Slashdot Mirror
"Time-Traveler" Busted For Insider Trading
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!"
This is an interesting story, and there are several things we
should note about it. First of all, it's posted in the
"Entertainment News & Gossip" section of Yahoo! TV. That should
be a fairly big give away. Second this guy allegedly got
arrested January 28th, yet no major news outlet has picked the
story up.
With those pieces of information let's look at the story. The
story claims this guy made $350 million dollars in two weeks
with only an $800 dollar investment by making 126 high-risk
trades. It also alleges that he came out a winner every time.
The article then leads you to believe the SEC thinks it's
insider trading and that his story about being from the future
is obviously false. Yet any person with reasonable intelligence
will realize that even with insider information, there is no way
someone could make 126 "high-risk" trades and come out on top
every time. To have a record that perfect someone would need
foreknowledge.
The article appears to be trying to persuade us that the man had
insider knowledge, yet when you evaluate the story at face
value you walk away thinking "no way, insider information isn't
*that* good. He *must* be from the future".
The major problems with this story though lie in the basic
facts:
1. There is no Andrew Carlssin being investigated by the SEC
2. The SEC does not have police powers and cannot arrest people
3. The alleged high risk trades didn't take place
4. There is in fact no record of *any* of the events mentioned
I could go on and on, however there is absolutely no solid
factual information to back this story up. I saw this article a
few days before April 1st, so I thought it was some type of
elaborate April fools day joke, but I wanted to put it to rest
once and for all, so I called the SEC Public Relations office.
They said the article is completely made up and has no basis in
fact. It's not even based on an actual investigation.
Of course we knew all this because this story is posted in the
"Gossip" section though.
Doug Tolton
"The destruction of a value which is, will not bring value to that which isn't." -John Galt
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,630-627115 ,00.html
"The SEC has never heard of Carlssin, and several "facts" are plainly untrue. "
While very high in entertainment value, if you start posting stories from Weekly World News we're in for a ride. These are the people that are also reporting that Saddam made a gay porn film in 1968 in which his "acting" almost moved the reviewer to tears.
My favorite was the sex, liquor and drugs diet I saw about this time last year in WWN.
The best way to do is to be.
I can't think of anything that typifies Slashdot better than posting a four-week old article from the Weekly World News.
If it ain't broke, you need more software.
Maybe it's because you had to set back your clock in order to get Office to work again? ;)
I want the fire back.
A) This is old news.
B) It's a Weekly World News story.
C) You missed April Fool's by over two weeks.
D) You're stupid.
Alright, this is obviously a hoax, because he would have *known* that he was going to get caught! Not only that, if we've learned anything about time travel from hitchiker's guide to the galaxy, we've learned that you don't need to make high-risk trades...just put a couple of pennies in your favorite bank back in 1860 and then live off the interest in 2356 or whatever year. Sheesh...this guy had no class whatsoever. He has *no* clue where his towel is.
The anti-salmon
sigh
At any rate, here you go. No truth - just cuz it's on Yahoo, don't ignore that fact that it was written by the GODDAM WORLD WEEKLY NEWS. Christ on a crutch...
I knew this was fictional before all of you, because, I am in fact, from next Wednesday! I traveled back in time several days just to get the first post here telling you all it's false.
But alas, my internet connection was too slow and I couldn't get FP!
This has to be a hoax for no other reason than it would be pretty much impossible to turn $800 into $350 million in a short period of time, no matter what you knew. Even Hillary Clinton only turned $1000 into $100,000 and that took a year.
Maybe's he actually a time-zone traveller who travelled 2256 miles (and 4 time zones) from the west coast. The whole thing sures smells of the wacky tobacy....
Why do I h8 apple?
Snopes debunk this story here
;-)
Its always worth checking with Snopes. That and checking for dupes I guess
wot no sig
Hey good idea for a slashdot poll,
What would you like to find out from the future?
When I will die?
Should I invest in RedHat and OSDN?
Will JLo's marraige last?
Do you know Cowboy Neal?
Will they ever make Survivor Redmond?
... really this guy should have gone back to 1986 and invest in a little upstart called
Gullibility of
Fark
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
Puh-leease....
As a current tourist in your quaint era, I can assure you that time-able persons such as myself amuse ourselves by participating in Slashdot forums, downloading p0rn, and watching that gem of two-dimensional entertainment - Saved By The Bell. We do NOT participate in "insider trading" since your credit cards are paltry to imitate using some peanut brittle, gum, and the inner workings of a common saucer part.
I didn't realize that stuff from the World Weekly News was /. worthy...
A new feature is just a bug waiting to happen. And vice versa.
Look again - this was posted in Slashdot's humor section. See the foot icon.
You do know this was posted under the HUMOR section, right?
/course/ it's fake. We all know that. But it's still damn funny!
Of
Some people take life too seriously.
