I wake up this morning and I find this note in my own handwriting written sometime in the future. And it describes how to build my very own time transport.

The note goes on to describe how I woke up one morning and found this note from me and after collecting the materials and following the directions, plus a little trial and error I got the darned thing to work.

It told me to stay away from the stock market, but was able to give me the names of a few horses to put money on to help finance construction. The note had some pretty depressing news about the future and suggested I get while the getting is good and set my sights on Tahiti in the 1600s -- of course that's after I take a moment to drop this note off to my past self on the way to the distant past.

It's going to take a while to build (one of the key parts won't be available on the market for another 8 months), but in the mean time I gotta figure out what to pack. Apparently, the machine is not that rugged and replacment parts get hard to find -- of course now and in the past as well as after the impending apocolypse. According to my note I'm limited to 30 lbs of baggage.

Any suggestions as to what to take?

Colonel Panic

I would also reccomend a few Texas Longhorns (M and F) so you never run out of beef and/or beef like products (They say coconuts have meat, but I don't buy it) . Any room left over should be filled with Jack Daniels and Coca Cola. Oh yes, one last thing....when will you be picking me up?

Spare fuel

The blueprint, just to be sure, with annotations

Chorine tablets for the water

First aid kit

.22lr revolver with 3000 rounds of ammo

Favorite blanket

sun block spf45 since you are probably not used to being outdoors

canned food and an opener might also be good

blueprints and tech manuals on how to build key technological equipment

before you go, drop off a copy of the plans to each one of us so we can all build one and do likewise, {after all key parts are supposed to be hard to find}

We can all head for Tahiti, start a "geekocracy" and by this time, in the alternate timeline, our legacy and offspring of many generations will have taken over the world by means of superior intelligence and technological know how. Maybe the people of the alternate timeline will have enough intelligence and foresight to prevent the apocolypse that your note mentioned
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CrawGator

A common mistake people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools. Douglas Adams Mostly Harmless

supplies--
Flint and steel, rope, pocketknife, fishing hooks--there again, in case of emergency.

misc.--
I'd take two or three dogs with me, too, for several reasons:
1. to provide company
2. to give protection and warn of intruders
3. food, if you can teach them to hunt; food, if they won't hunt and you're starving

Also, always remember this advice from the Two Great Ones:
"Be excellent to each other."
"Party on, dudes!"

In fact, thinking it over, I don't like the idea of "bring lots of books or a laptop stuffed with a library and then learn everything on the ground". I think I would be much better off getting all my training BEFORE I found myself on the ground in 17th century Tahiti. I believe that my training will be my #1 survival asset.

Training:

Wildnerness survival training
First aid / primitive medicine
Tahitian language
Tahitian history
Stone carving

Supplies:

Machete, compass, first aid kit, tent with mosquito netting.
Knives, fishing line, fishing hooks.
Rope.
Water purification kit with lots of filters.
Fire starting kit.
Hand-cranked flashlight.
Multi-vitamins.
Aspirin, penicillin, sulfa powder, quinine, morphine.
Wind-up wristwatch.
Shoe repair kit.
Pith helmet.
Toothbrushes (but no toothpaste).
Fertilized chicken eggs, both male and female.
Beer brewing kit.
Stone carving tools.
Spear head.
Jewelry (stuff that looks good on Tahitian women).
Bible.

I would not bring a firearm -- I would rather use the weight for something else. There are no large predators on Tahiti. When it comes to dealing with humans, if I have to use a firearm, then the local tribe will probably kill me the next time I sleep, anyways. I'll have to speak Tahitian and talk my way out of trouble.

Say goodbye to toilet paper, toothpaste, shampoo, soap, sunscreen. These are all consumables and they would be consumed anyways. I wouldn't take any sunscreen because I'd tan myself before leaving. I might be able to carry enough toothbrushes to last me a lifetime, if I get really tough ones and brush my teeth once a week and take care of them.

Say hello to grubs and worms, these are going to be the staples of my diet for a long time.

I would have a choice of seeking out the aboriginal natives, or avoiding them. Part of my training would be making this choice. If I seek them out, I have to figure out some way to be valuable to them besides having simply having stuff that they can kill me for. If I avoid them, my life is likely to be perilous and short.

I've answered the question on its own terms, but I question some of the assumptions. First, given advance knowledge of the future, the stock market is the safest way to make a lot of money quickly. I bet if you took home $100,000 from a track in one month you would spend a lot of the other seven months dealing with the consequences, like police investigations. (BTW if you take $100,000 home from the options markets or commodity markets, and you have never traded before, the SEC or the CFTC agencies will be asking you a lot of questions and chewing up your valuable time). But this is just a quibble.

I was hoping there would be other geeks that would get into this.

