China will remain on-schedule with their build-up of nuclear plants (70%) and will announce that they are once again increasing their goal for nuclear generation capacity by 2020 above their current target of 112 GWe (50%). The mainstream position of major environmentalist groups in Europe and North America will continue to be that nuclear plants are always delayed and far over budget, even as China continues to demonstrate otherwise (90%).
Cloud computing will see two big trends. First, commoditization: there will be more choices, and significantly better interoperability between those choices (80%). Second, Amazon Web Services will continue to roll out interesting new services, and everybody else in the market will either be playing catch-up or trying to focus on different niches, but not leading the market in any significant way (70%).
Iran will not produce a nuclear bomb in 2011 (90%). North Korea will continue saber rattling, but will not be involved in a war (80%).
There will be a second season of High School of the Dead, allowing me to get my zombie action fix for the year (60%). I know this is crushingly inconsequential, but zombies are fun.
SpaceX will successfully complete orbit-matching and docking with the International Space Station (60%), as well as the first flight of their Falcon 1e rocket (70%). Conditioning on success in the ISS docking, the first two resupply missions will succeed (80%). All within 2011.
ONE YEAR LATER: I am too damn optimistic. The highly publicized accident at Fukushima caused China to delay their nuclear build-up. My cloud computing predictions were accurate, but also super conservative, and so were the ones about Iran and North Korea. There wasn’t a second season of Highschool of the Dead; just a fairly disappointing one-episode OVA. The Falcon 1e looks delayed, and the first docking of the Falcon 9 with the Space Station is scheduled for early 2012, which is nice, but still not 2011, so that prediction didn’t quite come true.
China will remain on-schedule with their build-up of nuclear plants (70%) … The mainstream position of major environmentalist groups in Europe and North America will continue to be that nuclear plants are always delayed and far over budget, even as China continues to demonstrate otherwise (90%).
Is this the conjunction fallacy here? I read this as P (China on schedule) = 70% but P (enviros dis nukes & China on schedule) = 90%.
Do you mean P (enviros dis nukes | China on schedule) = 90%, or P (enviros dis nukes) = 90% with the reference to China a rhetorical flourish?
Looks like I could have phrased that better. My 70% prediction was that China would remain overall on schedule. My “China continues to demonstrate otherwise” statement only requires that a significant number of China’s nuke plants continue to be on schedule and under budget, which requires much less conjunction of events. For example, if huge setbacks arise for the construction of AP1000 reactors, but China’s CPR1000 reactors continue to be constructed cheaply and smoothly, then this could invalidate my first prediction but not the second.
That’s a nice thing about China’s approach to nuclear build-up: they’re going with a bunch of different designs and approaches, from conventional gigawatt behemoths to Russian fast breeders to indigenously-designed pebble beds. If something doesn’t pan out, they may not meet their goals, but they have a high probability of one or more approach working smoothly. So far, it looks like everything is going according to plan.
In retrospect, you’re right. Bump up the no-war-in-NK probability. It’s funny how assigning a lower probability to X feels cautious, but assigning a higher probability to not-X feels risky, even though it’s just two ways of saying the same damn thing. I think there’s a top-level post in this somewhere.
China will remain on-schedule with their build-up of nuclear plants (70%) and will announce that they are once again increasing their goal for nuclear generation capacity by 2020 above their current target of 112 GWe (50%). The mainstream position of major environmentalist groups in Europe and North America will continue to be that nuclear plants are always delayed and far over budget, even as China continues to demonstrate otherwise (90%).
Cloud computing will see two big trends. First, commoditization: there will be more choices, and significantly better interoperability between those choices (80%). Second, Amazon Web Services will continue to roll out interesting new services, and everybody else in the market will either be playing catch-up or trying to focus on different niches, but not leading the market in any significant way (70%).
Iran will not produce a nuclear bomb in 2011 (90%). North Korea will continue saber rattling, but will not be involved in a war (80%).
There will be a second season of High School of the Dead, allowing me to get my zombie action fix for the year (60%). I know this is crushingly inconsequential, but zombies are fun.
SpaceX will successfully complete orbit-matching and docking with the International Space Station (60%), as well as the first flight of their Falcon 1e rocket (70%). Conditioning on success in the ISS docking, the first two resupply missions will succeed (80%). All within 2011.
ONE YEAR LATER: I am too damn optimistic. The highly publicized accident at Fukushima caused China to delay their nuclear build-up. My cloud computing predictions were accurate, but also super conservative, and so were the ones about Iran and North Korea. There wasn’t a second season of Highschool of the Dead; just a fairly disappointing one-episode OVA. The Falcon 1e looks delayed, and the first docking of the Falcon 9 with the Space Station is scheduled for early 2012, which is nice, but still not 2011, so that prediction didn’t quite come true.
Iran: http://predictionbook.com/predictions/2032
What is saber-rattling in a Korean context? Does it involve no fatalities? Then it overlaps with http://predictionbook.com/predictions/2097
HSotD: http://predictionbook.com/predictions/2104 (BTW, you know there’s an OVA slated for 2011, right? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highschool_of_the_Dead#Anime )
SpaceX/ISS: http://predictionbook.com/predictions/2105
Falcon maiden flight: http://predictionbook.com/predictions/2106
Resupply: http://predictionbook.com/predictions/2107
Is this the conjunction fallacy here? I read this as P (China on schedule) = 70% but P (enviros dis nukes & China on schedule) = 90%.
Do you mean P (enviros dis nukes | China on schedule) = 90%, or P (enviros dis nukes) = 90% with the reference to China a rhetorical flourish?
Looks like I could have phrased that better. My 70% prediction was that China would remain overall on schedule. My “China continues to demonstrate otherwise” statement only requires that a significant number of China’s nuke plants continue to be on schedule and under budget, which requires much less conjunction of events. For example, if huge setbacks arise for the construction of AP1000 reactors, but China’s CPR1000 reactors continue to be constructed cheaply and smoothly, then this could invalidate my first prediction but not the second.
That’s a nice thing about China’s approach to nuclear build-up: they’re going with a bunch of different designs and approaches, from conventional gigawatt behemoths to Russian fast breeders to indigenously-designed pebble beds. If something doesn’t pan out, they may not meet their goals, but they have a high probability of one or more approach working smoothly. So far, it looks like everything is going according to plan.
OK, thanks.
Wow, you think the North Korea situation’s that bad? A one in five chance of war seems too high for me.
In retrospect, you’re right. Bump up the no-war-in-NK probability. It’s funny how assigning a lower probability to X feels cautious, but assigning a higher probability to not-X feels risky, even though it’s just two ways of saying the same damn thing. I think there’s a top-level post in this somewhere.