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Quote Bad Predictions about Technology
Topic Started: Jul 7 2010, 05:58 PM (382 Views)
Yorick
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What I mean is, write any quotes you know said by people shrugging off the popularity of a new technology that became a hit. OR about a new technology that they thought would be a hit but wasn't.

For example, studio exec Jack Warner (yes, one of the founding Warner brothers of Warner Bros. Studios) said this about 'talkies' when they first came out: 'Who wants to see actors talk?'

There are some more. I think it was studio exec Daryl F. Zanuck (he made 20th Century Fox films what it is today) say that television wouldn't last longer than six months.

Do you guys have any others like these?
Edited by Yorick, Jul 7 2010, 05:59 PM.
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SIngemeister
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Hive Tyrant of the Essee Swarm

"I can think of no reason to see why anyone would want a [computer] in their home"
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Sliver Slave
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I'm going back to basics.

"This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us." -- Western Union internal memo, 1876.
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Holben
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Rumbo a la Victoria

"Heavier than air flying machines are impossible" -Lord Kelvin, shortly before the Wright Brothers' flight.
Time flows like a river. Which is to say, downhill. We can tell this because everything is going downhill rapidly. It would seem prudent to be somewhere else when we reach the sea.

"It is the old wound my king. It has never healed."
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seascorpion
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Why Can't I Hold All These Mongols?

"rockets will never reach the moon no matter what this madman thinks" - Time magazine 40 years before the moonlanding, mocking the inventor of the rocket

"the war with russia will last 3 weeks"- german colonel shortly before the launching of the invasion of russiain WW2. man he got THAT wrong
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lamna
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Clarke was confident that by 2001 a US president would have been to space, though he's probably not that far off. If Obama's relected I could see him having a go on Virgin Galactic.
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Ànraich
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L'évolution Spéculative est moi

I don't remember who said it, but somebody said that there would be a helicopter in every garage instead of cars in a few years after seeing them in Korea.

Poor fool never realized that you can't park a helicopter in a garage; it'll never fit.
We should all aspire to die surrounded by our dearest friends. Just like Julius Caesar.

"The Lord Universe said: 'The same fate I have given to all things from stones to stars, that one day they shall become naught but memories aloft upon the winds of time. From dust all was born, and to dust all shall return.' He then looked upon His greatest creation, life, and pitied them, for unlike stars and stones they would soon learn of this fate and despair in the futility of their own existence. And so the Lord Universe decided to give life two gifts to save them from this despair. The first of these gifts was the soul, that life might more readily accept their fate, and the second was fear, that they might in time learn to avoid it altogether." - Excerpt from a Chanagwan creation myth, Legends and Folklore of the Planet Ghar, collected and published by Yieju Bai'an, explorer from the Celestial Commonwealth of Qonming

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