Annoying Questions I'd Like Answered...

[TarkisFlux]

the drinking thing is all bullshit. Drunkeness in general, it's all social conditioning and people just act like they think drunk people should act, only slower.

Citation needed.

[erik]

the drinking thing is all bullshit. Drunkeness in general, it's all social conditioning and people just act like they think drunk people should act, only slower.

Citation needed.

I have cited it in this forum in the past. I will hafta search for when on a real computer.

I guess I can find it via phone after all.
Here we go. Not 100% clear cut but there are studies that support tussock's claim somewhat.
http://tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?p=300119#300119

[tussock]

The basic tests I've seen on popular TV fact-like shows are that telling sober people they're drinking alcohol (with the right mouth-feel) make them act drunk in proportion to the volume of alcohol they expect to be drinking. They fail driving tests, fall down, slur their speech, can't touch their nose, laugh a lot, sleepy eyelids, the whole deal.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3035442.stm
http://www.damninteresting.com/social-drinking/



But placebos are very powerful and very useful, so don't give up on the good stuff you get from a little booze. Telling yourself how well placebos work when drinking is just as good at eliminating anxiety as actually believing that alcohol makes people relaxed or brave or violent or socially able or sex-crazed or surprisingly racist or whatever.

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2010 ... -sham-drug

Costumes work too. A nice suit also "gives people confidence". Fresh breath, whatever the hell you think works, it totally works (just because you believe it does, even when you know it doesn't, because you know believing in it does).

Shit, most blood pressure medicine has the greatest part of it's effects via the placebo component. You can actually tell people their job has been keeping them fit and their blood pressure will permanently drop, because "fit people have low blood pressure". In fact, almost all the symptoms of fitness can be turned on by telling people how fit they are. That's insane, because fit people have much less of all kinds of disease and live a years longer on average and have a different body shape, but it works. Is your job keeping you fit?

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor ... d=17792517

[Shiritai]

tussock is always wrong, this time about alcohol. Even that study he links fails to link to because he only reads pop-sci crap says

Although alcohol placebos have produced significant changes in
social behaviors, they have not produced similar changes in nonsocial
behaviors—those not thought of as being socially constrained, or in
the sphere of social influence, such as reaction time, memory for word
lists, and performance on general knowledge tests.

[Shrapnel]

How in the name of God's green cock do you use this thing?

I've tried for like almost an hour to drag images into it, but it never works. What the hell?

[Eikre]

Looks broken. That left sidebar should contain all the images and they're not showing up for me.

[Prak]

Random stupid question, but assuming you had a "One free trip to any time" deal with a time machine, what would be the best way to leverage that into money in the current time period?

The best I can think is setting up an investment fund with instructions to allow a later descendant to withdraw from it at a bank you know is going to be around. Like going back to 1852 or so for Wells Fargo. But I'm sure there's something better you could do.

[Kaelik]

Random stupid question, but assuming you had a "One free trip to any time" deal with a time machine, what would be the best way to leverage that into money in the current time period?

The best I can think is setting up an investment fund with instructions to allow a later descendant to withdraw from it at a bank you know is going to be around. Like going back to 1852 or so for Wells Fargo. But I'm sure there's something better you could do.

Write down who wins the superbowl every year in order. Go back 20 years, set up a proxy who bets all your money on the 1:15-25 odds that a specific team is going to win the superbowl at the beginning of the season. After each win, have them reinvest in the same absurdly odded bet again and again. Switch bookies so that you don't bankrupt them for as long as possible.

2) Have trillions of dollars, or even hundreds of billions.

Assumptions: Unlike stock markets and the economy and shit, for the most part, Superbowl wins are completely independent of which companies in the economy go bankrupt or don't, which might change as you make tons of money.

[...You Lost Me]

Or you could look up some patents that a lot of people pay to use, go back before they were created, then file the patents and sell rights to use them at some fixed price.

