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Re:1/25-scale Cray C90 wristwatch by nabla9 on Wednesday June 19, 2024 @02:50PM (#40731260)
This would be a great prop for time travel scifi movie.

Protagonist travels to 1991 and tries to convince scientist to help him. When asked for a proof, shows Gray C90 Wristwatch. "Our real computers are different, but I show you this because it does not pollute the timeline."

Re:1/25-scale Cray C90 wristwatch by iancmceachern on Wednesday June 19, 2024 @04:08PM (#40731913)
This is refreshing. A premise for a time travel movie that is both accurate in terms of its portrait of computers, and it doesn't present basic time travel "oopsies" .
Re:1/25-scale Cray C90 wristwatch by fentonc on Wednesday June 19, 2024 @04:09PM (#40731923)
I'm definitely packing this with me if I ever time travel.
Re:1/25-scale Cray C90 wristwatch by julianeon on Thursday June 20, 2024 @01:21AM (#40735179)
My premise for a time travel movie is very simple.

1. Buy a book on probability. Work through the practice exercises.

2. Time travel back to a time before the laws of probability were invented or taken seriously. Pre-1600's would be a good guess.

3. Become a gambler.

4. With the riches that will soon be pouring into your pockets, acquire resources and transform history.

Re:1/25-scale Cray C90 wristwatch by kqr on Thursday June 20, 2024 @02:02AM (#40735417)
The issue with getting rich gambling is not knowing the probability, it's getting other people to continue paying you when you win large amounts and/or consistently.

Even in today's professional gambling establishments (financial markets) big winners are often cut off in the name of stability.

Re:1/25-scale Cray C90 wristwatch by Cthulhu_ on Thursday June 20, 2024 @02:47AM (#40735676)
If you know the exact results (like Biff in Back to the Future), winning things like lotteries or horse race results multiple times will draw attention.

Actually, any kind of money hoarding - moreso than anyone else - will draw the attention. Which might be OK, of course, but if you make waves that are too big, you'll affect global policy and the course of (economic) history, and all your predictions may be off.

But, getting significant but non-controlling stakes in various successful stocks might work. You'd be like Warren Buffet, who I consider to be rich, but otherwise anonymous.

Re:1/25-scale Cray C90 wristwatch by yard2010 on Thursday June 20, 2024 @07:03AM (#40737237)
In other words you end up in manure anyway.
Re:1/25-scale Cray C90 wristwatch by mnw21cam on Thursday June 20, 2024 @01:16PM (#40740992)
I actually loved the side-plot in "About Time" where the main character went back in time and changed something and then they had a different child and then had to undo their change.
Re:1/25-scale Cray C90 wristwatch by wbl on Thursday June 20, 2024 @11:06AM (#40739570)
Create life and casualty insurance!
Re:1/25-scale Cray C90 wristwatch by kqr on Saturday June 22, 2024 @03:54AM (#40757259)
Illegal in that period. Something like shipping insurance can be built from a repurchase agreement and this may get around usury/gambling laws, but how do you do that for life insurance? That takes more legal than probability knowledge. Also do you have the skills to combat insurance fraud?
Re:1/25-scale Cray C90 wristwatch by wbl on Monday June 24, 2024 @01:27PM (#40778640)
Annuities are the same math but different product, and got valued first by Haley. I'm not aware of life insurance being illegal per se, and there might be ways to work around it via structuring as a fraternal organization ala the origins of the insurance industry in the US.
Re:1/25-scale Cray C90 wristwatch by ponector on Thursday June 20, 2024 @01:58AM (#40735391)
Gambling is not the way to get rich.

To get really rich you need to aquire people, their time and productivity. Instead of probability you need means to get people's minds so with them you can conquer territories and establish kingdom to be really rich.

Re:1/25-scale Cray C90 wristwatch by maxwell on Thursday June 20, 2024 @10:07AM (#40738956)
It's always the accent that gives away time travellers.

Only real possibilities to avoid exile/asylum/imprisonment/execution for most of history would seem to hinge on predicting celestial events and making gunpowder, as Twain observed.

Re:1/25-scale Cray C90 wristwatch by justsomehnguy on Thursday June 20, 2024 @01:56AM (#40735377)
Travel to May 22, 2010.

Buy two large pizzas, cheese and 'supreme'.

Be earlier than that guy.

Credits.

Re:1/25-scale Cray C90 wristwatch by Karellen on Thursday June 20, 2024 @06:11AM (#40736921)
3. Become a bookmaker/start a casino.

It's like being a gambler, but you get to stack the odds in your favour, deliberately, tell people you've done so, and have everyone be fine with that. If you use any knowledge of future events to stack a few odds a little more in your favor, no-one's going to know any different, and they'll attribute any weird variances in your income to the punters who all made poor bets, rather than to your mad odds-setting skills.

If you're going to gamble, always be the house. Only a complete moron can lose money that way.

Re:1/25-scale Cray C90 wristwatch by technothrasher on Thursday June 20, 2024 @07:30AM (#40737427)
I used to have a system to play the instant lottery multiple times a day and make every single ticket a winner... I owned a liquor store that sold tickets. We made enough on lottery sales to cover our payroll completely.
Re:1/25-scale Cray C90 wristwatch by cess11 on Thursday June 20, 2024 @06:34AM (#40737075)
5. Eventually get bludgeoned to death in a moist alleyway.
Re:1/25-scale Cray C90 wristwatch by maxwell on Thursday June 20, 2024 @10:00AM (#40738884)
Set where? Gambling was criminalized in the UK in 1541 and Europe's first legal gambling house didn't open until 1638.

Maybe they learn roulette strategy and show up right after Pascal invented the roulette wheel while he was trying to produce a perpetual motion machine (which could play a role in the time machine's tech itself too, which could resemble a "grande roue," visually akin to a g-force centrifuge or particle accelerator).

Re:1/25-scale Cray C90 wristwatch by ngcc_hk on Thursday June 20, 2024 @09:38PM (#40745333)
Do you know until fisher comes asking probability or the Bayesian version is always about gambling. Mostly as we have evolution type but …

Might be a time traveller.

Re:1/25-scale Cray C90 wristwatch by ngcc_hk on Thursday June 20, 2024 @09:36PM (#40745320)
It still did just you being there and a small computer not tons weight.

No news so far of alien visit or time traveller … but it might be hard if they tried to avoid us … except for selling something like enterprise Vulcan did to help education fund which is more physical and hence possible.