularly supernova and in 1996 catastrophically collapse.” —Bob Metcalfe, InfoWorld, 1995
Aren’t you glad your faith does not rest on human words but on the sure Word of God?
Citation: The Futurist, (September/October, 2000), p. 20-25
http://www.preachingtoday.com
FUTURE; PREDICTIONS; FALSE PROPHETS; PROPHECY; HUMOR