The girlfriend suggests that you should do something after your own birth so you don't accidentally prevent your own life. Like tell your parents when to invest in Microsft, .com bubble, etc.

You could also get a bunch of items with historic / religious significance and hide them somewhere, but it would have to be a really good hiding spot.

[DSMatticus]

Assumptions: Unlike stock markets and the economy and shit, for the most part, Superbowl wins are completely independent of which companies in the economy go bankrupt or don't, which might change as you make tons of money.

I wonder if that's true. Buying professional sports teams is something of a billionaire pastime, and it's possible that changing who those billionaires are might change some management decisions which might change the outcomes of the superbowl.

I'd probably try to arrange for someone to win the lottery on my behalf over and over. One, you can turn a small amount of money into a huge amount of money at the exact point of divergence. Two, reinvesting in the lottery is never going to exhaust your initial winnings, so even if the timeline diverges and the lottery numbers change your winnings aren't in danger. Three, lottery results are probably even more independent of timeline changes than superbowl winners.

[Kaelik]

Assumptions: Unlike stock markets and the economy and shit, for the most part, Superbowl wins are completely independent of which companies in the economy go bankrupt or don't, which might change as you make tons of money.

I wonder if that's true. Buying professional sports teams is something of a billionaire pastime, and it's possible that changing who those billionaires are might change some management decisions which might change the outcomes of the superbowl.

Yes and no. See, most owners make actually zero decisions. There would a period in the early 90s where if hypothetically Jerry Jones did different shit he could change who wins, but that is early enough that I doubt your investments will be the catalyst that causes him to part with Jimmy Johnson sooner.

Owners higher general managers, who do all the actual managing. Owners are really rich people who are rich enough to blow 2 million on a football team that is mostly a prestige purchase, which means they are heavily diversified. It is extremely unlikely that bankrupting a few betting agencies is going to fuck over any owner enough to cause them to a fire a general manager early.

And purely as a practical matter, once you have a 50 million dollars, you actually can't bet all your money on the 1;14 odds and get it paid out, so you just bet 25 for like 10 year on 1:20 odds and still end up rolling in a billion dollars.

[Ancient History]

A good bookie will balance the book anyway, so you won't end up bankrupting them - just the poor schlubs that bet against you. In which case the bookie would actually still profit.

[Kaelik]

A good bookie will balance the book anyway, so you won't end up bankrupting them - just the poor schlubs that bet against you. In which case the bookie would actually still profit.

I assume that betting millions at a time on incorrect odds is going to swing the margins. They have odds, then you make a huge bet that changes the odds, then more people vote, but not necessarily enough to change the odds when you are betting literally the maximum they allow.

[Ancient History]

You assume incorrectly, if the bookie is intelligent about it. Remember, the bookie sets the odds and takes the bets. If you bet millions on Outcome 1, then the bookie will look to balance the book by getting people to bet the same amount of money on Outcome 2. They will, in fact, sometimes buy bets off other bookies just to have a balanced book - and it's easy to see why.

For a very simple example, let's say the odds are even - it's Team 1 versus Team 2 in the Superbowl, and one of them is going to win. We won't talk about point spreads or any of that, because it doesn't really matter. If someone bets $1000 that Team 1 will win, the bookie will then try to find some bettor or combination of bettors that will put up $1000 that Team 2 will win. If the bookie succeeds it doesn't matter which team wins - the loser's bets pay off the winner's bets, and the bookie takes their cut (the vig) either way. They make money just by running the game - which is the safest bet of all.

Really complicated bets, especially those held by private parties, can get ridiculous - like some of those held by London clubs and crap back in the day - but a well-managed bookie should never go bankrupt if they set the odds right and aggressively hustle to keep the book balanced.

[Kaelik]

You assume incorrectly, if the bookie is intelligent about it. Remember, the bookie sets the odds and takes the bets. If you bet millions on Outcome 1, then the bookie will look to balance the book by getting people to bet the same amount of money on Outcome 2. They will, in fact, sometimes buy bets off other bookies just to have a balanced book - and it's easy to see why.