Hey, alieninvestor, I stayed away from the market 'cause I thought the SEC and you ; - ) would get on me. I worked for a track in Kentucky and knew there would be some of that investigating going on, but still a lucky day is a lucky day, and without some kind of connection between me and the jockeys, folks wouldn't waste THAT much time.

I figured this would be an exercise in fun a philosophy that geek-minded folks would like to share. I like a lot of ideas I've read and have some of my own.

Like, why go back into a Christian culture? If they think you're a god they'll nail you to a cross. If you're too smart for them, they'll burn you at the stake. A lot of geeks got burned at the stake I figure: , "Mr. AlientInvestor, will you tell the clergy exactly why you think the earth is not at the center of the universe? And explain why Satan didn't teach you about high-level math? Ughhhhh!

A lot of Christian morals and moreys are based on scarcity. I'd prefer a culture based on plenty. According to many sexual anthropollogists, Tahitian's accepted unwed mothers because there was enough to go around. I like that.

I'm thinking a culture that was accepting and sharing is preferable to one that punishes stuff -- like having a Bible copyrighted in 1996 or something. "Burn him! Burn him!"

I'm making my own list, borrowing plenty from other suggestions. Right now, air rifle & pellets for birds, laptop w/solar panel, mp3s & headphones, knife, flint, a few Bic lighters, water filter, a brace & bit, plus a good plane, and plans for a sail boat that can tack into the wind would set me up pretty in Tahiti.

The Tahitian had their enemies and a good modern sloop design would be excellent for defense and to wage war. Add a good cross-bow design and I figure that would keep me in mahi-mahi and TahitianT&A for quite some time.

I'm figuring if I have any weight left over for a few good pots, yeast and a wort cooler, though.

Oh, and a few basil, oregano, and tomato seeds, plus some garlic cloves and a grape root or two. Mmmm, and barley and a hops root, too.

My point about the stock market is that you can make money by betting against stocks (short selling) as well as betting in favor of them (the normal way of investing). If you can figure out the "next Enron" then you can make a lot of money quickly. A lot of people are actually trying to do this right now. My money is literally on Computer Associates (CA). Since the market is so liquid, a short seller could probably take out $1 million or more without anyone noticing. In the stock OPTION market, there is a lot less volume, and people would notice $100k moving in a strange way (especially post 9/11 and the action in airline stock options that happened a week before).

Let's run with the seed idea. If we are going somewhere uncivilized, or even civilized, in the 17th century, then a whole lot of seeds would be good. Also fertilized eggs of several kinds of birds, and maybe some plant grafts and stuff. We're gonna be agricultural geniuses.

It might be especially helpful if we took 100 varieties of seeds, but only a few of each kind, and didn't label them, and lots of them were difficult about their planting conditions, which we memorize. Then maybe we could not get killed for our seeds, wherever we go.

I disagree with you about the Christian church in the 17th century. I just finished a book about this, Steven Shapin, "The Scientific Revolution". Scientists of the 17th century such as Boyle and Newton did not see their work as opposed to the church. They saw the world as God's creation, "The Book of Nature", and reading "The Book of Nature" was a means of gaining more knowledge about God. Mostly the Catholic church was comfortable with that. They did persecute Bruno and Galileo, but there was plenty of scientific exploration, including all the exploration of the New World, that did not challenge the perfection of God and was acceptable.

I would have to make sure I hook up with someone who was scientifically enlightened and politically connected, like Newton. I don't want to become a homeless crazy person spouting weird incomprehensible stuff like the Periodic Table with nobody listening.

And I suppose it would be a bit more prudent to take a 17th century bible with me rather than some random 21st century bible.

Maybe Tahitians were very mellow within their tribes. But how did they treat outsiders? I'm Caucausian, so even after I get my sunburn, I'm still gonna look different. I'm going to speak the language very poorly and strangely. I'm going to be alone. If I appear to have any strange powers or possessions, I'm concerned that a tribe is going to kill me to acquire those things. I haven't read a lot of anthropology material on pre-colonial Tahitians yet, but they did divide into tribes and they did have war.

http://www.jcu.edu.au/aff/history/southseas/journals/morris/044.html

So you prefer Tahiti, but right now, I prefer England.

Since you heard that the future would be horid, find out what is wrong, and change the future. In doing so, you could make yourself become a god like figure, and you could live in the future better than in the past, as you would not need to learn a new languauge, or deal with anyone. If someone were to cause problems with your rise to power, simpilly go back in time and "influence" them to pursue something else, and if the loop is right, then no one would ever question you, and everyone would love you. Ya know, create an issue with some kid, where it looks like they will die, but won't, save them, do it a few times, make yourself look good in the public eye, muahahahahahahah