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  1. wolf550e
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    Complete Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality by Less Wrong - T

    I had a theory (inspired by working in software development) that any society with a male to female ratio higher than X turns into 4chan. So far, DLP is supporting this theory nicely. I think I'll stick to Santi's private group from now.
    Post by: wolf550e, Oct 17, 2010 in forum: Almost Recommended
  2. wolf550e
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    Complete Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality by Less Wrong - T

    I really liked the update. The author has again changed a significant event from canon, and it kinda cheapens the thing, but I still enjoyed reading it. Excerpts from the AN follow. This seems important: : I still think what reads as just the author pontificating is exactly that, but I'll read that linked story just in case. Review whoring from the AN: The author feels unappreciated that the hints supposedly left throughout the fic are not picked upon by reviewers: The author being...
    Post by: wolf550e, Sep 25, 2010 in forum: Almost Recommended
  3. wolf550e
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    Complete Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality by Less Wrong - T

    So Dumbledore wanted to keep it as a surprise weapon against Voldemort. Ok. I can imagine two scenarios where people not knowing might be to Harry's advantage: Harry goes "dark"/anti-ministry, gets sent to Azkaban, escapes using this trick (if he can pull it off wandlessly). But now that Dumbledore knows, he will make sure this can't happen by warning Azkaban guards/aurors/whatever. Voldemort plans attack that relies on Dementors, Harry thwarts it using this trick. But now that Voldemort...
    Post by: wolf550e, Sep 10, 2010 in forum: Almost Recommended
  4. wolf550e
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    Complete Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality by Less Wrong - T

    No, that is why Harry didn't tell Dumbledore how he did what he did. But before Dumbledore knew Harry wasn't going to tell him how, before even Harry knew he wasn't going to tell Dumbledore how, they all agreed the three aurors needed to be stunned and memory charmed so they wouldn't know that Harry killed a Dementor. Not how, but that he did it at all. If all competent wizards know that if a wizard tells you you are not ready for a spell then you don't learn the spell, then it should be...
    Post by: wolf550e, Sep 9, 2010 in forum: Almost Recommended
  5. wolf550e
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    Complete Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality by Less Wrong - T

    Why did Dumbledore, Quirrelmort and Harry Potter all immediately decide they can't let anybody know that Harry killed a Dementor? He earned the bragging rights on that one "fair and square". I wonder how the author intends to conclude this if Voldemort is going to hide (or re-hide) the hurcruxes that well. By Potter making everyone immortal and thus fulfilling all of Voldemort's wishes so he never reveals himself?
    Post by: wolf550e, Sep 9, 2010 in forum: Almost Recommended
  6. wolf550e
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    Complete Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality by Less Wrong - T

    Who would win was predictable from that point, yes, but I didn't know how. The author is attacking egotism. I can't fault him for that. Also, wasn't Ender's strategy in the battle school game to give more independence to his officers? That could be a kind of homage or an inspiration. From the AN: I think that is because the DLP has better taste, has read more HP fanfic, and judges this as a single story rather than as a collection of neat ideas.
    Post by: wolf550e, Jul 11, 2010 in forum: Almost Recommended
  7. wolf550e
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    Complete Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality by Less Wrong - T

    I fucking loved "Aftermath, 2", which, as far as I can tell, is an unrelated drabble poking fun at the Snape/Original Female Student genre. The actual chapter felt more science-fictiony than HP, but was ok. The author has changed the prophecy. I am not going to analyze why. I wonder, how many wizards would it take to transfigure a satellite launch platform, and would it be cheaper than muggle tech?
    Post by: wolf550e, Jul 3, 2010 in forum: Almost Recommended
  8. wolf550e
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    Complete Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality by Less Wrong - T

    It seems I don't understand the criticism. First of all, we don't really know the details about Lily's relationship with Snape or James Potter, neither in canon nor in this fic. Without knowing more about how sixteen year old James Potter and Severus Snape were like, we can't know whether sixteen year old Lily Evans was shallow or shrewd. In the fic, according to what Snape told Harry, Lily chose a handsome rich bully ring leader over an ugly friendless boy who thought he was more...
    Post by: wolf550e, Jun 29, 2010 in forum: Almost Recommended
  9. wolf550e
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    Complete Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality by Less Wrong - T

    I'm not saying the protagonist isn't an author stand-in or that the author isn't pretentious, but beautiful people really do get a lot more slack in real life. I can quote references to studies published in peer reviewed journals that confirm this. Yes, the last sentence was attempt at humor, but the point stands.
    Post by: wolf550e, Jun 28, 2010 in forum: Almost Recommended
  10. wolf550e
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    Complete Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality by Less Wrong - T

    EDIT: It seems to me now that I've misunderstood thomblake. Even if food and entertainment was free, some people would still want power and would manipulate other people to this end, so suffering would not end. I'm unfamiliar with the existing significant body of work on Utopias, but my ignorant conclusion is that they don't work. Sacrificing people to the greater good is a problem, unless they have volunteered to be sacrificed. Soldiers and spies are often treated as if they agreed to be...
    Post by: wolf550e, Jun 23, 2010 in forum: Almost Recommended
  11. wolf550e
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    Complete Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality by Less Wrong - T