For a very simple example, let's say the odds are even - it's Team 1 versus Team 2 in the Superbowl, and one of them is going to win. We won't talk about point spreads or any of that, because it doesn't really matter. If someone bets $1000 that Team 1 will win, the bookie will then try to find some bettor or combination of bettors that will put up $1000 that Team 2 will win. If the bookie succeeds it doesn't matter which team wins - the loser's bets pay off the winner's bets, and the bookie takes their cut (the vig) either way. They make money just by running the game - which is the safest bet of all.

Really complicated bets, especially those held by private parties, can get ridiculous - like some of those held by London clubs and crap back in the day - but a well-managed bookie should never go bankrupt if they set the odds right and aggressively hustle to keep the book balanced.

Except the entire point is that I would be throwing a huge fucking number into the pool that even the collective action of multiple bookies will not be able to meat.

If the normal course of events would have been that 100 million is bet across 32 teams, then me betting 100 million myself across multiple bookies is going to drastically change the outcomes, but the amount they would have to change the odds to offset those odds is pretty fucking high. It is not clear that any significant change of odds is ever going to pull in 13 times as much money as the normal betting pool on all the Non-Giants for 2007 (or whatever year that was).

[erik]

I don't know how many bookies are out there that would take a $1M bet, much less without researching who made said bet.


But really would you need more than a $100M lottery jackpot? Could do that in one fell swoop and not worry about ripple effects on future investments. You could certainly grow that with something like this.

Granted if you try to stay liquid and go all-in quickly from investment to investment you'll really drive prices up just by buying in and drive prices down when you sell off, cutting your profits both ways. You'd still make hefty profits of course. Just because a stock changes 20% doesn't mean you can't make a lot more than that either way. Have nasty enough short sales and you could be the difference for bankrupting a company, but on earnings days they're higher volume so maybe it wouldn't be *that* bad, Apple's last earnings report had >$100B in shares being traded day of and after.

I wonder what would happen if you gathered up $40B through lottery, then investments, and then cut a check to Greece to pay off their debt.

[Prak]

How does Cards Against Humanity get away with using copyrighted names like Pac-man or Batman, and could I get away with selling a third party expansion that uses character and mechanic names from Magic the Gathering?

[Kaelik]

I don't know how many bookies are out there that would take a $1M bet, much less without researching who made said bet.

Look, I don't actually gamble, because that would be stupid. But when I say bookie, I don't mean some asshole with a spreadsheet. I mean that there are companies, like Bovata, and Los Vegas Casino's like all of them, that take pretty substantial bets on football shit on a regular basis. If you put a lot of money down and win a lot more a couple years in a row, I honestly have no fucking idea how many times you would have to win a bet you couldn't cheat at if your life depended on it before these multi million organizations would stop taking your bets because based on their investigations they have concluded that you are from the future or not.

But really would you need more than a $100M lottery jackpot? Could do that in one fell swoop and not worry about ripple effects on future investments. You could certainly grow that with something like this.

Honestly, there are tons of ways to make absurd amounts of money in one fell swoop by winning a lottery, or investing at the right time in something like Microsoft. I only mention the superbowl thing because it is the only thing I could think of which you might be able to count on making more money after the first set because no changes happening from the current timeline.

Also, theoretically, if you went back in time with no research ahead of time you might be able to use it.

But if you want 10 millions dollars, which could easily let you do everything you could ever want, you could do that in a million different ways.

[DSMatticus]

How does Cards Against Humanity get away with using copyrighted names like Pac-man or Batman, and could I get away with selling a third party expansion that uses character and mechanic names from Magic the Gathering?

