Back in the dark days of ElectricSpectre we used to do a weekly thing called ‘Horros Ov Nature’ which were, umm,horrible nature type things.
Even though the new improved ES is more of a video game blog than a place where we drop links to picture of Cthulhu, we think we need to bring it back.
So – stare upon a disembodied snake head still trying to kill all those around it. Sleep well.
Alright troops – listen up! Today we’re going to discuss how to turn time-travel, a scientific and explorative activity, into a set of deadly weapons designed to maim, murder and mutilate. Why you ask? Well, just for asking that I’m going to time-bomb you into a leper colony. That’s right douchebag, enjoy your leprosy.
As soon as new technology is developed, crazy people will start figuring out how it might be used in a combat situation. This is a natural and organic process, and we shouldn’t interfere. We can however speculate as to the wartime applications of time-travel technology. Read More
Some people will drone on and on about time machines, and how we might build them, what they would look like and whether they would travel through time and space or merely through time. That is not what we will be discussing today. Today we’re talking about time-travel’s effect on history. It’s going to be fascinating, you’re all going to thank me, so let’s just get started.
Now, this is all very complicated and it’s possible to get waaaay too deep into this stuff, so we’re going to breeze lightly over the three main competing theories like a dandelion seed caught in an updraft. We’ll highlight the strengths and weaknesses of each theory, with examples from movies and TV all the way to help you out. By the end of this instructive series of tutorials you’ll be able to watch a film about time-travel and exclaim, “Hogwash and Poppycock! This film appears to subscribe to a flexible-history theory of time-travel and yet this paradox is one typically seen in a fixed-timeline scenario! I shall write to Ofcom, and they will understand and subscribe to my e-newsletter.” Read More
This video more or less speaks for itself.
Speaking of pre-order bonuses, when was the last time you turned up to grab a game on release day and found it was sold out? It’s not exactly a massive problem, right? The videogame industry is growing year on year, and retail chains are smart enough to order exactly one metric fucktonne (MFt) of every new release to ensure every braying customer desperate to fork over their hard earned cashola gets a chance to do so.
Really, there’s no need to pre-order games, apart from the awesome pre-order bonuses. Statues, art books, the little accessories that give you a warm shiver — they’re worth the extra effort, and it’s why people still pre-order. For awesome stuff.
Not bits of linen with faces printed on.
EDIT: Also, those guys should clean up their apartment. Popcorn and old takeaway flyin’ all over the shop. Also also, why aren’t they playing Street Fighter? They just got the game right?!
Allow me to pose you a question as old as time itself:
“If you could time travel, where would you go, and what would you do?”
Earnest and imaginative folk such as team Epic Win ask these questions hoping for an answer along the lines of, “I’d hunt a T-Rex in the prehistoric jungle, then bring back its head as proof of my victory over nature” or “I’d go back to the middle ages and teach them about electricity, thereby advancing the human civilisation from whence I journeyed a thousand years.”
Sadly the typical boring answer spat back in your hopeful, earnest face is something like, “I’d go back to the eighties and buy up Microsoft stock.”
Brilliant. Well, I’m glad I bestowed the gift of inter-dimensional travel on you. Can’t wait to see how many thousands of pounds you make. Probably enough to buy a porsche you can sleep in once your sexy young wife leaves you for the pool-boy and takes the house, you joy-stifling buffoon.
Frustrating as they are, these ‘travel back a small distance, buy up stock, get moderately rich’ plans seem to be at the front of everyone’s mind. It got me thinking, a smart plan might, for example, be to travel back to 1990, buy up lots of AOL stock and sell it all off a week or so before the first dot-com crash. (I like calling it the ‘first’ dot-com crash just to keep everyone on their toes) That would be a good idea, right?
Well, now let’s imagine you’re one of those bold investment-frontier men, stood on the trading floor with your head held high, and your keen young eyes trained on the stock ticker. Y’know, that big numbery display like in Wall Street. Suddenly you’re informed that a chunk of AOL stock has been sold. Not a big chunk by any means, but it strikes you as odd because everyone in their right mind is buying AOL stock. “Why would you sell now, when stock prices are still rising?” You ask yourself. Perhaps you stroke your stubble pensively. Perhaps you remember your father back on the farm, rake in hand, stooping to pick up a grain of wheat and then holding it up to the dawn sunrise. You recall his wisdom, his words of prudence and hear them ring clearly in your mind. You remember his firm hand on your shoulder, and his broad smile when you told him you’d made it onto your big-city accounting course, and his parting words to you, not to forget who you are, and not to get caught up in the big-city pursuit of quick money and easy living.
You know that it’s best to err on the side of caution.
You sell your own AOL stock — the investors won’t like it, but dammit you always knew this Internet thing was a flash in the pan, you’re not going to be one of the yuppies who ruins themselves on a temporary fad. The other traders see your bold movements and start selling their own AOL stock. Within hours the market is in chaos. It is the end of the dot-com dream. Switching now back to you, it’s clear that you’re responsible, you time-travelling sneak, you sold your stock when everyone else was buying, causing a chain reaction that crashed the whole damn system.
So is it not possible that:
Every economic crash in history has been caused by time-travellers popping into the past to make a quick buck?!
Clearly the answer is yes.
I hope I have demonstrated that a) this kind of madness is possible, even probable, b) that I overthink time-travel and that c) I have an incredibly poor understanding of how the economy works.