    You're high as a kite. You want to live in a post-aging, post-scarcity society? Never mind the second law of thermodynamics or the heat-death of the universe. It would be boring.
    Post by: wolf550e, Jun 22, 2010 in forum: Almost Recommended
  12. wolf550e
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    Complete Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality by Less Wrong - T

    Maybe I'm strange, but you lose me as an audience when you sacrifice too much verisimilitude on the altar of awesome. What I want to say is that when your fictional world differs from the real world, it has to be purposefully done in ways that are useful to your story (like allegory or parable), not out of carelessness: using imagination instead of fact when facts are available is wrong. You use your imagination to invent a fictional character, and to invent a fictional situation in which...
    Post by: wolf550e, Jun 16, 2010 in forum: Almost Recommended
  13. wolf550e
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    Complete Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality by Less Wrong - T

    http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DanBrowned If you write from your imagination instead of experience or good research, and a reader has real knowledge of the subject, and you got it wrong, they will laugh or cry and tell people that you suck. The difference between your description and reality can only be as big as the difference between the retelling of the experience by two different people. If no one who really experienced it retells it the way you're telling it - you're...
    Post by: wolf550e, Jun 16, 2010 in forum: Almost Recommended
  14. wolf550e
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    Complete Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality by Less Wrong - T

    I did LOL at him again lampooning a common fanfic trope. And yes, of course, the gift is suspicious. Why did Voldemort [SPOILER]? Who here thinks the twins pranked Ginny too, rather than clearing it with her and staging the photo?
    Post by: wolf550e, Jun 16, 2010 in forum: Almost Recommended
  15. wolf550e
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    Complete Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality by Less Wrong - T

    You know what I do as soon as I watch an episode of House MD? Read a real doctor's list of mistakes for that chapter.
    Post by: wolf550e, Jun 13, 2010 in forum: Almost Recommended
  16. wolf550e
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    Complete Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality by Less Wrong - T

    If this is so, why isn't it widely known? At least to connected people like Malfoy? Or is it known but not mentioned because "magic is becoming weaker" is such a powerful propaganda prop? Is there a conspiracy that suppressed the information on how to imprint spells and that old spells need to be periodically re-imprinted, to keep the population weak? How did Snape know how to create a new spell? Or how did Voldemort create Morsemorde?
    Post by: wolf550e, Jun 6, 2010 in forum: Almost Recommended
  17. wolf550e
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    Complete Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality by Less Wrong - T

    Updated. I wonder what is the reason (according to the author) for the pronunciation of Wingardium Levioza being important. I've read a theory in some fic that said that spells were imprinted into the fabric of the universe by a cabal of powerful wizards and after that was done, the spell would work for everyone, but only in the way the imprinters designed it. So the universe is enforcing a quirky pronunciation for the spell to work, but it is man-made, not a consequence of some universal...
    Post by: wolf550e, Jun 5, 2010 in forum: Almost Recommended
  18. wolf550e
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    Complete Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality by Less Wrong - T

    It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is, Perspicacity. LOL.
    Post by: wolf550e, Jun 3, 2010 in forum: Almost Recommended
  19. wolf550e
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    Complete Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality by Less Wrong - T

    I like this story and I liked Jeconais' stories. Partially Kissed Hero is completely insane. Next you're going to compare this to the Witches' Secret. Please don't.
    Post by: wolf550e, May 23, 2010 in forum: Almost Recommended
  20. wolf550e
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    Complete Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality by Less Wrong - T

    I feel that this story to its author is like Hogwarts Dawn to Jeconais: a bit of fun. It's just that Yudkowsky believes his reputation is at stake, and consequently he tries harder. They fail from the same cause: they are written to maximize the enjoyment of the author rather than the quality of the story.
    Post by: wolf550e, May 17, 2010 in forum: Almost Recommended
  21. wolf550e
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    Complete Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality by Less Wrong - T

    I agree with Ellisande. It seems one of the AU things in this story is that Dumbledore has never met Quirrell before he was possessed, Voldemort completely took over from the start and acted in a way that did not give it away and thus Dumbledore doesn't know that his D.A.D.A teacher is the Dark Lord. He just thinks he's an eccentric wizard who studied Defense on his own for some years. Voldemort says that there are no achievements to Quirrel's name. I wonder where he went to school.
    Post by: wolf550e, May 11, 2010 in forum: Almost Recommended
  22. wolf550e
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    Complete Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality by Less Wrong - T

