Today in Science class, my teacher, Mr. D, was reading us some old quotes that these scientists made. He (the Derbster) said, "Remember, telling the future is very shaky. It's hard, and some of it turns out right, but it usually changes."
"This first one," He said, "Was from a well-respected guy, you know? Smart, scientist, people looked up to him. He said...
'This item has too many shortenings to be of any use to us.'"
Know what he was talking about? A phone.
There were more, too...
"I cannot imagine for the life of me why anyone would need a personal computer."
"We don't like their sound and their music is on its way out, anyways." (This was a recording company who turned down the Beatles.)
"Airtoys are nice, but have no military use." (A Frenchman. Guess who lost the war?)
"640 KB of memory will be too much for anyone to use."
"Who'd want to hear actors talk?"(At the end of the silent movie age)
"Heavy flying machines are impossible."
Oh, man. If those dead guys are up there, they'd be having a laugh at us right now with our 50 GB iPods and Surround Sound movies and memoirs of the Beatles. Not to mention the planes, MOST of which are involved in the military!
Well, I guess it just goes to show-- even the smartest guys of the time, experimenting with the top-notch technology, can make predictions that will flop.
3 comments:
Psh...who'd want to hear actors talk?
Aha, funny stuff! ^_^
These are actually fascinating. Recently my class has been making both negative and positive predictions of the future. I suppose we'll find out which of us were correct in twenty years.
PS Do these dead dudes all sound pretty arogant to you?
0.0
Yeah, they kinda do, some of them.
I mean, they're basically telling Alexander Graham Bell, "Dude. You made a nice invention, but, bottom line, it sucks. So you can keep it." And now... ha ha. He showed them.
Oh-- the Phone invention, btw. I don't know if anyone got that.
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