Hilarious and Surprising Predictions of the Future…From the 1960s!

From Singularity Hub

"Nothing should make a futurist more wary than looking at the history of the profession and seeing how hilarious its mistakes have been. Jetpacks, flying cars, death rays…the future isn’t quite what the past hoped it would be. Of course, when predictions do come true it can be really shocking."

(Videos galore included)

NZ quake unearths 'time capsules'

From the BBC

"Two objects believed to be time capsules have been discovered in the aftermath of last week's ruinous earthquake in New Zealand.

A glass bottle with a parchment inside and a metal cylinder were found by rescuers searching the grounds of the cathedral in the city of Christchurch."

Hackers and hippies: The origins of social networking

From the BBC

"People that have been to see last year's blockbuster The Social Network, could be forgiven for thinking that the rise of sites like Facebook started just a few years ago.

But to find the true origins of social networking you have to go further back than 2004.

In a side street in Berkeley California, the epicentre of the counterculture in the 1960s and 1970s, I found what could well be the birthplace of the phenomenon."

Futurology: The tricky art of knowing what will happen next

From the BBC

"A 1972 book which predicts what life would be like in 2010 has been reprinted after attracting a cult following, but how hard is it to tell the future?

Geoffrey Hoyle is often asked why he predicted everybody would be wearing jumpsuits by 2010. He envisioned a world where everybody worked a three-day week and had their electric cars delivered in tubes of liquid."

History of drugs: Narcotics antiquitus

From the Indy

"The illegal drug business is, we know, colossal, gigantic, oceanic.

After arms and oil, it's the biggest money-spinning market on the planet, pulling in £200bn every year. And soon we'll be celebrating, if that's the word, 50 years of its illegality. It was in 1961 that the United Nations Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs was launched, and we can see how successful that well-meaning organisation has been. But does anyone think that the phenomenon of people getting off their heads goes back only as far as the early 1960s?Try this for size. It's the report of a dope-fest that took place on the Bay of Biscay in the 1670s, recorded by one Thomas Bowrey, an English sea captain. He and his friends watched with interest the weird reaction of the locals to a liquid called bhang, made from crushed cannabis pods mixed with milk, and thought they'd try it themselves. They each bought a pint (for the equivalent of sixpence), locked themselves in a house and knocked it back."

Location, location and how the West was won

From the BBC

"On his current visit to Beijing, UK Prime Minister David Cameron has said China will soon reclaim its position as the world's biggest economy - a role it has held for 18 of the past 20 centuries. But how did the US, Britain and the rest of Europe interrupt this reign of supremacy? It comes down to location.

Why does the West dominate the world?

Europeans have been asking this question since the 18th Century, and Africans and Asians since the 19th. But there is still not much agreement on the answers."

Exhibit of Nazi memorabilia explores Hitler personality cult

From France 24 (includes video)

"A new exhibit that opened in Berlin on Friday features Nazi memorabilia -- from propaganda posters to Christmas tree ornaments -- to explore the personality cult surrounding Adolf Hitler that enabled him to keep a tight grip on the German nation."

Going underground: Exploring the Paris Catacombs

From the Indy

"Cataphiles are Parisian urban explorers who illegally wander the Catacombs, a term popularly used to describe a vast network of underground galleries, tunnels and crypts under Paris. Originally built after the French Revolution to house the remains of destroyed tombs during the expansion of the city, the Catacombs are testimony to over two centuries of the city's historical heritage. For example, they were used as shelters by the French resistance during the Nazi occupation of Paris in the Second World War."

Disorder in the House as Sir Ted's legacy leads to row

From the Indy

"The fate of Sir Edward Heath's legacy, his former home in the Close of Salisbury Cathedral and his personal artefacts, lies in the hands of the Charity Commission after a group of supporters challenged a decision to shut the house for good.

Arundells, the Queen Anne-style property that the former PM left to the nation, will close to the public on Wednesday unless the Charity Commission intervenes in an increasingly ugly row that has split the trustees and dismayed the Sir Edward Heath Charitable foundation, which has run the house since Sir Edward's death in July 2005."

The UK visits of Benedict XVI and John Paul II compared

From the BBC

"Pope Benedict XVI will next week become the first head of the Catholic Church to pay a state visit to the UK.

Much has changed since Pope John Paul II toured the UK - on a pastoral visit - in 1982, and the forthcoming trip has not been short of controversy. How do the two compare?"

The Presence of Absence: Detroit's haunting architectural relics

"There's faded grandeur. And then there's Detroit. Once the fourth-largest city in the US, its spectacular economic and social decline is writ large in the disintegration of its architectural fabric. With its former manufacturing industries decimated and parts of downtown Detroit becoming a depopulated wasteland, leading American photographer Sean Hemmerle has created 'Rust Belt' a series of compelling images – at times poetic, at others unnerving – of the city's former urban glory, both industrial and residential. His striking work serves as both architectural record and effective social commentary."

How Britannia came to rule the waves

"Hero worship at the expense of historical accuracy? Surely not. It has been portrayed as the story of the lone genius who solved the greatest scientific problem of his day despite the hindering efforts of those ranged against him, saving thousands of lives.

On the one side was John Harrison, the self-taught clockmaker from a humble Yorkshire background. On the other, the 18th Century’s wealthy elite charged with the task of presiding over the problem of longitude – the knotty task of working out how far west or east a ship has sailed.

Harrison’s story has been the subject of a best-selling book and an award-winning film but science historians believe that the true account of how the problem of longitude was solved has yet to be told..."

Carbon dating reveals vintage fraud in wines

"Up to 5% of fine wines are not from the year the label indicates, according to Australian researchers who have carbon dated some top dollar wines.

The team of researchers think "vintage fraud" is widespread, and have come up with a test that uses radioactive carbon isotopes left in the atmosphere by atomic bomb tests last century and a method used to date prehistoric objects to determine what year a wine comes from - its vintage.

The test works by comparing the amount of carbon-12 and carbon-14 in grapes..."

Guardian reviews of the 2000s

There are those that say* the decade did not begin until 2001 (and thus does not end until 2010) though most people are happy to treat the period 2000-2009 as the 2000s decade (i hate the term Noughties! The first decade of the last century is referred to as the 1900s after all.) So as the decade enters it's last few days there are many reviews of the decade in various newspapers and news sites.

One set of reviews i do like has been published by the Guardian, especially their technological review of the decade. Instant nostalgia. It is really too early to be able to know but it would be interesting to see how this decade will be viewed by future generations. Of course much of that depends on how the decisions and events of the decade affect the years to come.

* Personally i agree with the logic but i think going with the flow is most suitable in things like this.

How will the 'Noughties' be remembered?

The biggest stories of the 21st century have been terrorism, technology and a stock-market crash. But, says Dominic Sandbrook, history may view the 'Noughties’ in a different light...

I really hate that word "Noughties" though.

Watergate Hotel to be sold

Probably the most famous hotel in the world and (indirectly) responsible for any recent scandal to be suffixed with -gate, the Watergate Hotel is to be sold at auction. The hotel, in Washington DC USA, has been closed since 2007 after the previous owners ran out of money.

Of course the hotel rose to fame (or infamy) when it was where burglars in the pay of President Nixon stayed before they broke into the Democratic Party office at the adjoining Watergate Office Complex. The trail investigators followed eventually led to the White House and the fall of Nixon of course.

Update : the sale did not attract any bids.