The Game of Life

[techrat]

Anybody remember this board game? Or Monopoly? One of these games has a card or a space where you land on it and get free money. Now when I played Monopoly, it was a pittance, like $100 out of the "Community Chest" -- which must have seemed like a fortune during the depression, when the game was developed, I believe. The Game of Life was more "realistic" in that I believe you got thousands of dollars instead.

So let's say you suddenly get a windfall of $50,000 -- like in the Game of Life. What would you spend it on? That's a lot of rockets. Although if you're doing high-end HPR, that's not even enough for a Karman-Line attempt, but you could put on a really good show at LDRS with that kind of cash. But regardless, just to start an interesting wish list, because it's not quite like winning the lottery, but at the same time it's enough to get a nice car and still have enough left over to buy gas.

So, what would you spend it on?? Discuss!

 

[Huxter]

We still have Life, Monopoly, Ogdenopoly, Stratego, Parcheesi, Back Gammon, Dark Tower, Sorry, Battleship, Super Master Mind, Connect 4, and a number of Trivia Pursuits games.

I guess we played a lot of games!

If I got $50k, I'd buy an EV car - my Dakota is close to 200,000 miles

 

[NTP2]

You mean this Game of life.

 

[tsmith1315]

You mean this Game of life.

This:


You must have the little car and the tiny peg “people” to stick in the car. Spin the wheel by hand, pick up a card, drive your car around. I couldn’t wait to get to the little hill. All the hands-on involvement is what made it.

 

[dr wogz]

I liked Mousetrap. never owned it, nor really 'played; it, but I did always enjoy building the [Goldberg] machine when at friends who had the game..

Now, $50K US is $67,487.75 in CAD dollars, so...

Stick it in my RRSP (Registered Retirement Savings Plan - retirement fund) maybe take a trip.. and maybe buy this..

 

[Antares JS]

Pay off my student loans. I wish I had known before college what a huge financial albatross they were going to be. I would have found a better deal. $750/month freed up if those go away.

 

[Rob Campbell]

Pay off my student loans. I wish I had known before college what a huge financial albatross they were going to be. I would have found a better deal. $750/month freed up if those go away.

That'll pay for a lot of rocket motors.

 

[Daddyisabar]

Make a model rocketry version:

Get your Aerospace Engineering Degree or silly Liberal Arts short path.

Stop! Get married to understanding rocketry wife/husband or other.

Get your Level One, Two Three. AMATEUR! Move ahead two spaces.

GO TO WORK FOR SPACE X or silly insurance salesman or real estate with Liberal Arts.

Have many new rocket builds to fill up the car.

Oh no! High power rocket core samples through RV at desert launch! Did you buy NAR OR TRIPOLI insurance? Pay $500,000!

Pass the Karman line. Collect $100,000!

Develop simulation software. Collect $1,000.000!

Fail Level Two written exam. GO BACK TWO SPACES!

Build a giant spinning wheel Giarandola and launch in South East Asia. Go to to oddroc jail! Must spin a 10 to get out!

I bet there can be a lot of creative/funny landing spots.

 

[mh9162013]

Get a new car.

 

[techrat]

Pay off my student loans. I wish I had known before college what a huge financial albatross they were going to be. I would have found a better deal. $750/month freed up if those go away.

WOW! I think you would have found better interest rates with a loan shark or mafia boss. It seems to me that Student Debt is biggest financial burden of MOST Americans, and yet people still continue to seek loans from these terrible government loan agencies that no one has managed to burn to the ground yet. Someone needs to come up with a way of refinancing these things. I got out of a problem with the IRS many years ago by folding it into my mortgage, which actually ended up saving me a lot of money because the rate was lower. I wonder if there's a way to do that with Student Debt.

 

[Antares JS]

WOW! I think you would have found better interest rates with a loan shark or mafia boss. It seems to me that Student Debt is biggest financial burden of MOST Americans, and yet people still continue to seek loans from these terrible government loan agencies that no one has managed to burn to the ground yet. Someone needs to come up with a way of refinancing these things. I got out of a problem with the IRS many years ago by folding it into my mortgage, which actually ended up saving me a lot of money because the rate was lower. I wonder if there's a way to do that with Student Debt.

