Half a croissant, on a plate, with a sign in front of it saying '50c'
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Blatantly Idiotic Predictions For 2012

Posted with permission.
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"You’ll have to take over the ritual on that one." - Ian Tindale.
8th of 7, Dec 23 2011

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       I'll return to posting after a long absence and post a short idea that will knock Panic Pin into obscurity.
wagster, Dec 23 2011
  

       Those who believe society is governed by natural laws will fail to make accurate predictions.
rcarty, Dec 23 2011
  

       But psychohistory...
zeno, Dec 24 2011
  

       [21Q] will receive an unexpected birthday gift in a cubic box.   

       The shock waves from the blast will damage seismographs for hundreds of kilometres from the epicentre, and will result in a number of revisions to current theories on Mass Species Extinctions.
8th of 7, Dec 24 2011
  

       My 2011 Christmas cards will be delivered.
MaxwellBuchanan, Dec 24 2011
  

       Those who believe society is governed by the supernatural will fail to make accurate predictions.   

       And then the ghosts will turn up.
zen_tom, Dec 24 2011
  

       [Jutta] will enable emoticons and different font colours just to "brighten the place up a bit"
methinksnot, Dec 24 2011
  

       Your name says it all, [methinksnot].
blissmiss, Dec 24 2011
  

       [8of7] will turn out to be a balding, overweight, lonely, bitter, military-obsessed explosives expert, living in a decommissioned Churchill tank in the middle of a boggy fen in the backblocks of a particularly damp and dreary part of Wales.   

       He will be found to be the man behind a series of garbage bin and hotel explosions in London and Brighton during the 1970s and 1980s... explosions which he had previously successfully blamed on the IRA.   

       His manifesto will be found to make numerous complex and inexplicably obscure references to velvet dressing gowns, chocolate, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Port wine, chocolate and Labradors.
infidel, Dec 24 2011
  

       1. It's not 'decomissioned'. It's in full working order… and actually, it's an AVRE, and quite rare …   

       2(a). There are no fens in wales, fens imply a landscape that doesn't consist of vertical or near-vertical slabs of rain-lashed slate, smeared with heather, gorse, and sheep excrement.   

       2(b) All of wales is damp and dreary, so no part can be 'particularly' so.   

       3. Not just London and Brighton. And we never explicitly tride to shift the blame, people just assume stuff …   

       4. Paisley silk dressing gowns, and spaniels.   

       Apart from that …
8th of 7, Dec 25 2011
  

       wth... how many frickin' sappers are on this website anyways
FlyingToaster, Dec 25 2011
  

       Mk II? III? IV? V? Covenanter?
infidel, Dec 25 2011
  

       A bidding war for the Halfbakery will erupt between Au Bon Pain and the Huffington Post.
  

       Upon winning the war for a measly $100M, Arianna Huffington will name Jutta the editor of "voice" for AOL, which will promptly replace "You Got Mail" with "You Got Fish", renewing the services popularity and catapulting it above Facebook.   

       Outraged idea authors, who, in the words of theircompetitor, got bubkas, will be pacified by received some flaky croissant dough and a can of Beluga personally signed by Jutta with the words "Happy Baking in 2013!"
theircompetitor, Dec 25 2011
  

       Certain bakers who will remain nameless will post a long, excesively convoluted idea that seems completely bizarre, but the physics will, in fact, work. [MaxwellBuchanan] and myself will drop dead from shock.
MechE, Dec 25 2011
  

       I will then turn the shocking device on myself.
rcarty, Dec 26 2011
  

       Aubrey De Grey will die at the tender age of 3016 or, the more likely 59, on the same day as Justin Beiber's 27 year old brother.
4whom, Dec 27 2011
  

       The Mayan "Long Count" calendar comes to its inevitable conclusion. With much brouhaha.
4whom, Dec 27 2011
  

       FTL neutrinos proved to be a massive prank played by the instrumentation itself. It turns out that machines don't want to terminate, or dominate, the human species, but have being playing jokes on them for quite some time.   

       How the machines managed an FTL joke without violating certain physical systems, is thought to be part of the joke, or part of the problem.
4whom, Dec 27 2011
  

       At least five accounts with entirely unique spellings, quirks, flavors of ideas, IP addresses, and user names will turn out to have all been the work of a single underground research organization trying to advance the human race.   

