Month: January 2011

Following a recent and disturbing annual tradition, here are the predictions for the year to come. Based on past history, anyone with any sense should assume that the vast majority of the predictions below will be so utterly wrong as to shame a man with any dignity into never again putting in writing his thoughts on the coming year.

1. Gasoline, currently at about $3.30 per gallon here in Los Angeles, will rise in price to over $4.00 per gallon by the end of 2011 as the economy improves. There will be numerous predictions in the news media about prices hitting $5.00 per gallon for 2012.
2. Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney and Ron Paul will all announce that they are running for President. Michael Bloomberg will toy with people and then announce that he isn’t running (this may last into 2012). Newt Gingrich will not run as he will calculate that he can’t win while splitting votes with Palin and Huckabee. No Democrat will mount a serious primary challenge against Obama, although someone like Dennis Kucinich may run solely for the purpose of “expanding the debate” or some similar reason.
3. Apple will offer minor updates to the iPad and iPhone but will not have any major new product offerings in 2011. They will, however, offer users the ability to store content such as movies and music on Apple servers and access that content on any Apple device, thus revealing the purpose of their massive new data center. In 2012 my guess is that they are planning a 4G iPhone for release early in the year (instead of the usual mid-year release) along with an Apple TV product, although those obviously aren’t predictions for 2011.
4. The national unemployment rate will drop from its current rate of 9.7 percent, but will remain very close to nine percent. I’ll pin the prediction range at 8.8 to 9.1 percent since there doesn’t seem to be much in the way of job creation going on right now.
5. US men’s distance runners will set national records in at least three of the following events: 800m, 1500m, 5000m, 10,000m, marathon. The current crew of American distance runners is by far the best since the 1970s.
6. Neither court challenges nor budgetary maneuvering will affect the Affordable Care Act / Obamacare. There is currently much hubbub about the courts overturning the recent health care law, or of Republicans in the House crippling it via lack of funding, but in the end neither will have an effect and the law will move forward as planned.
7. Yahoo and Adobe will both be purchased. Companies are currently sitting on record amounts of cash, and I suspect Yahoo is actively shopping itself as a way out of financial trouble, while Adobe might be snapped up by the likes of Oracle or Microsoft as a hedge against Apple.
8. SpaceX will launch only three of the five Falcon 9 missions on their current launch manifest, but all will be successful. They will also launch two of their Falcon 1e rockets successfully.
9. 3D televisions will still not be a big deal, and may in fact be less of a big deal than they are now.
10. Splits in the Republican party between social conservatives and fiscal conservatives will increase significantly. While this divide has always been a tension, Republican gains in the last election were made primarily by focusing on economic issues and avoiding social issues. Now that many social conservatives are in power those issues will again rise to the surface, causing party divisions that will lead to calls for “purity tests”, more frequent “RINO” accusations, and at least two Republican Congressmen leaving the party to become independents or Democrats.
11. Labor disputes in the NFL will not affect the regular season as players and owners come to an agreement to avoid significantly damaging America’s most popular sports league. However, a lockout will be imposed in the NBA and the regular season will be shortened as a result; millionaire players and owners will be on TV crying about unfairness while fans look at $100 ticket prices and feel no sympathy.
12. Cape Wind and Bluewater Wind will both start construction of their offshore wind farm projects in 2011 after years of legal wrangling and delays.
13. Total downloads of JAMWiki (a pet project of mine) will exceed 15,000 for the year. This would be a huge jump given past year’s stats, but assuming I have a few months outside of the corporate world then some surprises may be in store. Stats for past years:
    

    2010: 10,841 downloads
    2009: 9,191 downloads
    2008: 11,146 downloads
    2007: 7,898 downloads

14. Last but not least, 2011 will see not just two, but three journal entries every month. The quality of said posts will carry on the great tradition of poor writing and questionable judgment that has been a hallmark of this journal since its inception.

