Predictions for 2021

Humans are notoriously poor at assigning probabilities to events, even those that are highly relevant to their daily lives. This year I’m making a deliberate attempt to calibrate my prediction abilities by correlating predictions with reality. The judgments of truth of these outcomes will be made on December 31, 2021, although some of the outcomes will have been decided substantially in advance of that.

Coronavirus

1. An effective vaccine will be widely available in Canada: 70%.
2. I will have received a coronavirus vaccine: 65%
3. I will have personally contracted coronavirus infection: 20%
4. Someone in my household will have contracted coronavirus: 20%
5. Schools in London-Middlesex will close due to coronavirus outbreak: 30%
6. U.S. deaths from COVID-19 > 300,000: 60%
7. YAPCA will resume in-person activities before end of term because of lifting coronavirus restrictions: 15%
8. Violin lessons will resume in-person before the end of term because of lifting coronavirus restrictions: 20%
9. Daily case counts exceed 30 on any day in 2021 for London-Middlesex: 50%.

Politics

1. Joe Biden will be elected to the U.S. Presidency: 80%
2. Donald Trump will officially concede the election if he is defeated: 10%
3. The U.S. Senate will change to Democratic control: 60%
4. The U.S. House of Representatives will remain in Democratic control: 99%
5. Joe Biden will die or become impaired in office: 10%
6. Florida’s electoral votes go to Biden: 45%
7. Michigan’s electoral votes go to Biden: 50%
8. Pennsylvania’s electoral votes go to Biden: 60%
9. Ohio’s electoral votes go to Biden: 20%
10. Wisonsin’s electoral votes go to Biden: 40%
11. Arizona’s electoral votes go to Biden: 55%
12. Lindsey Graham is defeated: 30%
13. Mitch McConnell is defeated: 10%
14. Susan Collins is defeated: 45%
15. Results of election are known by November 5, 2020: 60%
16. Donald Trump attends the Inauguration ceremonies: 20%
17. Boris Johnson is still UK PM: 60%
18. Justin Trudeau is still Canadian PM: 70%
19. Queen Elizabeth dies: 20%
20. Prince Philip dies: 30%
21. Roe v. Wade is overturned: 10%
22. Coney-Barrett is confirmed: 100%

Family

1. [redacted]: 70%
2. [redacted]: 50%
3. [redacted]: 60%
4. [redacted]: 80%
5. [redacted]: 30%
6. [redacted]: 50%
7. We own a third dog: 25%
8. [redacted]: 20%
9. [redacted]: 20%
10. Any member of our immediate family household travels on an airliner: 40%
11. Audra has a new car: 25%
12. [redacted]: 20%
13. Interlochen holds in-person summer camp: 40%

Russian

1. I complete Anki reviews on 100% of days: 70%
2. I complete Anki reviews on at least 80% of days: 80%
3. My tutor-rated speaking ability is improved by at least 25% on a 0-10 scale: 70%
4. I’ve read at least 6 short stories in Russian: 25%
5. I do prosody practice on at least 50% of days: 10%

Writing

1. I write more than 5 articles on Suzuki Experience: 40%
2. I write more than 12 articles on Ojisanseiuichi.com: 60%

Technology/Economy

1. I purchase a new laptop: 15%
2. I purchase a new cell phone: 10%
3. I set up a VPN for privacy purposes: 65%
4. I cancel my Facebook account: 20%
5. I check Facebook less than twice a day on 80% of days: 90%
6. I resume using Instagram: 20%
7. I’m using a text editor other than Sublime or Atom: 50%
8. I unblock Twitter: 10%
9. DJIA closes above 30,000: 60% 10 I update to new major macOS version: 60%

Personal

1. I workout on at least 80% of days: 20%
2. I workout on at least 50% of days: 40%
3. I workout on at least 25% of days: 50%
4. I take an SSRI or related medication: 30%
5. [redacted]: 60%
6. I sit zazen on at least 80% of days: 10%
7. I sit zazen on at least 50% of days: 30%
8. I sit zazen on at least 25% of days: 40%
9. I write 2021 goals: 95%
10. I complete all 2021 goals: 10%
11. I complete more than 50% of 2021 goals: 50%
12. We begin kitchen renovation: 15%
13. [redacted]: 60%
14. I read more than 10 books: 20%
15. I read more than 5 books: 90%
16. I read more than 4 novels: 15%
17. I travel anywhere on an airliner: 10%
18. I install radio transceiver in back lock: 60%
19. I install USB charger outlet behind office cabinet: 25%
20. I can play Rachmaninoff partita transcription from memory: 30%

As part of a Hazel rule to process downloaded mp3 files, I worked out a couple different methods for extracting the ID3 title tag. Not rocket science, but it took a little time to sort out. Both rely on non-standard third-party tools, both for parsing the text and for extracting the ID3 tags.

Extracting ID3 title with ffprobe

ffprobe is part of the ffmpeg suite of tools which on macOS can be installed with Homebrew. If you don’t have the latter, go install it now; because it opens up so many tools for your use. In this case, it makes ffmpeg available via brew install ffmpeg.

With that in place, extracting the title is just:

title=$(ffprobe -loglevel error -show_entries format_tags=title -of 
   default=noprint_wrappers=1:nokey=1 $file)

Extracting ID3 title with id3info

id3info is part of the id3tool suite of tools installed using - you guessed it - Homebrew. This solution also uses sd (brew install sd.) The latter is a more intuitive search and displace tool than the old stand-by sed.

IFS=$'\r\n'
tit2=""
for ln in $( id3info $file ); do
    if echo $ln | grep -q "TIT2"
    then
        tit2=$( echo $ln | sd '.*TIT2.*: (.*).*' '$1' );
        break;
    fi
done

Or a one-liner using perl:

echo $( id3info $file ) | perl -ne 'print $1 if /TIT2.*?\:\s+(.*?)\s===/;'

References

• sd - intuitive search and displace - a sed replacement
• ffmpeg - play, record, convert, and stream audio and video
• id3tool - ID3 editing tool
• Bash for loop - a short tutorial on the Bash for loop - something that I wasn’t really proficient at. Always good to revist.