emilehermans.com

There might be more than a grain of truth in the old Soviet joke
"the future is certain, it is the past that is unpredictable," referring
to totalitarian regimes controlling not only the future but also the
past. Interestingly, what is assumed through the same jokemis an
inversion of conventional sense of time.

Perhaps it is not a coincidence then, that the familiar CCTV dome
camera looks like an upside-down crystal ball; the collective memory
of a surveillance network can, to a certain degree, determine future
behavior. Also similar to a crystal ball is the 'magic 8-ball', a novelty
item used for fortune telling. Of its twenty possible responses, "it is
certain" is most poetic.