"Someone creates an X account, sets it to private, and posts hundreds of different predictions with every possible virus name and scenario imaginable."

"Then, once one event vaguely lines up with reality, they delete all the other failed predictions and leave only the 'correct' one visible."

Dr. Simon reveals one simple trick.

I'm glad I have a tag called "predictions."

23 things Vox predicts will happen in 2023.

Do you have predictions? Surely you don't have 23, that is, 23 worth saying. You can always predict obvious things.

Here are Vox's, perhaps padded by obviousness — e.g. "The Supreme Court will rule that affirmative action is unconstitutional (70 percent)."

Monday sunrise, 7:15.

1. The actual sunrise time was 7:11. I didn't pick that photograph because I was late for the sun, but because it struck me the hardest when I got home and uploaded my collection of snaps.

2. In fact, I was out there, halfway into my morning run, at 7:02, when it looked like this:



3. I liked that, but I had thought, based on the configuration of clouds, that it would be one of the most spectacular sunrises in the series (which began on September 9th). I was surprised by the mild yellow orange. Where were the pinks and purples?

4. Does the sunrise know it will be a pleasant day and not one about which fishermen should "take warning"?

5. I say "fishermen," because that's what I heard growing up, perhaps from my Uncle Henry, who was a fisherman (in his leisure time). But I see the most common form of the rhyme is "Red sky at night, sailors' delight/Red sky at morning, sailors take warning." The couplet has its own Wikipedia page, and that includes numerous variations — "pink" for "red" and "shepherds" for "sailors" — but none of the variations has "fishermen."

6. Matthew 16:1-4: "The Pharisees also with the Sadducees came, and tempting desired [Jesus] that he would shew them a sign from heaven. He answered and said unto them, When it is evening, ye say, It will be fair weather: for the sky is red. And in the morning, It will be foul weather to day: for the sky is red and lowering. O ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky; but can ye not discern the signs of the times? A wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given unto it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas. And he left them, and departed."

7. That's the King James Version, which says "Jonas." Jonas is Jonah. Why Jonah? Back in Matthew 12, Jesus gave the same answer to the Pharisees when they asked for a sign — "An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas" — but with more of an explanation: "For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: because they repented at the preaching of Jonas; and, behold, a greater than Jonas is here."

8. "It's a Beautiful Morning" — a Young Rascals song that played in my earphones during today's run. "There will be children with robins and flowers/Sunshine caresses each new waking hour/Seems to me that the people keep seeing/More and more each day...."

9. See more today.

The Senate will end up 50-50.

I predict, after clicking on the details to the 6 races counted as "Toss Ups."

"Don’t get the shorts in the picture!.... If that leaked to Europe, I wouldn’t get any sales there!"

Said Gary Shteyngart, author of  "Super Sad True Love Story."

In the near future world of Super Sad True Love Story, books are called “media artifacts” and are regarded as too smelly to own.

When I ask Gary if he is really as pessimistic about the future of books as all that, he proclaims, “Over!  So over! Oh my god.”   When I point out that there will always be bookish types such as ourselves, he counters, “How many of us will remain?  Will there be 3 million of us?  Will there be 300,000 of us?  Will there be 30,000 of us?  How much will it take for me to sustain a living doing what I do best, well, doing the only thing I know how to do?  Well, actually, I don’t even know how to read.”

... According to Shteyngart, the bookless future is going to be very “slutty,” which is what he likes about it.  It’s going to be great, with see-through jeans, and he can’t wait.

At the Good Fortune Nightclub...

... you can do what you were born to do.

"... religion is on the decline... when the time comes that religion shall be discarded..."

Spoken in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1789 — whence inaccurate predictions have flowed for more than 2 centuries.

"Susie, one of the longest borders on earth is right here between your country and mine. An open border."

"Fourteen hundred miles without a single machine gun in place. Yeah, I suppose that all sounds very corny to you."

"I could love being corny, if my husband would only cooperate."

***

DVD — "A Touch of Evil" — screened as the sky behind the TV darkened to a tornadic yellow-green and 2 large bowls of popcorn were consumed. It's a wild movie, and here's my favorite scene:



My favorite thing in the movie is the figurine of a chipmunk on the table there. It made me think of the evil "woodland critters" from "South Park":

Fortunate!

My cookie contained 3 fortunes. The 4th fortune seen here was in my companion's cookie. Perhaps you can figure out which fortune is not mine.

At The iPhone Café...

... tell us how you really feel. And if you've got some, spill the joy!

If the U.S. ever breaks up...

... do you think it will break up this way?