When making predictions, it’s best to give yourself some room for an out
Q. What does your computer know about you that you may have missed?
A. Your computer can’t read your mind but it can carefully track your “non– instrumental movements” — such as squirming, scratching, shifting — that give away your state of mind, says Rachel Nuwer in “Scientific American” magazine. In a recent study, British psychobiologist Harry Witchel and colleagues asked 27 participants outfitted with motion–tracking markers to read digital excerpts from Mark Hadden’s novel “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night– Time” and from the European Banking Authority’s regulations.
Based on motion in the head, torso and legs, the computer’s visual system could tell “when a person had mentally checked out. In fact, an analysis of the cumulative movements revealed that when people read from the novel, they fidgeted less than when reading the banking guidelines” (from “Frontiers of Psychology”).
Eventually, Witchel says, a perfected system could allow educators “to create digital lessons that recognize when a student’s attention is fading and respond with strategies to reengage him or her.” Q. Do you have a “dog killer” in your pocket?
A. You do if you have a penny minted after 1982, says Julie Hecht in “Scientific American” special edition “The Science of Dogs & Cats.”
For the 20 years before 1982, pennies were predominantly composed of about 95% copper, whereas since that year, pennies have been 97.5% zinc. Though an essential material, too much zinc can be a bad thing: “When pennies meet the acid in a dog’s stomach, the zinc gets released rapidly, which can destroy red blood cells and, in turn, lead to a number of debilitating conditions, including kidney or liver damage.”
As the author concludes: “If Abraham Lincoln were alive today, I’m sure he would say, ‘One score and thirteen years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent a new penny, conceived in zinc. So, please, keep them out of reach of your dog.’”
Q. Prognosticating is not one of humanity’s strong suits. According to Jeff Wilser of “Mental Floss” magazine, what are a few of history’s “not entirely accurate predictions”?
A. Referring to the historic signing of the “Declaration of Independence,” John Adams on July 3, 1776, declared, “The second day of July 1776 will be the most memorable date in the history of America… I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding generations, as the great anniversary festival.”
A Western Union internal memo of 1876 described the telephone as having “too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication,” with no inherent value to the company.
As a New York Times editorial reported in 1920: “A rocket will never be able to leave the Earth’s atmosphere.”
Quipped Harry M. Warner of Warner Brothers motion picture fame in 1927, “Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?”
In 1929, at the brink of the Great Depression, Yale University economist Irving Fisher mis–predicted: “Stock prices have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau.”
“Popular Mechanics” magazine in 1949 opined: “Computers in the future may have only 1000 vacuum tubes and perhaps weigh only 1 1/2 tons.”
And in 2006, New York Times tech columnist David Pogue, responding to queries about when Apple would come out with a cell phone, stated: “My answer is, probably never.”