John Gruber calls it “Claim Chowder” where someone predicts something in the future that is shown as completely wrong, as the future catches up to those claims.

As I’m going through my 900+ blog entries to make sure internal links are working, and having a good chuckle at the expense of myself (after all, what’s not funny about making an obliviot of yourself?), I do find the occasional entry that stops me in my tracks.

For instance, this entry from 2007, before Joost van der Westhuizen divorced his wife and was diagnosed with ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis). In the article I linked to, he was participating in a scam to do with mineral water that could allegedly repair DNA and slow the ageing process.

It’s sad because he was taken in by this scam, and I mocked him for it. Now that he’s probably going to die in the next five years from ALS, I feel kind of guilty for making fun of him. It’s claim chowder, sure, but it’s also some guy’s life we’re talking about. (Update: He died in 2017.)

It makes you think.