Futurism

"The past is but the past of a beginning." -H. G. Wells  DEEP in the basement of a dusty university library in Edinburgh lies a small black box, roughly the size of two cigarette packets side by side, that churns out random numbers in an endless stream.  At first glance it is an unremarkable piece of equipment. Encased in metal, it contains at its heart a microchip no more complex than the ones found in modern pocket calculators.  But, according to a growing band of top scientists...Read Full Story

Someone, I don’t remember who now, told me about Isabella Threlkeld, suggesting she’d make an interesting profile subject.  To say the least, she did.  My New Horizons piece about Isabella follows, and I believe it’s a case in point of how people all around us have fascinating stories if we only take the time and show the interest to search out and learn their tales.  As a journalist, I am in a privileged position to seek out people’s stories  and to share them with others.  For every great...Read Full Story

Dear Friends: In order to be effective in the business of international marketing, it is essential to develop an understanding not only of the present market conditions, but of the anticipated future market conditions. Futurism should be of very serious interest to any company interested in survival. Some of the components of a comprehensive futurism analysis might include an examination (e.g., some good projections) of the following elements as they relate to your product or service and its...Read Full Story

WE MUST EITHER ANTICIPATE THE FUTURE OR CREATE IT OURSELVES . Dear Friends: It is almost the middle of August, 2008, and the economy of the World is in turmoil. The exact causality is not known, despite what the pundits might tell us after the fact, as they usually do. Sadly, they give very conditional and nebulous advice in terms of facing what lies unseen ahead of us, but they enjoy a lively ex post facto (e.g., too late) debate about why things happened...about the why of history . The...Read Full Story

As a follow-up to yesterday's post about the postmodern paleo-future here's an excerpt from the March 14, 1982 New York Times article, "Now and Then, Congress Also Ponders the Future." ....activity in the field [of futurism] has slowed to the point of stopping. "Actually, [futurism] died somewhere in the 1970's," said Michael Marien , the editor of "Futures Survey," a monthly abstract published by the World Future Society . "Nobody announced its death, but it happened." Mr. Marien, who has...Read Full Story