New Year Predictions

[Martha Simmons]

Some very interesting ideas here:

Gartner Top Predictions 2014: Plan for a Disruptive, but Constructive Future

"By 2020, the labor reduction effect of digitalization will cause social unrest and a quest for new
economic models in several mature economies.

By 2017, over half of consumer goods manufacturers will employ crowdsourcing to achieve fully
75% of their consumer innovation and R&D capabilities.

By 2020, enterprises and governments will fail to protect 75% of sensitive data, and will declassify
and grant broad/public access to it.

By 2017, 10% of computers will be learning rather than processing."

https://www.pleio.nl/file/download/23371392 (PDF)

[Paul Clapham]

Has Gartner made year-end predictions in the past? And if so, has anybody ever reviewed them to see if they were correct?

[Maneesh Godbole]

"In 2014, everyone will need a new calendar"
"Till almost the 2nd week of January 2014, there will be lots of typos where the year needs to be manually entered"
"Surges in gym membership will be observed"
"There will be a marked decline in the sales of alcohol and tobacco till 4th of Jan"
"All mediocre employees will gleefully add one more year of "experience" to their CV"

[Sachin Patil]

Maneesh Godbole wrote:"
"There will be a marked decline in the sales of alcohol and tobacco till 4th of Jan"

Too good and so true.

[Joe Harry]

Maneesh Godbole wrote:"In 2014, everyone will need a new calendar"
"Till almost the 2nd week of January 2014, there will be lots of typos where the year needs to be manually entered"
"Surges in gym membership will be observed"
"There will be a marked decline in the sales of alcohol and tobacco till 4th of Jan"
"All mediocre employees will gleefully add one more year of "experience" to their CV"

I can validate this as these predictions always evaluate to true! Good one.

[Stuart A. Burkett]

Maneesh Godbole wrote:"In 2014, everyone will need a new calendar"

Not necessarily. Time to get out that 2003 calendar you stored away in the cupboard.
Don't forget to save this year's calendar until 2025.

[Martin Vashko]

Stuart A. Burkett wrote:Time to get out that 2003 calendar you stored away in the cupboard.
Don't forget to save this year's calendar until 2025.

Astonishingly, even Easter in 2003, 2014 and 2025 all fall on the same date (not the Ortodox ones, though).

[fred rosenberger]

Stuart A. Burkett wrote:

Maneesh Godbole wrote:"In 2014, everyone will need a new calendar"

Not necessarily. Time to get out that 2003 calendar you stored away in the cupboard.
Don't forget to save this year's calendar until 2025.

Don't you really only need seven calendars? One for Jan 1st being on each of Sun-Sat. Make sure all seven have 29 days for Feb. Then, use whichever is correct until March 1st, then switch as needed.

I remember my father used to have a watch with a calendar in his watchband. It only had seven months, each with 31 days, and you'd simply adjust as required.

[Martin Vashko]

Actually, all you need is this:



(Perpetual calendar)

As a child I had a much more compact form with three small lookup tables.

[fred rosenberger]

yeah, but that won't fit in my father's watchband - at least, not if you want it to be readable.

[Paul Clapham]

Stuart A. Burkett wrote:Time to get out that 2003 calendar you stored away in the cupboard.
Don't forget to save this year's calendar until 2025.

I remember actually doing that once. Back in the 1970's there was a calendar called the "Wretched Mess Calendar" which was quite humorous, and I saved the 1974 version so that I could reuse it a few years later. Apparently the Wretched Mess Calendar is no longer with us but here's an old article from Google News talking about it: Month of "Milf"....

[Bear Bibeault]

Please stop and think of the kitten and puppy photographers! Re-using calendars will put them out of business!

[fred rosenberger]

Paul Clapham wrote:

Stuart A. Burkett wrote:
I remember actually doing that once. Back in the 1970's there was a calendar called the "Wretched Mess Calendar" which was quite humorous, and I saved the 1974 version so that I could reuse it a few years later. Apparently the Wretched Mess Calendar is no longer with us but here's an old article from Google News talking about it: Month of "Milf"....

CAUTION: the acronym "MILF" has taken on a completely new meaning in the past few years...if you google it, you may get some VERY in-appropriate results...regardless of being at home or at work.

[Paul Clapham]

Right... I didn't need a NSFW warning because it was perfectly SFW back in the 70's. So following my link won't get you into any trouble. But googling, as Fred says, might.

[Martha Simmons]

I like this design: http://www.momastore.org/museum/moma/ProductDisplay_Perpetual%20Calendar_10451_10001_49721_-1_11476_11606_12495

[Jesper de Jong]

I predict that Gartner is going to be bought by The Onion, since their predictions perfectly seem to fit with their business model.

[Martin Vashko]

fred rosenberger wrote:yeah, but that won't fit in my father's watchband - at least, not if you want it to be readable.

So I searched my childhood memorabilia and retrieved this:



(The colors are a result of my childhood creativity, a virtue long lost since.)

When folded, it is only a slightly larger than a credit card. I got it when we visited an observatory with the elementary school class. Valid from 0 till 2299 for both Julian and Gregorian calendar. The other side (not pictured) contains the Gauss Formula for determining the occurrence of Easter, and instructions to determine the time by looking at the night sky. Never tried that one, though.