I love it when someone goes out on a limb and makes a prediction. It shows boldness. I also love it when those predictions turn out to be thoroughly, utterly, and irredeemably false. I don't like it when it happens to me, of course...but when it happens to someone else, it's pretty funny.

In a February 1995 article, Newsweek writer Clifford Stoll predicted that the Internet would never really amount to anything. He scoffed at the so-called experts in the field, declaring in a fairly smug way that there's no way a series of tubes would amount to anything. Here's my favorite part:

Nicholas Negroponte, director of the MIT Media Lab, predicts that we'll soon buy books and newspapers straight over the Intenet. Uh, sure.

See? Funny. Read the entire article for yourself!