Ranging from scorn for the lightbulb - 'Everyone acquainted with the subject will recognize it as a conspicuous failure' - to ideas on how life would be lived in the year 2000 - 'By the year 2000, housewives will probably have a robot maid shaped like a box with one large eye on top, several arms and hands, and long narrow pads on the side for moving about' - and offering predictions of failure for everything from the automobile - 'The Japanese don't make anything the people in the US would want' - to the iPod - 'By next Christmas the iPod will be dead, finished, gone, kaput.' - the book uses the gift of hindsight to show why one should never say 'never'.