PhotoDude.com

Thu. Jan 01, 2004

Predictions for the Year of the Biscuit

Predictions for the Year of the Biscuit – (you’ll have to read to the end to see why I gave 2004 that name) I’m not one who’s usually big on year end news wrap-ups, or inclined to make many predictions about the coming year. But for some reason, some trends or “predictions” have been running through my head lately. So just for fun, I thought I’d flesh them out a bit, and dump them in your lap. Later, you can throw them back in my face, when they prove to be way way off.

This is what we do here on The Web Thang.

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2004 will be the year of the War on Spam. The medium that was the catalyst for the explosion of the Internet has become perhaps 10% efficient, judging by my inbox. Thousands of computers at ISPs around the world are using more than half their resources to deliver data no one wants. The expense to users and vendors will reach a breaking point.

The recent “anti-spam” bill passed by Congress will be no help, and perhaps even add to the flow, as it “legitimizes” some spam on an “opt-out” basis. And there’s only so much you can do with software/filters, as they are more of a “shield” for your inbox instead of a blockade of the source. For example, I use Mailwasher, a fine program. It will mark most spam (and viruses) for deletion, as well as bounce the message. But I’ve stopped sending bounced messages, as they now rarely go back to the sender of the spam, just some poor schmuck just like me who got their e-mail address hijacked by some spammer. So they simply add to the volume; for every spam I get, a bounce response doubles the impact on the system.

During 2004, I think you’ll see the Big Vendors (Yahoo, MSN/Hotmail, AOL, Earthlink, etc.) continue to knock heads together to create and push a new authentication system for e-mail, whether it is some kind of change in the existing format (Like Yahoo’s rumored encrypted header, or Microsoft’s 10 second delay), or something beyond my meager imagination. It’s the only way to solve the problem: at the source. The best thing the federal government can do to solve the problem might be to give those Big Vendors some kind of anti-trust exemption so they can have a freer hand to find a common workable solution. Otherwise, e-mail is doomed to become a secondary form of communication: more hassle than it is worth.

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Google will go public, and begin to lose its way. Under the twin pressures of an exploding web filled with Page Rank hackers, and new shareholder’s focus on profits, they will begin to slip, allowing a smart new competitor (if there is such a thing) to get a big toehold in the market. One of Google’s responses? A new logo.

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A digital pricing evolution will further bury film. As camera phones continue to explode in sales, and reach 3 megapixels in resolution, they will kill the low-end of the current digital camera market. By the end of the year, a fairly full featured brand name 5 megapixel camera will sell for less than $300 (as will a 3 MP camera-cell phone), and there will be three or more digital SLR’s available for under $1000 (perhaps even a full frame sensor digital SLR for under $3000, too). The release of newly designed film-based 35mm cameras will become far less frequent, as digital cameras will outsell film cameras by a 3 to 1 margin by year’s end. The main interaction most consumers will have with companies like Kodak and Fuji is through kiosks (at drug stores, airports, vacation spots, etc.) that spit out prints from images stored on Compact Flash cards.

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The economy will continue its slow steady growth. However, in the down times of the past few years, companies have been forced to learn “new efficiencies.” This means we will see less job growth than anticipated, in terms of rehiring full time workers, as companies have had to learn how to be far more productive using less people. The trend towards using contract workers will continue, as a human resources form of “just-in-time” manufacturing. In effect, the “good trends” will mostly be at the top, with less trickle down effect to those who’ve suffered the most from this recession.

But there will be sectors left behind by this slow economic turnaround, and the biggest one will be your local and state governments. The increase in tax revenues from a slow steady turnaround will come nowhere near what is needed to cover the shortfalls hundreds of state and local governments are facing in this country. The examples abound, from the budget crisis in California (and Alabama, and many other states), to the multi-billion dollar sewer problems in the city of Atlanta. There will be little relief on those fronts, with lots more service cutbacks ahead due to budgetary pressures. Meanwhile, the federal budget will continue to balloon without having to face the same fiscal restraints your local governments do.

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Election 2004. It’s probably too early to predict the election outcome, due to the wide array of variable events that could occur over the next 11 months. If the economy continues even the slow steady improvement shown so far, that works in Bush’s favor. But only as long as the rest of the world is stable, i.e., in the absence of other ugly developments. If by next summer Iraq is not far more stable, with a clear path and plan, Bush will be even more heavily criticized than he is today about the post-war fiasco. If there is another large terror attack on the West, which I consider probable, or another large terror attack on the US, which I’d put at less than 50-50, the conventional wisdom seems to be that it will benefit Bush, because people will rally as they did after September 11. I’d say it depends on the specifics of such an attack, as it could just as easily show a failure to deal with serious problems effectively over the past two years, e.g., if a shipping container is used to deliver a radiological warhead. However, if it is another unexpected tactic that shocks us all, he may well benefit as the conventional wisdom dictates.

The current “conventional wisdom” seems to be that Dean will win the Democratic nomination, and likely be soundly beat by Bush in the general election. However, at this point in the election cycle, I try to remember, “In the beginning of December 1991, as President George H.W. Bush began to seek re-election, his war in Iraq was over and his approval rating had sunk to 50 percent from 59 percent the previous October. He was facing a Democratic field that was widely considered weak. Acerbic Washington Post TV critic Tom Shales called the Democrats ‘a six-pack of weenies, ripe for the roasting’ after their first debate in early December. Then, as now, most Americans could neither name the challengers nor identify them by their pictures.”

And on the other side of the fence, “In late December [1991], one poll showed Clinton trailing Paul Tsongas 23 percent to 21 percent in New Hampshire.”

