Okay! I've picked a smartarse title. Now what?

The BBC ran a story today concerning the predictions made by a super computer fed millions of news articles. Apparently it retrospectively predicted the revolutions in Libya and Egypt. The same story goes on to explain that the process could be used to predict future events by analysing massive amounts of data from the news media.

BBC News: Super Computer Predicts Revolution

In his Foundation series of novels Isaac Asimov described a new science called Psychohistory; this allowed those in the know to predict the likely course of evens by looking at the history, sociology and mathematical statistics of very large groups of people. If you haven't read it go and buy a copy immediately; trust me you'll be glad you did, and may even feel the need to thank me.

Of course this isn't the same thing at all, although I do believe it's yet another example of the prescience of good science fiction. When you've read Foundation just remind yourself how long ago Asimov wrote it, and feel your admiration and appreciation grow for a master storyteller and his singular imagination.