7 ms·

Time Travel Cheat Sheet

32 points by joshwprinceton 18y ago

deleted 18y ago
[deleted]
- joshwprinceton 18y ago
  Courtesy of a friend, can't take credit for it, but indeed, good find
chaosmachine 18y ago
I guess I'm not the only one who daydreams of going back in time and (re)inventing all the good stuff.
- jasonkester 18y ago
  I've been memorizing lists of Superbowl champions by year, just in case. Think how stupid you'd feel if you suddenly found yourself in 1972 and didn't know who to bet on to make your millions? You'd have to wait 10 years to buy Apple stock.
  - jcl 18y ago
    Corollary: Most early Apple investors are time travelers who aren't into football.
dave_au 18y ago
Comes from Dinosaur Comics for those who liked it. http://www.qwantz.com http://www.qwantz.com Took me a while to warm up to the comics, but there's some gold in there, eg: http://www.qwantz.com/archive/001426.html http://www.qwantz.com/archive/001426.html http://www.qwantz.com/archive/001433.html http://www.qwantz.com/archive/001433.html Also, while I'm spouting random and totally subjective opinions about Dinosaur Comic related things, I much prefer this shirt http://www.topatoco.com/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=TO&Product_Code=QW-TODO&Category_Code=QW http://www.topatoco.com/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_C... to the time travel one, but maybe I'm just a big kid.
vaksel 18y ago
Pretty bad cheat sheet, since it doesn't mention any military applications. Throw in a few tips on how to make rifles and should be good to go
- mattmaroon 18y ago
  Gizmodo says you already have a gun. If you go back far enough in time, 1 is enough.
  - vaksel 18y ago
    A gun is fine and dandy to defend yourself, I'm more talking about local manufacturing. Something like a flintlock or hell even a matchlock. Think of how much you'll stand to gain by equipping some local warlord's army with a couple thousand worth of rifles
    - redcap 18y ago
      But should that necessarily be the best way to go about living in the past? You may well end up as endenturing yourself to said warlord as the boomstick maker. Probably better off trying to be a merchant of useful stuff to begin with.
      - ibsulon 18y ago
        Tying yourself to a warlord to whom you have just given a very unequal advantage is exactly the thing that can keep you alive in a circumstance such as this. Further, nothing wrong with "inventing" the assembly line. With this kind of overpowering technology, you can get the manpower needed to get the other ideas ramped up. Not the most admirable, of course. The big thing that is missing is that unless you have studied a language and can precisely direct where you're going, you're going to have trouble speaking with anyone. Everyone seems to forget language in these things...
madair 18y ago
Note to poster, this is an example of rude and/or lazy linking behavior magnified: 1. joshwprinceton linked to the gizmodo story, it's actually just a cheap "via" link from buzzfeed (http://www.buzzfeed.com/reddit/lets-say-youve-gone-back-in-time http://www.buzzfeed.com/reddit/lets-say-youve-gone-back-in-t...) 2. Buzzfeed linked to the image graphic directly, instead of the actual story providing context at Topato (http://topatoco.com/hey/?p=33 http://topatoco.com/hey/?p=33) This laziness fails to give Topato the actual traffic they deserve for this image. It's a case of giving the money to the least productive members in the information supply chain. I have no affiliation with any of the sites or people involved.
- brandnewlow 18y ago
  I'm 100% in favor of linking to original sources, but it's not fair to call the middlemen sites "the least productive" members in the supply chain. On the internet if you create the most amazing thing in the world, but sites like Gizmodo and Buzzfeed don't link to it, then you effectively did not create the most amazing thing in the world.
  - RossM 18y ago
    If a site doesn't get linked to, did it ever exist?
    - albertcardona 18y ago
      If a man speaks himself in a forest and no woman can hear him, is he still wrong? Humor aside, you posed an interesting question. The answer is of course yes, the web page exists, but it's not reachable. Which means that for practical purposes, for the society as a whole, it only exists by the manner in which its owner is affected by it in his/her interaction with the world. Which is a very low kind of existence.
      - RossM 18y ago
        Possibly like the average Twitter user then? :) I guess a better line would be "If a page isn't linked to, does it have any significance?". That makes me wonder how many orphaned pages there are on the web. I guess it's uncalculable (within realistic constraints and without attempting to brute force URIs) as they woudn't be indexed by any search engines (unless they crawl the new domain registration lists).
gojomo 18y ago
I suspect this mammoth thread at MarginalRevolution last year... http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2008/06/time-travel-bac.html http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2008/06... ...is behind some of the recent interest in 'time traveler tips'. It even spawned a song highlighting some of the consensus recommendations: http://www.sugarfix.net/2008/06/23/song-1000-ad/ http://www.sugarfix.net/2008/06/23/song-1000-ad/ (Though, the genre goes back at least to 'A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court'.)
tomsaffell 18y ago
Another one to add to List of works with the equal transit-time fallacy : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_works_with_the_equal_transit-time_fallacy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_works_with_the_equal_tr... Why would you go to the length of putting together a geek oriented work like this, and then get something so blatantly wrong in the first paragraph?
abecedarius 18y ago
I'd like to learn from some good, concrete, and practical cheatsheets; this one mostly enumerates what you'd already remember with no trouble. For example, a computing one for people who don't know computers might go: It's possible and valuable to build a computing machine that can simulate any other computing machine, given a coded description of it plus enough time and working memory. Here's a simple one: <very basic one-accumulator binary stored-program computer, logical design> Build it out of logic gates and flipflops, satisfying the digital abstraction (that errors in each device's input get reduced enough in the output to allow very long chains of operations with negligible error). <sketch of slow but workable bit-serial implementation of the above, using a few dozen gates, not counting main memory (Babbage's strategic mistake was to design big fancy hardware; point this out)> <hints for devices: rod logic, electric relays? I don't know this part> Point out selling points for historical customers: cryptology and numerical tables come to mind for a start. I'd love to squeeze in some theory too (cool algorithms, uncomputability, NP-completeness, Shannon coding theorem, core Scheme self-interpreter, algorithm design principles (invariants etc.), Hindley-Milner and Curry-Howard?), but we've already used up one sheet.
streety 18y ago
This seems like a mix of the pointless and the inspired. Telling me that viruses cause disease is stating the obvious and is something I'm unlikely to forget during my temporal accident. Telling me that C20H26O2 is a good synthetic substitute for progesterone is close to entirely useless. At least give me the structure or better yet a chemical process to synthesise it. On the plus side giving me lat/long coordinates for useful ore deposits is inspired. That wasn't obvious to me. As one of the other posters mentioned one cheatsheet really isn't enough. This is a interesting start but could have been so much better.
grunties 18y ago
That's how you're taught about lift from an aerofoil in school. It's wrong.

