The prediction game

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The rules are very simple. You make predictions, and commit to them by posting the MD5 hash on this thread. Then, when your prediction comes true, you post the original prediction, link to the post with the commitment, and declare your superiority.

If, for some strange reason, your prediction doesn't come true, then it just stays in hash format, forever unreadable.

For example, my prediction might be "The Dow Jones Industrial Average will drop more than 40 points on April 4, 2008." I md5sum that, and post the following:

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d412262bf9168228f6fff9468d683d2b

Then I save the prediction somewhere on my computer (important!) and wait. Tomorrow, if the Dow does drop, I make a new post:

My prediction at <link to post with the md5sum> verified! The original prediction was:

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The Dow Jones Industrial Average will drop more than 40 points on April 4, 2008.

and the md5sum was generated using gtools.com.

<Insert triumphant language here.>

The reason I include the tool I used is to make sure that you can reproduce it with the least trouble. If you tried saving that sentence in a file, for example, you might end up with an additional newline at the end, which could screw things up. On the other hand, if there WERE a newline, then the md5sum would be different on different operating systems. So make sure to include as much detail as possible when you reveal one of your predictions, so that we can verify them easily.

Additional notes:

Predictions don't count if the post is edited. I am arbitrarily declaring that you may edit your post within 1 hour of the original post time without invalidating the prediction (unless, of course, the prediction is something that will come true within the hour). You can also edit it if it's the last post in the thread (obviously).

Do not succumb to the temptation to make two complementary predictions. For example: "The Dow Jones Industrial Average will rise tomorrow" and "The Dow Jones Industrial Average will fall tomorrow." Tsk tsk.

Try to word your predictions clearly. If you say "Something bad will happen tomorrow", no one cares. Also, remember that not everyone is in the same time zone as you, if that matters, so specify date and time (like I did in my example).

You can use this tool to compute MD5 hashes.

I'll start with a few predictions:

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2ac977d23af85b2b5f7964ea6c4b668c

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cf10524d070d85f58ae33779d5150890

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ee412b6a17f14d90a4e3dd90aa802ddf