There they are, the fearless and (likely) completely wrong predictions for 2011. Check this space again in a year for the retrospective, and add your thoughts, predictions, and insults via the comments link.

Following a massive number of incorrect predictions for 2009, here’s the wrap-up of my predictions for 2010; clearly no one will ever mistake me for Nostradamus.

1. SpaceX will launch their Falcon 9 rocket successfully in March or April and will have two successful launches before year end.

   The rocket launched successfully in June, and a second launch took place in December. This is a big deal for anyone interested in space, and, even though I was off by a month on the launch date, this scores as a correct prediction since I’m doing the scoring.

2. Despite Democrats losing their 60th Senate seat in the Massachusetts special election there will still be some sort of health care bill passed this year.

   When this prediction was made there was near universal agreement that the bill was dead, yet it passed about a month later. Two out of two so far for the prediction game, but it’s all downhill from here.

3. Tiger Woods will be golfing again in time for the Masters, will win at least one major championship, and at least five tournaments.

   He was back for the Masters, then didn’t win a single tournament. Historically I think my record for sports-related predictions stands at something like zero-for-ten…

4. The iPhone is going to be available from carriers besides AT&T by mid-year.

   Everyone from the Wall Street Journal to the New York Times says this is happening in early 2011, but that doesn’t make my prediction any less wrong.

5. The stock market will end the year around 11,500.

   Another rare correct prediction. It rose from about 10,200 at the beginning of the year to close at 11,577 at the end of the year.

6. NASA’s ARES rocket program will be canceled or scaled back to the point where it will no longer be a shuttle replacement.

   The program has effectively been canceled, although budget wrangling is keeping some aspects of it alive. While this scores as a correct prediction, in fairness anyone who is a big space dork would see this as a very safe prediction given the public pronouncements prior to the actual cancellation.

7. The Beatles and Garth Brooks will start selling their music on iTunes.

   The Beatles came through for me, but Garth held out.

8. The Browns will finish at .500 or better.

   I don’t want to talk about this one.

9. I’m going to run a marathon.

   Nope, didn’t happen. 2011 may be a different story though.

10. The 2010 elections won’t change Congress significantly… I’ll say the Democrats will have 57 Senate seats (plus-or-minus one) and 240 House members (plus-or-minus five) when it’s all over.

    This prediction was spectacularly wrong. Democrats now have 53 Senate seats and 193 House seats, so I was only off by… A LOT.

11. Tesla will IPO and announce the opening of a plant in Downey. The plant will break ground, but full Model-S production will slip from 2011 to 2012.

    They did do a very successful IPO, and the Model-S has slipped to 2012, but the new plant will be in Fremont. Two out of three ain’t bad.

12. Despite recent protests, the political situation in Iran won’t change in 2010.

    …and it hasn’t changed. Things have been relatively quiet in that corner of the world after a very noisy 2009.

13. Google will partner with someone to ship a low-cost, Google branded PC running Google apps and the Google operating system.

    This is a prediction that probably should have waited until 2012. Oops.

14. Apple will be on the verge of announcing an Apple television product.

    Another prediction that would have made a lot more sense for 2012. When they do finally announce it I’m definitely going to want one.

15. China will announce plans to sell cars abroad.

    Although Jane says China is already selling cars in Asian markets, I’ll be surprised to see them in the US for another 2-4 years. My prediction batting average continues to fall into the “scary bad” range.

16. It will be another bad hurricane year.

    While 2010 tied for the third most named storms and second most hurricanes in history, they mostly stayed out to sea or weren’t very severe when they did make landfall. Given the potential for damage, this is actually a good one to be wrong about, even if it is another blemish on an otherwise ugly prediction scorecard.

17. I will make at least two journal entries a month.

    Nailed it! That’s right, for every month of 2010 there were at least two entries in the journal, even if many of them did come on one of the last days of the month.

The game will continue with predictions for 2011 coming soon, and the comments link is there for anyone who wants to join in the pain fun.