History shows us that neither side has a lock on the 2004 election, despite however things might appear today. Even in much calmer times in 1991-92, the variables ate the incumbent.

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Around the World of Foreign Policy. This is probably the biggest “crapshoot” of predictions, because there are so many possibilities, as the past two years have evidenced. But the two obvious flashpoints are North Korea and Iran.

North Korea may have the most potential for danger. They likely have at least a couple small crude nuclear weapons, they have the missiles to deliver them against neighbors like Japan, their “Great Leader” may in fact be an unstable psychotic, and they have no “native unrest.” The horrid conditions give the people of North Korea much reason to revolt. But they live in such a closed propagandized society that they believe the relief supplies arriving from other countries are sent as “tribute” to their Great Leader from countries where things are even worse. The majority have no clue how far they lag behind the livings standards of the rest of the world, and thus, feel no reason to rise up.

So North Korea’s path will not be corrected by pressure from within. It will have to come from outside. When it comes to the Korean Peninsula, the U.S. has considerable power, but the 800 pound gorilla is (and always has been) China. For the most part, the 800 pound gorilla has so far sat by and mostly watched, perhaps hoping its primary adversary (US) will get bound up in a briar patch without them doing a thing. But I believe that sooner or later, China will realize the situation in North Korea threatens them as much as anyone (if I were Krazy Kim, and I decided to “go out in style,” I might well lob my missiles East as well as West, seeing enemies everywhere), and that the status quo must be shattered. How that will happen is a question I can’t begin to answer, but I hope it isn’t a predominantly military solution, as there could easily be a million casualties in Seoul, simply from a few days of conventional conflict.

Iran is in some ways potentially more dangerous than North Korea, but also a nut that might crack on its own. I believe the mullahs controlling Iran do as much as they discreetly can to support terrorism in many forms. This is certainly true regarding Israel, and there are more and more stories indicating some portion of Al Qaeda may be operating from there (as in the recent attacks in Saudi Arabia). In addition, their quest for nuclear power is an old one, and there seems little doubt what the mullahs might do with one. Without credible transparency via international inspections (which certainly remains to be seen), we could face the alternative of another Osirak.

But that presumes the mullahs will be able to retain power as they do now. However, diametrically opposed to the situation in North Korea, the people of Iran are quite capable of revolution. They did it a mere two decades ago, so deep down, they know they can “choose again,” if need be. They are a quite unique population in that respect. In addition, Iranians are widely exposed to the outside world in ways North Koreans never dreamed. The explosion of tens of thousands of Iranian weblogs is prime evidence of that. So my gut instinct is that Iran is somewhat “self-correcting,” via the increasing power of the people (look at the reaction and criticism of the government in the aftermath of the tragic earthquake in Bam). I hope that 2004 is the year the people of Iran choose to take control of their country once again, and if it is, we should do everything in our power to help them.

2004 will bring us no closer to peace between the Israelis and Palestinians than 2003 did … or any of the other preceding 55 years. I’ve become convinced there will be no meaningful progress until both Arafat and Sharon are completely out of power. And that’s on my optimistic days. I often think that peace between those people won’t come in my lifetime.

European fracture will continue. I don’t mean the fracture between the U.S. and Europe, I mean the increasingly comical attempts to patch over the gaping cracks in this thing they want to call The European Union. It’s an admirable attempt, but it is becoming clear it’s rather idealistic to think the long and disparate conflicts between those age old “quarrels with borders” can be suddenly cast aside as if they didn’t exist. As evidence, I would be willing to bet that 2004 will end with a Constitution in place for Iraq, but the European Union still won’t be able to agree on one.

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Osama Bin Laden will still be “unaccounted for” at the end of 2004. Heck, I’ll go further. There’s a 75% chance he will remain a fugitive, a 10% chance we will get proof he died two years ago, a 10% chance he will be found in Pakistan, and a 5% chance he will be found … in Iran.

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The War on Terror will escalate, despite the fact all evidence says Al Qaeda is only able to rouse us with periodic holiday related “chatter alerts.” We’ll see more chatter around the 4th of July, again around the third anniversary of 9/11, during the month of Ramadan, and again for the holidays. It’s become entirely predictable, and there’s no reason to think it will change in the coming year.

Having said that, I do think 2004 will see a chemical, biological, or radiological weapon used somewhere in the West. And it won’t be associated with any holiday period, any more than that random day in September was. They’d love to target the US again, and may, but right now I think the West’s “soft underbelly” is Europe. It’s possible they may be so stupid as to target specific Christian “symbols,” in a further attempt to create a religious war with the West.

I hesitate to mention my greatest fear, never mind make it a prediction. I only hope that our enemies aren’t that smart (and the evidence on that is mixed, at best), as the next year presents a unique opportunity to make mayhem in our democratic process. I’d prefer not to get into specifics, but I’m sure those with a creative mind can fill in the blanks. Of course, such mayhem would require an enemy with a strategic vision equal to their tactical abilities, and the evidence on that has been pretty clearly negative. I just hope it continues, as the 2004 election has the potential to make 2000 look like a calm breeze.

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2004 will be the Year of the Biscuit. For a prediction on the personal front, we turn to a running joke in our household. It’s a commonly known fact that a true Southern Wife can make her husband biscuits … from scratch. Now, she doesn’t have to do it every day, or even every month, she just has to have the capability. In fact, prior to our ceremony, I made sure my brother-in-law included it in the vows (he claimed it was covered under the “submitting” clause).

Yet here we are 14 months later, and our marriage has not been fully consummated. But I predict that 2004 will be the Year of the Biscuit.

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For what it’s worth, there you have it. The verbose report from PhotoDude’s Crystal Ball. Pardon the cracks and fog. Please, no wagering, and no refunds.