    I have mentioned making the Voyager golden record into a horcrux on the CaerAzkaban yahoo group. There was a discussion there about hiding a horcrux in the Mariana Trench (where you would be able to get it back if you needed to), and I suggested Voyager instead, which is more secure, but impossible to get back if it's needed for a resurrection. That was a while ago, and I am sure I wasn't the first to think about it, though I am pretty sure I "invented" it independently. Anyway, over the...
    Post by: wolf550e, May 10, 2010 in forum: Almost Recommended
  23. wolf550e
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    Complete Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality by Less Wrong - T

    From the AN: You know who's a bigger whore than Anita Blake? The author, obviously. I liked this chapter very much. Lots of quotable parts.
    Post by: wolf550e, May 3, 2010 in forum: Almost Recommended
  24. wolf550e
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    Complete Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality by Less Wrong - T

    This story has been linked from David Brin's blog. I fear the author's head might explode.
    Post by: wolf550e, Apr 25, 2010 in forum: Almost Recommended
  25. wolf550e
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    Complete Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality by Less Wrong - T

    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...
    Post by: wolf550e, Apr 25, 2010 in forum: Almost Recommended
  26. wolf550e
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    Complete Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality by Less Wrong - T

    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?
    Post by: wolf550e, Apr 25, 2010 in forum: Almost Recommended
  27. wolf550e
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    Complete Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality by Less Wrong - T

    Why would a competent Dumbledore not recognize a possessed Quirrel, or that Voldemort is teaching Defense? This is strange.
    Post by: wolf550e, Apr 8, 2010 in forum: Almost Recommended
  28. wolf550e
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    Complete Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality by Less Wrong - T

    Latest update should have gone into a side story which would be a collection of omakes, deleted scenes etc. But I'll forgive and ignore this because the author wrote an omake based on an idea I've left in a review. Though my idea was better than what he's written. Also, Taure, he's removed the section you've quoted. I hope the next update is much better.
    Post by: wolf550e, Apr 7, 2010 in forum: Almost Recommended
  29. wolf550e
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    Complete Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality by Less Wrong - T

    The Hat stores a statistical summary of the data, not the raw data. This is used by all entities that provide statistics to the public. For example, the US census bureau. The graphs in the wikipedia article on household income use information collected by the IRS and summarized into tables that allow you to get the big picture without being able to find out how much money your neighbor makes. The Google Zeitgeist gives some data summarized from millions of individual user interactions with...
    Post by: wolf550e, Apr 4, 2010 in forum: Almost Recommended
  30. wolf550e
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    Complete Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality by Less Wrong - T

    That is 11AM on March 31st, in Sydney. I hope the song and dance routine was a joke or an experiment to see whether the feedback correlates to the quality in a meaningful way.
    Post by: wolf550e, Apr 1, 2010 in forum: Almost Recommended
  31. wolf550e
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    Complete Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality by Less Wrong - T

    QFT. Learning 100 digits of Pi by heart without having an eidetic memory (Hermione tells Harry she has to read stuff five times to feel she is prepared to be tested on it) is not intelligence but dedication and hard work. Stupid and misplaced dedication too, as the author specifically mentions: the extra digits are useless for physics.
    Post by: wolf550e, Apr 1, 2010 in forum: Almost Recommended
  32. wolf550e
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    Complete Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality by Less Wrong - T

    Chapter 9 posted. Author issued a dare in the AN: if you guess what the last line of chapter 9 refers to before chapter 10 is posted on April 3rd, the author promised to tell you the entire plot.
    Post by: wolf550e, Mar 31, 2010 in forum: Almost Recommended
  33. wolf550e
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    Complete Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality by Less Wrong - T

    At first I was like "Hey! I couldn't name the quarks when I was eleven, and I was a real geek!" but then I considered it and decided that Hermione doesn't actually understand anything about quantum physics - she can just recite stuff. Maybe she knows the periodic table by heart, but can she do chemistry? I doubt it. She can probably recite Newton's Laws, and maybe Maxwell's equations, but I doubt she can solve high school physics test problems. Was is the experiment to demonstrate positive...
    Post by: wolf550e, Mar 26, 2010 in forum: Almost Recommended
  34. wolf550e
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    Complete Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality by Less Wrong - T

    It explicitly says that Harry realized that Draco was not a psychopath, but rather the society Draco belongs to is medieval. Draco is not a person who knows how society works (or is supposed to work) and subverts it; he is a person who was raised to believe he is entitled to whatever he wants within certain limits, and that people who are not Dumbledore or Voldemort are supposed to grovel before him and give him whatever he wants lest he destroy them. As if he is a Ducal heir and the...
    Post by: wolf550e, Mar 26, 2010 in forum: Almost Recommended
  35. wolf550e
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    Complete Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality by Less Wrong - T

    Draco is OOC because the protagonist is overpowered and the author wanted to keep the conflict in the story (this doesn't appear to be a crackfic, at least not intentionally so). So the Hogwarts first years are going to be precocious and tutored, and Ron Weasley will be bashed a little by the harsh contrast. I'm eager to read about Hermione and the Weasley Twins. 5/5
    Post by: wolf550e, Mar 24, 2010 in forum: Almost Recommended
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