The only reason my balance is going down steadily is because I got them privately refinanced about 7 years ago on my own initiative. My interest rate is quite reasonable, actually. The reason the payment is so high is because the principal was very high. When I say I would have looked for a better deal, I mean I would have gone to a college that cost less.

 

[Fishhead]

Anybody remember this board game? Or Monopoly? One of these games has a card or a space where you land on it and get free money. Now when I played Monopoly, it was a pittance, like $100 out of the "Community Chest" -- which must have seemed like a fortune during the depression, when the game was developed, I believe. The Game of Life was more "realistic" in that I believe you got thousands of dollars instead.

So let's say you suddenly get a windfall of $50,000 -- like in the Game of Life. What would you spend it on? That's a lot of rockets. Although if you're doing high-end HPR, that's not even enough for a Karman-Line attempt, but you could put on a really good show at LDRS with that kind of cash. But regardless, just to start an interesting wish list, because it's not quite like winning the lottery, but at the same time it's enough to get a nice car and still have enough left over to buy gas.

So, what would you spend it on?? Discuss!

Retirement.

 

[techrat]

When I say I would have looked for a better deal, I mean I would have gone to a college that cost less.

Yes, because in the end, your college degree is a piece of paper that's ultimately meaningless. It may open a few doors earlier on in life, but what I discovered is that what I went to school for isn't the career path I wound up on. Now maybe my life is different than most people, but, it just seems that what I ended up doing in my, uh ... "career(s)", had little to do with what I thought I was going to be doing when I entered college. My Game of Life is twisty turn-y, and not a straight and narrow. Then again, I'm 58 and still haven't decided what I want to be when I grow up.

 

[Hobie1dog]

We would just use it to supplement our income since our rent so high, compared to our social security income. Since we have $100 in our savings account we would actually have money for an occasional car repair. We would have money also pay to on things that our insurance would not cover, since we know my time is limited. The worse I get, the more it's going to cost in health care.
And whoever does die first, is not going to be able to stay in the condo we live in as the spouse who remains will not be able to stay here, they will get just what the highest social security of the two of us get so they won't be able to afford to stay here.Then they would have a buffer to get them through while they find a place, or I should say one room to rent that would be affordable. So unfortunately it would not be used for anything to provide pleasure with.

 

[Antares JS]

Yes, because in the end, your college degree is a piece of paper that's ultimately meaningless. It may open a few doors earlier on in life, but what I discovered is that what I went to school for isn't the career path I wound up on. Now maybe my life is different than most people, but, it just seems that what I ended up doing in my, uh ... "career(s)", had little to do with what I thought I was going to be doing when I entered college. My Game of Life is twisty turn-y, and not a straight and narrow. Then again, I'm 58 and still haven't decided what I want to be when I grow up.

My BS degree is aerospace engineering, and I work in the space launch industry. Yes, when you get to my age, work experience matters more than your degree, but that doesn't make a degree meaningless. All I am saying is that I could have probably gone to a cheaper school and had the same career.

 

[KenECoyote]

So let's say you suddenly get a windfall of $50,000 -- like in the Game of Life. What would you spend it on?

 

[Steven]

Invest.

 

[cls]

Yeah, invest. And forget about it. There, I just saved you $1000 consulting fees with a financial advisor.

(From the thread title, J thought this was about Conway's game of life https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway's_Game_of_Life totally different, NM)

 

[NateB]

I'd get a different degree for a 2nd career.

 

[Art Upton]

I'd get a different degree for a 2nd career.

Not all careers need a Degree, but OTJ learning and experience that gets things done really help

 

[Azamiryou]

you suddenly get a windfall of $50,000

Start a rocketry supply company and turn it into $5000.

 

[bjphoenix]

Well I have other hobbies that are more expensive than rockets. However I suspect I would only spend a small fraction on myself anyway.

 

[teepot]

We played all those games too. I still have a Battleship game. It's wrapped in plastic and will go to auction. I would put the $50K into stocks.

