Precognization

Around this time of year, you see plenty of folks trying to make predictions about what's going to happen over the next year. Not one to be left out, I have a few surefire predictions about what we can expect to happen:

1. Customers will purchase Windows Vista and Office 2007. There will be both praise and complaints for each.
2. The number of spam e-mail messages sent in 2007 will exceed the number sent in 1997. On the bright side, more of those will be caught by spam filters so long as we're talking strictly by total volume rather than percentage. I make no claims about whether a higher percentage of spam will be caught by the spam filters, though do hope it will
3. More politicians, judges, and/or military personnel will begin blogging. Most of the blogs will not be interesting this year as it's not a major election year. Of course, "interesting" is a matter of personal judgement, but I don't think too many people will disagree with me here.
4. We'll sell more copies of Team Foundation Server, and at least some of those customers will post on the Visual Studio Team System forums with questions. I will personally answer at least one of those questions (post now! it might just be yours...)
5. November will occur after August, barring any extraordinary circumstances and/or clever logical twists.
6. The total amount of internet traffic this year will be on the order of exabytes (today, it's already in hundreds of petabytes, if not over 1 exabyte).

In other news, on my way to work the morning, not two turns from my neighborhood, the car in front of mine came to a complete stop in the middle of the road with no stoplight, sign, etc. to require such a stop. Now, the first commuter reaction to such an event is of course to let loose with the horn. However, having just come off a lovely break, I decided to look around first to see if there might be some other cause.

No bicyclist, person, or... wait! Over by the side of the road, a doe and her kid were standing about 10 feet off the asphalt right at the treeline staring at the passing cars. They took a cautious step towards the road, at which point the stopped driver honked and frightened them back to safety and beyond.

Seeing the two deer this morning was certainly an uplifting experience. Even though the time to relax had ended, it was good to be reminded that there are still beautiful things in the world to stop and pay attention to. Here's hoping for plenty more beauty in the coming year, as well, though I'm not hopeful enough to add it to my predictions.