My take on the Shift Happens videos and how sometimes knowledge really doesn't help us at all, just adds further to our gloom!
Soundtrack the Shock of recognition by John Metcalf, brilliant bit of music!
Phil George
4. Did you know? If you are one in a million people in China...
5. Did you know You are probably not a member of the English Aristocracy!
6. Did you know During the last 12 minutes. 5000 people have lost their jobs 900 people have had their motorcycles stolen 25,000 people have used the word spigot 3 people have spontaneously combusted 27 cats have developed hearing problems At least a dozen elastic bands will have snapped.
7. Did you know The 5% of the population in China With the highest IQ’s
9. This means.... 5 Chinese people In every 100 Chinese people Are more clever Than the other 95 people.... Although one of them is bound to be the stupidest ...
10. Multiply this by 500 million! China has at least 5,000,000 not very bright losers. That is more than the entire population of Manchester! Eh, that's people, not 5 million not very bright losers in Manchester.... ?
11. Did you know China will soon become the number one English speaking country in the world! However, very few Chinese people can speak Welsh. On the other hand quite a lot of Welsh people speak English and some are learning Chinese. What does that tell you about the Welsh.....?
12. Experts predict... Today’s learners will have between 10 and 14 jobs by age 38. The top 10 jobs in 2010 did not exist in 2004. We are currently preparing students for jobs that don’t yet exist. Predictions are that by 2013 a supercomputer will be built that exceeds the computation capability of the human brain..
13. Experts also predicted “The world potential market for copying machines is 5000 at most.”IBM, to the eventual founders of Xerox, saying the photocopier had no market large enough to justify production, 1959. “Transmission of documents via telephone wires is possible in principle, but the apparatus required is so expensive that it will never become a practical proposition.”Dennis Gabor, British physicist and author of Inventing the Future, 1962 “The war… will last… six days, six weeks… I doubt six months.”Donald Rumsfeld on the Iraq War “…civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind,”biologist George Wald, Harvard University, April 19, 1970 “With over fifteen types of foreign cars already on sale here, the Japanese auto industry isn’t likely to carve out a big share of the market for itself.”Business Week, August 2, 1968 “But what… is it good for?”IBM executive Robert Lloyd, speaking in 1968 about the microprocessor, the heart of today’s computers.
14. .....and this...... “There is not the slightest indication that nuclear energy will ever be obtainable. It would mean that the atom would have to be shattered at will.” — Albert Einstein, 1932
15. ....and this.... ...There is no doubt that the regime of Saddam Hussein possesses weapons of mass destruction. As this operation continues, those weapons will be identified, found, along with the people who have produced them and who guard them. General Tommy Franks, March 22nd, 2003.
16. Anti- Social Networks Facebook has over 300 million members That is the equivalent of the population of the USA. Not many of these people are Chinese China has banned Facebook, Twitter and most other social networking tools..... Even for the 5,000,000 not very bright losers.. (who arguably could network with people with similar interests?)
17. Did you know... If you took every single job in the UK today and shipped them to China....
18. No one in the UK would have a job. Which is bad!
19. ...and anyway.... How would people in Zhengzhou province for example, get to work on the checkouts in Sainsbury‘s Croydon? Is that Sutton down there? Hooray No, Carshalton we shall soon be in Croydon!
20. Did you know... In March 2009 Google searches reached 293 million per day! In January 2010 the number of text sent in the UK were 11 million per hour. 177.7 million laptops were sold during 2009 There are now an estimated 10 million eBooks available What does this mean?
21. Whoa.. far out man, these are like huge numbers, they like, give me a headache just looking at them... bummer man.... not cool, dig?