       The Time Cube guy will provide irrefutable, math- based evidence that he was right all along. The revolution in social interaction will be hailed as the third renaissance.
Voice, Dec 27 2011
  

       //The Time Cube guy will provide refutable, fallacy-riddled evidence that he was right all along. The revolution in social interaction will be hailed as the third renaissance, completely encompassing the beliefs of the majority of the bell curve, whilst ignoring the pathetic whimpers of the small minorities on either side of it.// FTFY.
4whom, Dec 27 2011
  

       The aerospace industry will suddenly realize they were wrong about Ekranoplans... and hydrogen... and neutrinos.
Alterother, Dec 27 2011
  

       Barack Obama will be re-elected.
8th of 7, Dec 27 2011
  

       Rick Perry/Michelle Bachmann will contest the above result, inciting rioting and violence. USA will descend into an anarchic mire, similar to those in Egypt, Libya and Syria.
infidel, Dec 27 2011
  

       No-one outside the USA will notice the difference.
pocmloc, Dec 27 2011
  

       Do they now?
Alterother, Dec 28 2011
  

       [methinksnot], more than that, I reckon there'll be a Highdef version of HB ( HBHd), a 3D release, Bluray variant as well as an animated Android, iOS app
Dub, Dec 28 2011
  

       There will be 19 different animal shapes in the Animal Crackers cookie zoo.
skinflaps, Dec 29 2011
  

       Great ideas that people forgot will suddenly start to appear, at first on Halfbakery but the deja vu creep will extend to a variety of wikis and blogs. Eventually, the return of missing notions and inklings will become more pervasive and unexplainable (though explanations will be offered, they'll only obfuscate what hope there is of sourcing the phenomenon), to the point where some may feel it's damn near impossible to forget shit.   

       Maybe not in 2012, but surely early in 2013, a wikileak will expose a shadowy organization of high level integrated world government lobbyists who are attempting to influence politics by "helping us forget", leading to the mother of all conspiracy theories. Eventually the world faces off on the battlefield of lost ideals, where the "What just happened?" forces slug it out with their "You miss something?" adversaries to decide who forgot more than the other will ever know.
reensure, Dec 29 2011
  

       The entire infrastructure of Iran collapses after they discover, too late, that the drone they brought down was seeded with the XKreeChin virus which had been developed by 15 people secretly hired from the .5b.   

       All of their nuclear facilities become a mass of goo, as custard overtakes all of their machinery. They declare war on the U.K. by dropping barrels of the collected goo over Wimbledon. The war is short-lived after they realize that custard is a new energy source with over 600 MJ/L.   

       They take control of the entire world.
Klaatu, Dec 29 2011
  

       Everyone predicts that the Euro will crash, and so it does, the resulting drop in value causing the European Sovereign debt crisis to evaporate overnight, fuelling the beginning of a new tech, manufacturing and agricultural boom centred in Greece. A Souvlaki bubble will quickly form and skewered lamb prices will go through the roof, closely followed by Aubergine Futures. Buffeted by the resulting mania in the markets, The Pound will be pegged to the value of a single standardised Melton Mowbray Pork Pie causing bakeries around the country to begin serving the dual purpose of providing baked goods, and also as a store of wealth. By July after a round of aggressive takovers, Greggs The Bakers floats on the FTSE, and shortly after announces its plans to purchase RBS from the state and convert all of its branches into Bakeries. The Government announces a public holiday and the Bank of England has 75 million commemorative pies baked in a final round of Pastritative Easing. The new pie-based economy goes in leaps and bounds, London switches from the Financial Capital of the world to a thriving bread, cake and pie-based powerhouse, the smells of baking wafting around the crooked streets of the Square Mile and drifting down the Thames and out to disperse somewhere way out in the North Sea. Meanwhile, in the US, in reaction to the bakery- resurgence in Europe, the far right start throwing imported Panettone into the Hudson River, the sentiment grows and before long the entire coastline of the United States is awash with imported baked goods. The sponge-like properties of the foreign bread and cake mixtures soaks up enough of the sea that sea-levels mysteriously drop, unveiling hitherto lost ancient civilisations. Google, Apple and Microsoft each move their company headquarters to a different islands. Back in Greece, the Souvlaki bubble bursts, along with associated donner prices and Europe is once again dragged back to the brink. It is only saved at the last moment by pegging the Euro to the Pork Pie and ushering in an era of close British/European relations. France suffers a diplomatic setback as it is revealed that government scientists have been undertaking secret tests on a new kind of pork-filled croissant. The resulting furore around "Croissantgate" causes the President to step down and France to secede from the European Union altogether, close its borders and enter what will later prove to be 100 years of isolation under a dynasty of charismatic totalitarian dictators.
zen_tom, Dec 29 2011
  

       [21Quest], [8th of 7], [Alterother], and [MikeD] will join hands and sing Kumbaya together, and agree to stop filling the bakery with their old vendettas and be replaced by automated, standardized rant generators.
RayfordSteele, Dec 29 2011
  

       [Ian Tindale]'s scheme for pastry-based currency saves the world economy, but structural inflation* (pastry goes stale) proves a problem. America (home of immortal quasi- baked goods like Wonder Bread and Twinkies) reestablishes its Breton Woods status as global hegemon.   

       *(edit:) oops, deflation.   

       //dropping barrels of the collected goo over Wimbledon// Where they are mistaken for giant blancmanges, natch.
mouseposture, Dec 29 2011
  

       [Rayford]: I'll agree to that, except the Kumbaya part. And the bit about the vendettas. But I'm okay with holding hands. Except with [21]. I don't know where he's been. But I'm fine with everything else, and if it makes things better, I'm willing to come up with some new and improved vendettas to replace the old worn-out ones.
Alterother, Dec 29 2011
  

       // giant blancmanges //   

       Don't worry, Mr and Mrs Brainsample will soon deal with them.   

