{"id":2255,"date":"2011-01-02T17:50:42","date_gmt":"2011-01-03T01:50:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mountaininterval.org\/journal\/?p=2255"},"modified":"2015-01-10T13:18:50","modified_gmt":"2015-01-10T21:18:50","slug":"2010-prediction-scorecard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/mountaininterval.org\/journal\/2011\/01\/02\/2010-prediction-scorecard\/","title":{"rendered":"2010 Prediction Scorecard"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

    \n
  1. SpaceX<\/a> will launch their Falcon 9 rocket successfully in March or April and will have two successful launches before year end.<\/i>\n

    The rocket launched successfully in June<\/a>, and a second launch took place in December<\/a>. 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.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n

  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.<\/i>\n

    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.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n

  3. Tiger Woods will be golfing again in time for the Masters, will win at least one major championship, and at least five tournaments.<\/i>\n

    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…<\/p>\n<\/li>\n

  4. The iPhone is going to be available from carriers besides AT&T by mid-year.<\/i>\n

    Everyone from the Wall Street Journal<\/a> to the New York Times<\/a> says this is happening in early 2011, but that doesn’t make my prediction any less wrong.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n

  5. The stock market will end the year around 11,500.<\/i>\n

    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.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n

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

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

  7. The Beatles and Garth Brooks will start selling their music on iTunes.<\/i>\n

    The Beatles came through<\/a> for me, but Garth held out<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n

  8. The Browns will finish at .500 or better.<\/i>\n

    I don’t want to talk about this one<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n

  9. I’m going to run a marathon.<\/i>\n

    Nope, didn’t happen. 2011 may be a different story though.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n

  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.<\/i>\n

    This prediction was spectacularly wrong<\/a>. Democrats now have 53 Senate seats and 193 House seats, so I was only off by… A LOT.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n

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

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

  12. Despite recent protests, the political situation in Iran won’t change in 2010.<\/i>\n

    …and it hasn’t changed. Things have been relatively quiet in that corner of the world after a very noisy 2009.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n

  13. Google will partner with someone to ship a low-cost, Google branded PC running Google apps and the Google operating system.<\/i>\n

    This is a prediction that probably should have waited until 2012. Oops.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n

  14. Apple will be on the verge of announcing an Apple television product.<\/i>\n

    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.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n

  15. China will announce plans to sell cars abroad.<\/i>\n

    Although Jane<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n

  16. It will be another bad hurricane year.<\/i>\n

    While 2010 tied for the third most named storms and second most hurricanes<\/a> in history, they mostly stayed out to sea<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n

  17. I will make at least two journal entries a month.<\/i>\n

    Nailed it!<\/b> 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<\/a> last<\/a> days<\/a> of<\/a> the<\/a> month<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    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<\/s> fun.<\/li>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    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. 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 … Continue reading “2010 Prediction Scorecard”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[24],"class_list":["post-2255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-journal","tag-nostradamus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/mountaininterval.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/mountaininterval.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/mountaininterval.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mountaininterval.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mountaininterval.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2255"}],"version-history":[{"count":33,"href":"http:\/\/mountaininterval.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2255\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8366,"href":"http:\/\/mountaininterval.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2255\/revisions\/8366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/mountaininterval.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mountaininterval.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mountaininterval.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}