There's just no way to think about the future and get it right. The other night we were all watching "Back to the Future, Part 2" for about the 900th time. I got a chuckle out of the "Surf Vietnam" poster on a wall in 2015 Hill Valley. In the 1980s, when the film was made, the idea of tourism in Vietnam was about as futuristic as flying cars and hoverboards. Somehow I doubt that we'll have flying cars or hoverboards in the next seven years. But Vietnam tourism? Of course. Why not?

Back in 1994 when I was recruiting a design director for Star Tribune Online, I got a blizzard of applications from artgeeks from as far away as Australia arguing that if I really believed in the new virtual interactive universe I'd hire them and let them work from home.

B (Baltimore Sun) launched last week and a bunch of new Examiner sites in the process of launching in cities where the Examiner doesn't (yet?) publish in print. They share a webby characteristic that's radically different from the typical newspaper: They link. To the competition. Like crazy.

Morris DigitalWorks is looking for a first-rate Web designer to join its award-winning Web development team. This is a design job that requires an understanding of usability principles, site architecture and wireframing as well as the skills necessary to execute high-quality graphics and Flash interactives. XHTML/CSS skills are required and experience with Drupal theming is a definite plus. Email me for a copy of the job description if you're interested or know of a good candidate.

If the world unfolded as predicted by Bill Gates, printed newspapers would be dead in the next four years. While he may turn out to have been directionally correct and merely wrong about the timing, it's been interesting to watch the world change around Microsoft and slowly render the software giant impotent at a time when newspapers continue to hang around and even start new print publications.

I've left unpublished a bunch of comments lately that seem to reflect a new kind of spam.

Since Google's algorithm is known to value inbound links, many of the spam comments that get posted on the Web actually aren't intended for users of the site where they're posted. They're Google spider bait. And when they're posted on a website that has good Google karma -- like mine -- they can help elevate the target site in Google search returns.

Until recently, the comment spam that I routinely delete without publication has been heavy-handed, obvious, and probably automated.

The other day in an email to a friend I referred to "the economic tsunami that seems headed for the U.S. newspaper industry."

Is that overstated? If you recently lost your job in a newsroom cutback, you probably don't think so.

But when I was traveling last week I saw something that surprised me.

The "Boxing Day tsunami" from the 2004 Great Sumatra-Andaman earthquake was a horrible thing, leading to 300,000 deaths and staggering destruction.