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"Time-Traveler" Busted For Insider Trading

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the making-the-rounds dept.

Chester sent in a story that has been making the rounds for a bit, but if you haven't bumped into it, "Yahoo! TV came up with this weird story about a guy who caught police's attention by gaining $350 million from mere $800 in two weeks. The twisted part is that he justifies his knowledge about stocks by saying he is a time-traveler from year 2256!"

5 of 534 comments (clear)

  1. Re:HOAX REVEALED! by AzrealAO · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It's funny, this get's posted, but my news submissions about AOL/Time Warner trying to weasel out of the IM Interoperability order that was a condition of their merger, was rejected twice.

  2. from the World Weekly News by Vorgo · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I didn't realize that stuff from the World Weekly News was /. worthy...

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  3. It's Funny, Laugh! by E1ven · · Score: 3, Insightful

    You do know this was posted under the HUMOR section, right?

    Of /course/ it's fake. We all know that. But it's still damn funny!

    Some people take life too seriously.

    Colin

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    Colin Davis
  4. Re:Time travel by BoneFlower · · Score: 3, Insightful

    A couple possibilities-

    One, remember, all position and velocity is relative to your point of reference. If the time machine is designed such that it considers Earth a still point of reference, with the right equations to account for movement of everything else around it(hey, in 200 years you could come up with that math), then he wouldn't have to do anything. Just punch in the time and he would show up at the same spot he left earth from.

    Also, assuming he had access to a time machine, he surely had access to the computing power needed to easily calculate the position of Earth based on the center of the universe frame of reference.

    Also, more esoteric methods could have been used. Perhaps psychic energies are better understood in his time, and he homed in on the psycic signature of the Earth to ensure arrival at the proper location. Maybe the Earths gravity well ensured he arrived at the proper planet by providing an anchor.

    And of course the simple thing- He may have targeted 1995 or so, and simply kicked in his crafts engines to travel to the Earth. It would be trivial to figure out the general direction the Earths system would be in relative to where it was when you left. Then just compare some star charts with what you see ahead of you, narrow down which star is Sol, and rocket off. .5C or so should be enough to get you to Earth in a couple of years after only a 200 year drift. I mean, I don't think the earth moves nearly that fast relative to the universal center, probably only a few tens of thousands of MPH. You'd still be deposted in the mily way, probably closer to Earth than Proxima Centauri...

  5. If its not fake... by stretch0611 · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Ok, yes its a fake. But lets imagine for a second that it is true.

    If it is true we should take the deal he offered, Give us Osama, Cure AIDS, and let him walk.

    Now if it is really true the guy would be an idiotic PHB. After all, He could claim the $25 million reward from the FBI, use the money to develop a cure for AIDS and make billions selling the drugs he developed. No one would ever know he is from the future or arrest him for insider trading.

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