The Economist 2026 Cover

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Slightly different cover, white background: 

Cover analysis:

The Economist: Tom Standage’s ten trends to watch in 2026. A letter from the editor of The World Ahead.

“We predict the future, and the best way to predict the future is to invent it."

- The Well Manicured Man. From The X-Files Episode: The Blessing Way 

The Well-Manicured Man introduces himself to Scully and warns her that she is about to be killed, either by someone she knows or by two men who will kill her at her home and dump the gun there.  

"We noticed you didn't watch our ad! You vill watch ze ad before you zee the content!"

I can't find a story on this, so I don't know if this is a joke or true. 

If true, advertisers and sponsors will monitor your eye contact confirming you watched their ad before allowing you to view the actual content? And if they see that you didn't maintain eye contact, you'll have to watch it making certain to maintain eye contact? I don't F'ing think so. 

If you're aware of a story substantiating this new and innovative Big Brother Tech experience, drop a comment. This has to be a joke, right?

If true, I have to imagine this will result in a lot of unwatched content. Would you watch an ad where you're being monitored to make sure you view the ad?

Beyond the Time Barrier, 1960 sci-fi film tale of cosmic plague in year 2024.

U.S. Air Force test pilot Major Bill Allison flies the X-80 experimental aircraft to sub-orbital spaceflight successfully, though he loses radio contact. When Major Allison returns to the airbase, it appears abandoned, old and deserted. Mystified, he sees a futuristic city on the horizon and heads for it. The major is rendered unconscious and captured.
[.]
The Captain sends Allison to be imprisoned with a group of bald and violent mutants who are determined to kill everyone in the Citadel. As the mutants attack him, Allison overpowers one and demands answers. They claim to be the survivors of a "cosmic plague", and they blame the residents of the Citadel for their problems.
[.]
[...] the scientists explain that Allison has traveled through time to the year 2024.

Wiki: Beyond the Time Barrier.

The world you once knew is OVER: 12 must-see predictions (and solutions) for 2023.

Citizens New: The world you once knew is OVER: 12 must-see predictions (and solutions) for 2023.

1) Vax deaths accelerate as immune system destruction continues

2) Exploding infertility and stillbirths

3) Deindustrialization of Europe

4) Crop failures / worsening food scarcity

5) Inflation and bailouts / zombie stimulus

6) Banking restrictions on withdrawals of cash

This is already taking place in Nigeria, where bank customers are limited to withdrawals of just $45 a day of their own money. As more governments and central banks push hard into digital currencies, watch for them to make dealing with cash and banks more and more painful, if not at some point impossible. We anticipate bank freezes, bail-ins and insolvency failures beginning in 2023 and continuing for years to come.

7) Digital money rolling out

8) A new pandemic, worse than covid

9) Worldwide CLIMATE lockdowns and engineered fuel scarcity

10) Populist revolts against corrupt governments and rigged elections

11) Huge pushback against censorship by tech platforms

12) Explosion in home gardening and off grid food production, local food barter

Story Archived

I dunno. Maybe, maybe not. Why I'm skeptical about "predictions"? Because I'm not yet driving one of these, which was predicted decades ago: 

This cautionary tale from 1978's Teh Science aged badly.

 LINK and Thread

🤣

 

Elon Musk: "Facebook Sucks."

@ Elon Musk

Breitbart: Elon Musk to Facebook AI Chief: ‘Facebook Sucks’.

How in the hell am I supposed to smoke wearing this thing?

A 12-hour battery? Where TF do they think I'm going to be for 12 solid hours that I'll need to wear this? Yeah...no.

More global warming alarmism; U.S. cities and landmarks COULD be underwater...by 2100.

(Big sigh...)

Business Insider: Disturbing before-and-after photos show how US cities — and their famous landmarks — could be underwater in 80 years.

A few years ago, the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicted that the world's sea levels would rise an additional 3 feet by 2100. But earlier this week, a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences more than doubled this worst-case estimate, predicting that sea levels could rise by around 6.5 feet in the same time frame.

For coastal cities like New York and San Francisco, this spells bad news for low-lying waterfront neighborhoods — and the many landmarks within them.

Climate Central's Google Earth plug-in shows what US cities would look like in the most extreme cases of sea-level rise.

And we know we can completely Trust in the accuracy of Teh Googel, right?

Statue of Liberty - current.

 Statue of Liberty - underwater.

 Palm Beach, FL - current

 Palm Beach, FL - underwater

PROS: 

Significant reduction in street vehicles and pedestrian traffic!

More places accessible by boats! More boating! Yay!

Long drives to the beaches eliminated!

Home-to-work commute by water-sking!

Fishing easily available almost everywhere!

Can play "Waterworld" for real!
Reductions in home and business fires!
Porpoise Lassoing finally legalized and recognized as a sport!
Fun times at High Tide!
Finally a reality to living under the sea.
Ski-jetting everywhere!
Big decrease of lawns to mow and maintain.
Good deterrent to Zombie attacks.
More Hydroponic alternatives.
Fewer seasonal allergies.

CONS:
Extra water.
Possible increased risk of Cthulhus.

Did I miss any?

Harmful killer electrons in space now accurately predictable.

Phys.org: New model accurately predicts harmful space weather.

A new, first-of-its-kind space weather model reliably predicts space storms of high-energy particles that are harmful to many satellites and spacecraft orbiting in the Earth's outer radiation belt.
[.]
...the model can accurately give a one-day warning prior to a space storm of ultra-high-speed electrons, often referred to as "killer" electrons because of the damage they can do to spacecraft such as navigation, communications, and weather monitoring satellites.
[.]
"...being able to accurately predict space weather has been a goal for a long time. This model is a firm step towards being able to do that," [said Yue Chen, a space scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory and lead author of the study].
[.]
"The more research and refinements we do, the increased potential for us to have more reliable forecasts with longer warning time before the arrival of new killer electrons," [said Chen].

