Also, I want to know where Aguamenti fits into this.

 

"Something that you conjure out of thin air will not last." -- Word of God

Although within this fic, one could suppose that if it's not outright ex nihilo, it could be transfigured from the air (after, the rule regarding fluids is a safety regulation for non-spelled transfiguration, rather than a fundamental limitation of magic).

Edit: Or do you mean it was consumed afterwards? (I can't remember the details of the horcrux thing.) That would be majorly non-canon-compatible, if the fic didn't have a special exemption for spelled transfiguration.

 

If you're going to try to apply SCIENCE! to the Harry Potter universe, apply it to the Harry Potter universe, and not a bargain bin ripoff version of it.

Some lulz at the beginning, but quickly went downhill... as, I believe, he mentioned that this board predicted it would, disagreed, then went on a review harvesting spree, head swollen to the size of a small Buick, and wrote three horrible 'chapters'.

 

I didn't have anything specific in mind; in general, there are just so many holes with the author's laws of magic. Can you not water plants with Aguamenti, then? What about conjured light? Do the photons produced eventually disappear? What if you transfigure a flower and can smell it? The very act of smelling something means you've inhaled part of that something; when whatever you inhaled turns back into its base form, is your nose screwed?

I could go on forever with this. The author has effectively turned Transfiguration into a useless magic.

 

The Dumbledore scene was hilarious, if a bit fourth-wall-breakish.

 

Out of curiosity I glanced at the new chapter, You can pinpoint the exact moment it goes into lecture mode. It's like Sesame street. Look, kids! Learning can be fun!

 

It's been like that since Chapter 1.

 

Gave it a whirl. Like almost all genius!Harry fics, except that one Lady Salazar one, it kinda fails. Amusing to read, though. 2/5.

 

I loved Dumbledore, but that was about the only part I enjoyed. This fic is just becoming harder and harder to read as it goes on. Taure hit it on the nose - it was always there, but now it's becoming annoying. I'll give it a 2.5/5, mainly for Dumbledore and chapter 7. From the looks of it, it's gonna be like this 'til the end.

 

Eh, it had its good parts and its bad parts - the chapter I mean - and I shall continue to read it.

I love how all the same people come into this thread with each chapter posted, make exactly the same comment they have about the previous chapters, and leave again.

 

From the AN for this chapter:

Dear God, he's so full of himself. Fine, he's much smarter and more accomplished than I am, but it's so annoying. I now agree with all those people who hated my guts in school. I was an annoying piece of shit, and Yudkowsky is a more annoying piece of shit. Why can't he strive to be more like Richard Feynman?

 

You left out the best part.

Irony, thy name is Less Wrong.

 

Don't get me wrong, I love Feynman's works. From what he wrote, though, I get the feeling he actually would be an annoying shit in life, at least when he was younger.

 

Well, he sounds pretty humble in the interviews when he was old. And he was trying very hard to explain everything without using big words (and succeeding!).

I'm too stupid to understand what Dumbledore implied by saying he wrote notes in Lily's book in her boyfriend's handwriting. I assume the boyfriend at the time was Snape, by it being her fifth year and the subject being potions. Was Dumbledore just messing with her mind, or was he trying to set her up with Snape, or was he trying to break her up with Snape, or what? Because what he said didn't imply something scandalous like he was romantically involved with a student (which apparently does happen at Hogwarts, and according to McGonagall, happened as recently as last year), even if he sneaked into her room (which is inappropriate but probably way too easy to do).

"I have to do dishes and wash math problems" was kinda funny, but the two paragraphs where he explains some fallacy about why carrying around a rock without a good reason is stupid was boring. I usually like his explanations, but this time it was just boring. I liked the experiment with factoring a large number, though. I always wondered whether there would be a magical way to break RSA or not, and the implications either way (every time someone says something like "post owls could be intercepted"). I guess I'm kinda weird too.

 

meh. A lot of people are annoying. Few have as much justification as he does.

 

This story has been linked from David Brin's blog. I fear the author's head might explode.

 

Feynman was annoying as an older man too, at least in his professional life. On at least a couple occasions, he's known to have spent days boning up on a colleague's research before the colleague would visit Caltech to give a seminar. Then he'd ask sandbag questions early in the talk and would continue to ask progressively more sophisticated and profound questions throughout. The intent was to convey the impression that he was so smart, he could learn a colleague's entire field in an hour.

He also was ruthless with younger colleagues, destroying their credibility and confidence when necessary in order to keep up the facade. For example, he'd find out the problem a postdoc or grad student in his department was working on, work it out himself (a lot easier than you might think), and put his notes in his filing cabinet. If the student ever came by to discuss the problem, he'd immediately be able to spot whether the work was right. If wrong, he'd say so immediately, crushing the morale of the student because it was apparently so obvious. If the student was right, Feynman would pull the notes from the filing cabinet, check them against the student's notes, and say, "Yeah, that's what I got, too," then put them back in the cabinet, the implication being that he apparently thought the student's crowning achievement wasn't even worthy of sharing with the community. Also utterly demoralizing.

One of my professors in grad school had a nervous breakdown as a younger physicist after having Feynman inquired in one of his seminars, "You said it can be worked out, but can you work it out? Go up to the board and and show us... What's the matter--you can't do it? Are you stupid or something? Do you even know how to integrate e to the minus x squared d x?"

He was a piece of work. For someone so renowned as a great educator, he produced a scant few Ph.D. students and postdocs.

[Edit: 1500th post.]

 

I read a few chapters of it but I guess I'm to dumb for it to keep my interest. I did find quite a few part of it amusing but not enough to keep me reading.

2/5

 

I find the many contradictions in this to be intriguing. For instance, Minerva is clever and rational, while Dumbledore is inscrutably obtuse. Yet, all and sundry are leaving the most obvious admonitions against questioning Quirrel or the stone's protections.

It makes the whole thing interesting to me, even though we know (or think we do) how it will play out. Are they making this so overt that Harry will be wary of their warnings or see it as an obvious trap, thereby assuring he WON'T be interested? That might make sense if they sussed out his intelligence and decided a straight canon warning would guarantee his interest. I honestly don't know.

Dumbledore was great in the last chapter. I literally have no idea who he is or what he's about. That is quite a coup for the author.

I don't really care if the author is a jerk. The scientific rationale is limited in the last scene to a few instances where it is easily skimmed and not overly intrusive. Win, for the last chapter.

 

With all of the garbage that DLP still has in its archive, I'm actually rather surprised that this has ended up in the recycle bin. It's most definitely not the best, but for a humor work that's trying to be as random and crack!fic as possible -by the author's own words in an author's note, this was definitely worth a place in the library.

I laughed the whole way through and couldn't anticipate a second of it. Refreshing, in my opinion.

4/5 for its awesome potential as a crack!fic.