Colin
Colin Davis
Although this comes from the WWN, it was also noted that in the year 2256 the Chicago Cubs still haven't won a World Series and Dick Clark is still alive.
Those two items give the story some credence.
Yes, he DID break a law...
Specifically, the Temporal Interaction Act of 2236, section 7, part 32, paragraph A.
Look it up!
I'm sure there are other parts of the law he broke too, but IANALFTF.
- Preferences: Solaris 10 (servers), Ubuntu (desktops), Solaris 11 (personal servers) -
The skit was on snl after the 80s stock market crash. Future man with his perfect stock picking record refuses to tell if or when a recovery happens despite the pleas of analysts.
When one of the analyst does himself in, they ask future man if they knew that would happen.
"yes"
" then why didn't you stop him"
"I never liked him"
You know, sometimes they actually print things that are true. When I was in high school in the 80's, someone at my school got really drunk at a party and was dropped off at 2 a.m. by his "friends" in a snowbank near his house. He nearly froze to death - his body temperature got well below the level where normally you would die. His feet and hands were ice chunks, but he miraculously survived. The Weekly World News picked up the story, and reported it very accurately.
All is Number -Pythagoras.
A couple possibilities-
.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...
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.
Man, when Fark makes fun of you for being gullible, that's bottom of the barrel.
Hell, that's about as embarrasing as appointing someone from DoubleClick as head of your national privacy adminis....D'oh!
What were you expecting?
Dear Friends,
My name is Andrew Carlssin. In September 2256 my car was reposessed and the bill collectors were hounding me like you wouldn't believe. I was
laid off and my unemployment checks had run out. The only escape I had from the pressure of failure was my time machine and some stock ymbols. I longed to turn my advocation into my vocation. This December 2002 I went on a four month time-jump. I bought and sold a couple of stocks for BIG MONEY in April 2003.
I'm currently under investigation by the SEC for insider trading, but all I need to do is get back to my time machine and return to 2256. I will never have to work again.
Today I am rich! I have earned over $350,000,000.00 (Three Hundred and Fifty Million Dollars)) to date and will become a billionaire within 4 or 5 months. Anyone can do the same. This money making program works perfectly every time, 100% of the time. I have NEVER failed to earn $50,000.00 or more whenever I wanted. Best of all you never have to leave home except to go to your mailbox or post office.
In October 2255, I received a letter in the mail telling me how I could earn $50,000 dollars or more whenever I wanted. I was naturally very skeptical and threw the letter on the console of my time machine. It's funny though, when you are desperate, backed into a corner, your mind does crazy things. I spent a frustating day looking through the want ads for a job with a future. The pickings were sparse at best. That night I tried to unwind by getting into my time machine and going back to hang out with Jesus. I proofread a rough draft of what would become the Bible and than glanced at the letter on the console. All at once it came to me, I now had the key to my dreams. I realized that with the power of the time machine I could expand and enhance this money making formula into the most unbelievable cash flow generator that has ever been created. Most of the hard work is speedily done via self-serve online brokerage houses throughout the world. If you believe that someday you deserve that lucky break that you have waited for all your life, simply follow the easy instructions below. Your dreams will come true.
Sincerely yours,
Andrew Carlssin
INSTRUCTIONS
1) Buy a time machine.
2) Capture all of the open and close prices with the largest up or down changes for the past couple of months. Double-check all the numbers; you wouldn't want to lose all your money on a typo.
3) Go back in time to the start of the prices that you've recorded.
4) Start trading like nobody's business. Try to make some intentional mistakes to try and cover up your tracks -- don't be like me and lead the SEC auditors straight to your portfolio!
Dossy's Blog
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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DON'T USE TUNAREZ!!!
Please don't mix presentation style with semantic markup. Your sentence is not the content of an accent, but should simply be presented on aural browsers using a particular accent. A simplistic example of the correct way to mark up your data would be:
<span style="accent: scottish">I'll have you know it's the eigthth most widely circulated paper.</span>
However following the standards set by the working drafts for XHTML2 you should instead give the span entity a unique id and set its style using an ID-selector in a page-wide stylesheet. You also may wish to provide alternative accents if the "scottish" one is not available on the user's system.
Can anyone explain to me how this story got so big? I've had a few people send me links, and I've seen it on a few sites... Now slashdot even has it! I mean, WHAT THE FUCK?
It's the WEEKLY WORLD NEWS, people!
(Yes, the tabliod refered to as "The Paper" in So I Married An Axe Murderer)
Now that yahoo is syndicating them, there are lots of bullshit stories filled into the yahoo news templates. What makes this one so special that it gets on slashdot? And how many people forwarding it don't actually realize it's from the WWN? I mean, this is the publication that brought us Bat Boy , and the Clinton's Alien Baby stories. And now some crap about a time traveler makes slashdot?
It makes no sense.
__
Choose mnemonic identifiers. If you can't remember what mnemonic means, you've got a problem. - Larry Wall