deleted 18y ago

[deleted]

joshwprinceton 18y ago
Courtesy of a friend, can't take credit for it, but indeed, good find

chaosmachine 18y ago

I guess I'm not the only one who daydreams of going back in time and (re)inventing all the good stuff.

jasonkester 18y ago
I've been memorizing lists of Superbowl champions by year, just in case. Think how stupid you'd feel if you suddenly found yourself in 1972 and didn't know who to bet on to make your millions? You'd have to wait 10 years to buy Apple stock.
- jcl 18y ago
  Corollary: Most early Apple investors are time travelers who aren't into football.

dave_au 18y ago

Comes from Dinosaur Comics for those who liked it. http://www.qwantz.com http://www.qwantz.com Took me a while to warm up to the comics, but there's some gold in there, eg: http://www.qwantz.com/archive/001426.html http://www.qwantz.com/archive/001426.html http://www.qwantz.com/archive/001433.html http://www.qwantz.com/archive/001433.html Also, while I'm spouting random and totally subjective opinions about Dinosaur Comic related things, I much prefer this shirt http://www.topatoco.com/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=TO&Product_Code=QW-TODO&Category_Code=QW http://www.topatoco.com/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_C... to the time travel one, but maybe I'm just a big kid.

vaksel 18y ago

Pretty bad cheat sheet, since it doesn't mention any military applications. Throw in a few tips on how to make rifles and should be good to go

mattmaroon 18y ago
Gizmodo says you already have a gun. If you go back far enough in time, 1 is enough.
- vaksel 18y ago
  A gun is fine and dandy to defend yourself, I'm more talking about local manufacturing. Something like a flintlock or hell even a matchlock. Think of how much you'll stand to gain by equipping some local warlord's army with a couple thousand worth of rifles
  - redcap 18y ago
    But should that necessarily be the best way to go about living in the past? You may well end up as endenturing yourself to said warlord as the boomstick maker. Probably better off trying to be a merchant of useful stuff to begin with.
    - ibsulon 18y ago
      Tying yourself to a warlord to whom you have just given a very unequal advantage is exactly the thing that can keep you alive in a circumstance such as this. Further, nothing wrong with "inventing" the assembly line. With this kind of overpowering technology, you can get the manpower needed to get the other ideas ramped up. Not the most admirable, of course. The big thing that is missing is that unless you have studied a language and can precisely direct where you're going, you're going to have trouble speaking with anyone. Everyone seems to forget language in these things...

