Whoa. The year 2010. Picofarad #20. How the hell did that happen?
I wonder, in amidst the flying cars and jetpacks, how close to the mark have predictions about future fandom been? Well, we've yet to have a con on the Moon or in space, and fandom has not grayed away to nothing, all of which has been earnestly predicted for as long as I can remember. Did anyone guess that 21st-century Corflus would allow people to be telepresent from around the world? That intense Anglophilia would find itself sharing the fannish stage with intense Japanophilia? That Harlan Ellison would still be alive and The Last Dangerous Visions still unpublished by now? C'mon, someone has to at least have gotten that.
And yes, speaking of failed predictions, the Harry Potter contest has continued to not set the world on fire and has been closed due to lack of entries. And so we are forced to admit the inevitable conclusion that J. K. Rowling did in fact make major thematic borrowings from a work she had never read, heard of, or made any sort of contact with. On to the next controversy, then.