For your information, Clippy, a paperclip can be rendered fairly adequately in Unicode with ⊂≣⊇ (depending on the font, of course).
dclayh
Karma: 1,679
Quirrelmort knew of Voyager, knew where to find it, knew what building, what campus, how to defeat the many security systems, and so on. This bespeaks an intimate and long-standing interest in NASA’s projects.
Well, all the bits after finding out about Voyager could be done with the liberal use of Imperius, legilimency and other magic.
I’ve definitely found that if two mysterious shadowy figures show up, they’re the same person more often than not. Must be on TVTropes somewhere.
Ch. 34:
Presumably, by Occam’s Razor of Fiction (or whatever the appropriate TVTrope is), Mr. Hat-n-Cloak = Santa Claus?
Ch. 33:
The three-way tie, while clearly dramatically convenient for Eliezer, and adequately foreshadowed, is just so boring.
Was anyone else briefly confused because they had forgotten that the war was continuing even after the awarding of the Christmas Wish?
Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 2
Excellent point! This is what I get for posting in haste.
ETA: However you can extract more than $1000 if you assume that at least one of Harry and Draco would rather the other of them win than Hermione. No counterfactuals needed.
All anyone has to do to change my mind is show me an infinite set.
Considering your brain is finite, I don’t think you’re entitled to that particular proof.
(Perhaps you’re just saying it would be a sufficient but not a necessary proof, in which case...okay, I guess.)
Ch. 32. I don’t know what Eliezer will have Blaise do, but if I were in that position I’d flip a coin between Harry and Draco, get rewarded by the winner and counterfactually mug the loser. (Hoping, of course, that that Draco wins, since Harry is clearly more likely to pay off a counterfactual mugger.)
ETA: That is, of course, assuming that Blaise isn’t working for Dumbledore (which his chapter-ending line would seem to point to).
Do Quirrell points from battles tend heavily towards the generals?
Yes, that was stated in a previous chapter.
Not to mention the scenario in the infamous Ethics Final from Hell.
FYI, Dan Savage’s podcast, Episode 194, has an interview with Christopher Ryan about the book and its relevance to modern humans.
Wise men told him his simple fancies were inane and childish, and he believed it because he could see that they might easily be so. What he failed to recall was that the deeds of reality are just as inane and childish, and even more absurd because their actors persist in fancying them full of meaning and purpose as the blind cosmos grinds aimlessly on from nothing to something and from something back to nothing again, neither heeding nor knowing the wishes or existence of the minds that flicker for a second now and then in the darkness.
—H.P. Lovecraft, “The Silver Key”
Yeah, not double-killing everyone seems just grossly incompetent (and therefore out of character) on Harry’s part.
The Chris Christie joke was excellent, however.
I would think using magic you actually could extract a pound of just flesh...
I don’t know; he makes enough fun of her that he might be able to slide in under parody...and the inevitable court case would be great publicity for the book!