madair 18y ago

Note to poster, this is an example of rude and/or lazy linking behavior magnified: 1. joshwprinceton linked to the gizmodo story, it's actually just a cheap "via" link from buzzfeed (http://www.buzzfeed.com/reddit/lets-say-youve-gone-back-in-time http://www.buzzfeed.com/reddit/lets-say-youve-gone-back-in-t...) 2. Buzzfeed linked to the image graphic directly, instead of the actual story providing context at Topato (http://topatoco.com/hey/?p=33 http://topatoco.com/hey/?p=33) This laziness fails to give Topato the actual traffic they deserve for this image. It's a case of giving the money to the least productive members in the information supply chain. I have no affiliation with any of the sites or people involved.

brandnewlow 18y ago
I'm 100% in favor of linking to original sources, but it's not fair to call the middlemen sites "the least productive" members in the supply chain. On the internet if you create the most amazing thing in the world, but sites like Gizmodo and Buzzfeed don't link to it, then you effectively did not create the most amazing thing in the world.
- RossM 18y ago
  If a site doesn't get linked to, did it ever exist?
  - albertcardona 18y ago
    If a man speaks himself in a forest and no woman can hear him, is he still wrong? Humor aside, you posed an interesting question. The answer is of course yes, the web page exists, but it's not reachable. Which means that for practical purposes, for the society as a whole, it only exists by the manner in which its owner is affected by it in his/her interaction with the world. Which is a very low kind of existence.
    - RossM 18y ago
      Possibly like the average Twitter user then? :) I guess a better line would be "If a page isn't linked to, does it have any significance?". That makes me wonder how many orphaned pages there are on the web. I guess it's uncalculable (within realistic constraints and without attempting to brute force URIs) as they woudn't be indexed by any search engines (unless they crawl the new domain registration lists).

gojomo 18y ago

I suspect this mammoth thread at MarginalRevolution last year... http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2008/06/time-travel-bac.html http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2008/06... ...is behind some of the recent interest in 'time traveler tips'. It even spawned a song highlighting some of the consensus recommendations: http://www.sugarfix.net/2008/06/23/song-1000-ad/ http://www.sugarfix.net/2008/06/23/song-1000-ad/ (Though, the genre goes back at least to 'A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court'.)

tomsaffell 18y ago

Another one to add to List of works with the equal transit-time fallacy : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_works_with_the_equal_transit-time_fallacy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_works_with_the_equal_tr... Why would you go to the length of putting together a geek oriented work like this, and then get something so blatantly wrong in the first paragraph?

abecedarius 18y ago

I'd like to learn from some good, concrete, and practical cheatsheets; this one mostly enumerates what you'd already remember with no trouble. For example, a computing one for people who don't know computers might go: It's possible and valuable to build a computing machine that can simulate any other computing machine, given a coded description of it plus enough time and working memory. Here's a simple one: <very basic one-accumulator binary stored-program computer, logical design> Build it out of logic gates and flipflops, satisfying the digital abstraction (that errors in each device's input get reduced enough in the output to allow very long chains of operations with negligible error). <sketch of slow but workable bit-serial implementation of the above, using a few dozen gates, not counting main memory (Babbage's strategic mistake was to design big fancy hardware; point this out)> <hints for devices: rod logic, electric relays? I don't know this part> Point out selling points for historical customers: cryptology and numerical tables come to mind for a start. I'd love to squeeze in some theory too (cool algorithms, uncomputability, NP-completeness, Shannon coding theorem, core Scheme self-interpreter, algorithm design principles (invariants etc.), Hindley-Milner and Curry-Howard?), but we've already used up one sheet.

streety 18y ago

This seems like a mix of the pointless and the inspired. Telling me that viruses cause disease is stating the obvious and is something I'm unlikely to forget during my temporal accident. Telling me that C20H26O2 is a good synthetic substitute for progesterone is close to entirely useless. At least give me the structure or better yet a chemical process to synthesise it. On the plus side giving me lat/long coordinates for useful ore deposits is inspired. That wasn't obvious to me. As one of the other posters mentioned one cheatsheet really isn't enough. This is a interesting start but could have been so much better.

grunties 18y ago

That's how you're taught about lift from an aerofoil in school. It's wrong.