Via You Tube

Democrats in the U.S. Senate and House quickly condemned the Los Alamos study calling the identification and profiling of "killer electrons" as killer-electron-phophia and declaring it a humanitarian crisis.

Killer electrons...still not as scary as these guys.

UN Floating Cities Will Save Us!

IFL Science: UN Reveals Concept For Floating City That Can Hold 10,000 Amid Climate Change Concerns.

In a special gathering of UN-Habitat, the United Nations program for human settlements, a multidisciplinary team of innovators unveiled a concept for the world’s first sustainable floating city made fit for up to 10,000 residents.

If you’re envisioning The Jetsons meets Water World then you are completely right.
[.]
...the conceptual city is made up of a series of moored floating platforms that are linked to one another to provide both housing for residents and business-oriented structures, such as those meant for farming or local gatherings. Plus, the creators say futuristic pod-like electric vehicles will be provided to “conveniently” transport people from the nearest coast to the city.
[.]
Three dozen 2-hectare (5-acre) floating communities and dozens of productive outposts can expand and contract over time.

The nice thing about this idea is we can always count on proposals from the UN being cost-efficient, well-planned, successful and effortlessly completed.

Because futuristic urban development ideas never fail. Never Ever fail.

What about those of us who want to live under the sea?

UN Successes Failures:

UN Fails Rwanda.

UN Fails Refugees.

UN Fails Epic style.

World News

Car bomb explodes in Kabul - Al Jazeera:

A car bomb exploded near a security contractors' compound in the Afghan capital Kabul on Wednesday, sending a thick plume of smoke into the night sky and officials reported gunfire in the wake of the blast.

- - -
The Jakarta Post - Lion Air JT610 was "unfit to fly":

Apart from the stick shaker, the pilot of the Denpasar flight noted several other warning signs that appeared on the flight display, including one concerning the difference in the indicated airspeed.

- - -
NHK World - Japan drafting gene-editing guidelines:

The draft guidelines approved by the panel on Wednesday allows only basic research aimed at upgrading reproductive medicine.

Researchers are banned from putting gene-edited eggs back into a mother, or from creating gene-edited babies. But the guidelines do not prescribe how violations would be punished.

- - -
Poland powering up using 60% of coal by 2030  - Warsaw Business Journal:

Coal should account for 60 percent of the energy mix in Poland by 2030, according to the draft of Poland’s energy policy until 2040. The decrease of coal share to below 30 percent is expected by 2040.

- - -
Conor McGregor didn't know he was "going that fast." The Independent:

“I didn’t know I was going that fast” [said McGregor], before Judge Desmond Zaidan handed down the disqualification and fine.

McGregor was caught driving at 154kph in a 100kph zone on the N7 in Co Kildare in the incident last year, and failed to pay the fixed penalty fine due to an administrative error, Naas District Court heard.

- - -
Casablanca bans busking.  The Moroccan Times:

...the city of Casablanca have banned loud or amplified busking, generally popular with residents, workers and visitors, along various important streets of the city, after complaints were filed about excessive noise.

Busking = Street Performance.

- - -

Sky News: Bank of England says 'no deal' Brexit could lead to economic collapse.

In an 88-page document, the bank also claims that a disorderly Brexit could lead to house prices falling by 30%, unemployment nearly doubling and inflation spiralling to 6.5%. The Bank says that, under those circumstances, the interest rate could rocket to 5.5%.

- - -
From The Department of 'Purely Speculative Inexact Science of The Future'...What earth might look like in 200 million years. New Zealand Herald:

The last supercontinent, Pangea, formed around 310 million years ago, and started breaking up around 180 million years ago. It has been suggested that the next supercontinent will form in 200-250 million years, so we are currently about halfway through the scattered phase of the current supercontinent cycle.

- - -
Xinhua Net - Images of the Poyang Bridge No. 2:

The images are amazing.
- - -
Portugal Online: Bullfighting VAT Tax reduced:

The VAT (IVA) tax on bullfights is to be lowered to six percent. The motion was approved on Tuesday in Parliament as part of the state budget for 2019.

- - -
A five-minute cancer detection test?  - Bangladesh News 24: 

A research team of Shahjalal University of Science and Technology (SUST) claimed they have developed a technology that can detect cancer by analyzing blood samples just within five minutes.

- - -
INews: Why are there two dates for the start of winter?

"Because winter arrives either today or tomorrow?"
- - -
Xinhua Net: Images of villagers drying noodles.

Interesting pictures of the above at the link.
- - -
One News: 'Aquaman' movie early reviews are in.

According to Rotten Tomatoes, early screenings of the movie have already landed, and with it, first impressions are being made thick and fast on social media and elsewhere on the web.

Elon Musk Tunnels Under L.A.

Elon Musk, driving his Tesla in a tunnel under L.A.  Coming soon.

Elon Musk, who according to Celebrity Net Worth.com, is worth $13.3 BILLION wants to dig tunnels under Los Angeles as an alternative to the always-clogged Cali freeways. From the CS Monitor:

Billionaire innovator and investor Elon Musk declared early Wednesday morning that he is digging tunnels under Los Angles to cut down on the city's legendary traffic.

Why not traverse L.A. by helicopter?

I dunno, I really don't want to be driving in a tunnel under L.A. when an earthquake decides to shake the loose ground of which the city sits upon. No matter if the quake is "just a three-er" or, God forbid, an 8,9 or 10.

I'm STILL WAITING for the George Jetson flying cars.  Weren't we supposed to have them by now?  Come on, it's 2017...I want my Jetson-mobile.