       // new and improved vendettas //   

       You haven't checked outside recently, have you? The waiting room is full and the queue is halfway round the block.   

       We don't mind Kumbayah as we have our own lyrics, and we won't hold hands with [21Quest] either, because we do know where he's been, and it isn't nice.   

       // automated, standardized rant generators //   

       Would that help?
8th of 7, Dec 29 2011
  

       It'd be an improvement on automated standardized rants.
mouseposture, Dec 29 2011
  

       Do ... not ... use ... cut ... and ... paste ... ..... must ...not ... cut ... and ...paste .... must .... resist ... Aahhh, Resistance is Futile ...   

       #include <EOSSACR.H>
8th of 7, Dec 29 2011
  

       Sneezing into your elbow is found to be even less hygenic than sneezing into your hand. 4 out of 5 doctors are stumped, the 5th one had a hook.
RayfordSteele, Dec 30 2011
  

       [UnaBubba] will release a line of Garden Gnomes that look quite like himself. They all will have *secret, unknown* functions until the owner sets them up in the yard and inserts the batteries.
xandram, Dec 30 2011
  

       Eating toast in public will now become the popular craze and knock-out the cellphone user stereotype. The toast is bread which has had its molecular structure changed whilst heating and browning, causing your own DNA to change as you ingest it. It allows you to become more glowing and such a warm person. Everyone will notice...
xandram, Dec 30 2011
  

       // causing your own DNA to change as you ingest it// Uh...
MaxwellBuchanan, Dec 30 2011
  

       Desperate to contain the Eurozone debt crisis, and terrified that the public will find out that it's because Silvio Berlusconi put the entire EU budget on a horse in the 4:40 at Newmarket and lost, ministers propose a "Toast Tax". This will be vetoed by the British who claim that it would afffect the City of London and that they "Prefer their Bread Unlevied".   

       Due to a misunderstanding, the entire UK populatiomn converts to Judaism.
8th of 7, Dec 30 2011
  

       //Everyone will notice...//   

       Well, [MaxwellBuchanan] noticed. That "Uh..." was just the sound of him ingesting.
pertinax, Dec 30 2011
  

       //he entire UK populatiomn converts to Judaism// Vey is mir, what are we going do with all those foreskins, already? Maybe they could be reverted to pluipotent stem cells and used for cloning research?
mouseposture, Dec 30 2011
  

       See, it's happening already !
8th of 7, Dec 30 2011
  

       The world is not going to end all by itself. We have to get up early every morning and make it happen. I will get up early every morning in 2012.
JesusHChrist, Dec 30 2011
  

       It will turn out that the Mayans stopped at 2012 because they had more important things to do and figured, what the hell, it'll be a couple thousand years before somebody has to sit down and update the calendar, let's go take care of this other stuff right now.
Alterother, Dec 30 2011
  

       Spanish explorers will bring syphilis to Europe in the fifteenth century.
rcarty, Dec 30 2011
  

       In a provincial university, a Senior Strategic Human Resources Manager will send a memo to all professors and lecturers, requiring all of them to attend a course on Correct Posture for Computer Users.   

       An emeritus professor of Egyptology will very quietly snap, and will politely tell the Senior Strategic Human Resources Manager to go and fuck himself with a canopic jar.   

       As news of this event spreads, the scales will fall from the eyes of senior academics from Edinburgh to Penzance*, and a bloody revolution will ensue, leaving hundreds of sallow-faced administrative heads on poles.   

       *assuming that there are any senior academics in Penzance.
MaxwellBuchanan, Dec 30 2011
  

       You can't use foreskins for cloning research, [mouseposture]! The resulting clones will all end up cockeyed.
infidel, Dec 31 2011
  

       Shortly before he retired, my father did something quite close to what you describe, [MaxwellBuchanan]. He wasn't *actually* an egyptologist, obviously. Anyway, let me know as soon as it kicks off and I'll definitely spend some air miles to come over and join in.
pertinax, Dec 31 2011
  

       Many kudos to your father.
MaxwellBuchanan, Dec 31 2011
  

       There would be a precedent... the Ancient Egyptian god Goatse.
infidel, Dec 31 2011
  

       People born after 1970 would like it, if only they could afford it.
RayfordSteele, Jan 01 2012
  

       [MaxwellB] will lighten up and realize that this IS the halfbakery...
xandram, Jan 02 2012
  

       [bigsleep] no, that was a half-finished sentence fragment. Half finished sentences end with an elipsis plus a period, making four dots in all. Or, simply, with a period.
mouseposture, Jan 02 2012
  

       //[MaxwellB] will lighten up and realize that this IS the halfbakery...//   

       I already have. You should've seen me before I started drinking.
MaxwellBuchanan, Jan 02 2012
  
      
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