Referring to a character someone else owns the copyright to isn't actually illegal, nor is using a trademark to talk about the thing that the trademark is of. If you want one character (who is not superman) to say to another character (who is also not superman) "do you think you're fucking superman or something?", you can do that. If you want to talk about how a character in your story is eating McDonald's, you can do that. It's a standard practice to avoid this whenever people, because whether or not you're legally justified in doing X has almost nothing to do with whether or not a lawyer can make your life hell for doing X. The key to surviving the wacky world of IP law is to absolutely under no circumstances attract the attention of anyone else's lawyer.

An MtG-themed CAH deck would probably be protected as parody virtually no matter how much material you used. The courts (when they aren't fucking up and making the world a shittier place one step at a time) are incredibly lenient about using parts of a thing to make fun of that same thing. That's why parody songs happen even though they are vastly similar to the original. So using a bunch of MtG shit to make fun of MtG is pretty safe territory, other than the whole "if a lawyer looks at you funny it doesn't fucking matter just shut the fuck up and give him what he wants" thing.

Also, theoretically, if you went back in time with no research ahead of time you might be able to use it.

Aside: I actually couldn't tell you a single (year, winner) super bowl pairing. No, not even the 2015 one. Wait, when the fuck is the superbowl? The 2015 one's happened already, right? I'm not crazy?

WHAT IS THIS FOOTBALL YOU SPEAK OF AND ALSO WHY THE FUCK IS IT CALLED THAT

[Prak]

Well that's a relief. I'm already 85% of the way through writing this thing.

TIL CAH sets are ridiculously easy to write.

[Kaelik]

Also, theoretically, if you went back in time with no research ahead of time you might be able to use it.

Aside: I actually couldn't tell you a single (year, winner) super bowl pairing. No, not even the 2015 one. Wait, when the fuck is the superbowl? The 2015 one's happened already, right? I'm not crazy?

WHAT IS THIS FOOTBALL YOU SPEAK OF AND ALSO WHY THE FUCK IS IT CALLED THAT

I did say might for a reason. Superbowls are held in February, but the season occurs during the previous year. So the superbowl for the 2015 season won't happen until February 2016. Since superbowls are referred to by number (or roman numeral such as XLIX the most recent one, in which the patriots beat the seahawks) and seasons are referred to by year, it is as likely the case that the 2015 superbowl might refer to a superbowl that will occur in February as the one that has occurred.

[name_here]

Random stupid question, but assuming you had a "One free trip to any time" deal with a time machine, what would be the best way to leverage that into money in the current time period?

The best I can think is setting up an investment fund with instructions to allow a later descendant to withdraw from it at a bank you know is going to be around. Like going back to 1852 or so for Wells Fargo. But I'm sure there's something better you could do.

It occurs to me that you could instead make the money at this end by requesting sponsorship for a Library Of Alexandria rescue mission or some other attempt to recover priceless historical records immediately prior to their destruction.

[Stahlseele]

Or, if you can aquire enough funds:
simply outbid america for the buy of alaska from russia.
Or stage your own expedition to america and claim lands for your family.
Or do the same only with ausfailia . . or something around africa.
Seriously, there is little mor valueable to have than large tracts of lands, simply because of why usually can be found underground.
Or if you want to be really inventive: panama. without the panama canal, modern shipping would be hellishly more expensive.
same with the suez canal lands.
Hell, look at some really simple but often used inventions and simply go patent them before anybody else.
Acquire funds and invest in:
Disney.
Warner.
Microsoft.
Apple.
IBM.
Google.
General Motors.
Ford.
Or if you want to be an asshole:
Shortly before a war, invest heavily into arms manufacturing companies.
Right at the start, buy a good ammount of it and simply live if dividends.

[Fwib]

I tend to wish that back when I found out about bitcoin, but my computer was too slow to bother doing any mining, that I had bought a whole bunch of it for pennies. Then I berate myself that hindsight is 20-20, and not to think too much like that.

[Ancient History]

Wishing you got in on bitcoin at the beginning is a bit like wishing you got in on selling gas to the Nazis or slaves to plantation-owners in the colonies. Just because something is profitable does not mean you or anyone else should profit by it.