 

[John Kemker]

When I first saw this thread's title, this is what I thought of:

import pygame
import numpy as np

col_about_to_die = (200, 200, 225)
col_alive = (255, 255, 215)
col_background = (10, 10, 40)
col_grid = (30, 30, 60)

def update(surface, cur, sz):
    nxt = np.zeros((cur.shape[0], cur.shape[1]))

    for r, c in np.ndindex(cur.shape):
        num_alive = np.sum(cur[r-1:r+2, c-1:c+2]) - cur[r, c]

        if cur[r, c] == 1 and num_alive < 2 or num_alive > 3:
            col = col_about_to_die
        elif (cur[r, c] == 1 and 2 <= num_alive <= 3) or (cur[r, c] == 0 and num_alive == 3):
            nxt[r, c] = 1
            col = col_alive

        col = col if cur[r, c] == 1 else col_background
        pygame.draw.rect(surface, col, (c*sz, r*sz, sz-1, sz-1))

    return nxt

def init(dimx, dimy):
    cells = np.zeros((dimy, dimx))
    pattern = np.array([[0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,1,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0],
                        [0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,1,0,1,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0],
                        [0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,1,1,0,0,0,0,0,0,1,1,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,1,1,0,0,0],
                        [0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,1,0,0,0,1,0,0,0,0,1,1,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,1,1,0,0,0],
                        [1,1,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,1,0,0,0,0,0,1,0,0,0,1,1,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0],
                        [1,1,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,1,0,0,0,1,0,1,1,0,0,0,0,1,0,1,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0],
                        [0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,1,0,0,0,0,0,1,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,1,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0],
                        [0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,1,0,0,0,1,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0],
                        [0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,1,1,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0]]);
    pos = (3,3)
    cells[pos[0]:pos[0]+pattern.shape[0], pos[1]:pos[1]+pattern.shape[1]] = pattern
    return cells

def main(dimx, dimy, cellsize):
    pygame.init()
    surface = pygame.display.set_mode((dimx * cellsize, dimy * cellsize))
    pygame.display.set_caption("John Conway's Game of Life")

    cells = init(dimx, dimy)

    while True:
        for event in pygame.event.get():
            if event.type == pygame.QUIT:
                pygame.quit()
                return

        surface.fill(col_grid)
        cells = update(surface, cells, cellsize)
        pygame.display.update()

if __name__ == "__main__":
    main(120, 90, 8)

 

[SecondRow]

Buy 104 shares VOO. Watch it grow. Use the accumulated value for my kids’ tuition costs in 7-10 years.

The interest rates on our mortgage and my wife’s student loan is so low, there’s no reason to pay them off early. And there’s nothing I really want that comes anywhere close to costing that much. So into savings it goes.

 

[techrat]

Buy 104 shares VOO.

I've had various index funds since the early 2000's. There's one I like that has something to do with 2035, and another regarding Millenial's buying power. Between the two of them I've tripled my investment. I was skeptical of these at first, but they are one of the reasons I can retire early.

 

[Bill S]

I have played Life before, but in this household, we prefer the game Redneck Life... its kind of fun.

Redneck Life

 

[techrat]

The board game "The Game of Life" was clearly developed in the 1950's, because everyone has a car, you were expected to get married and have 4 kids. Monopoly was developed either just before or during the depression, when monopolies were common (Standard Oil), and you had guys like Rockerfeller, Carnigie and JP Morgan who owned everything and Railroads were still considered important.

Perhaps I'm just waxing nostalgic, but none of these games prepared me in the least for what *actually* took place. I mean, I got some kind of inkling for how things were going to go while I was still in high school, but now I'm looking back and discovering that my life took a completely arbitrary set of twists and turns and while I kinda was going with the flow, all of a sudden it's like the Talking Heads song where I'm saying "How did I get here?"

 

[Bill S]

And its going to get worse, what with the Gen-Z'ers and late Millennials trying to re-invent the American Dream, because many of them recognize that the traditional American Dream is nearly unattainable these days (going into why would get highly political so I won't go there). A large number of them seem to be eschewing the usual get a college degree, get a job, buy a house, have a kid or two, etc, in favor of "experiences" and less "stuff"... I think that we are in for a rough ride, particularly the younger folk.

I worry for my 15-year old boy, the way things are going.

 

[Rob Campbell]

I have two "sick" games. Capital Punishment and Public Assistance. In Capital Punishment, you win by either getting all of your criminals in either life in prison or executed. Or, you spring other players' criminals back on the streets and run everyone else out of citizens.

In Public Assistance, you try to stay on welfare as long as possible.