Keeping these boneheaded predictions in mind, here is what I see in my crystal ball for the future.
Here we are — at the start of another New Year. We have crawled to within two years of that inevitable date when old computers will just give up and die. I have heard so many predictions of the doom and gloom that will arrive in the year 2000, that I thought I would take out my crystal ball and look into the future of plumbing.
Of course, it can be dangerous trying to predict what will happen in the future. Many of our predecessors look really foolish today for their wild predictions of the future. In 1949, Popular Mechanics predicted, “Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons.” I know that my notebook computer feels about that heavy when I am running to catch a plane. In 1876, Western Union, the telegraph company, wrote, “This telephone has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us.”