Anubhav comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 9 - Less Wrong

10 Post author: Oscar_Cunningham 09 September 2011 01:29PM

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Comment author: Anubhav 19 February 2012 12:20:56PM *  3 points [-]

"Oh, the little fiddly things?" said Dumbledore. "They came with the Headmaster's office and I have absolutely no idea what most of them do. Although this dial with the eight hands counts the number of, let's call them sneezes, by left-handed witches within the borders of France, you would not believe how much work it took to nail that down."

Chapter 17.

I know it's supposed to be a joke, but.... How? Is Dumbledore monitoring every wizard and witch's sex life? And how did he manage to crunch that data? Do wizards have calculating machines?

Or maybe he meant to say "the documentation took a lot of work to find and decipher"?

ETA: If it was Rowling writing this, the 'device with the golden wibblers' mentioned in the very next sentence would become a major plot point later in the series.

Comment author: Locke 19 February 2012 03:50:54PM *  4 points [-]

I find it more likely that he tinkered with the object itself, if that's even true.

I wonder if Quirrell could have managed to get a fiddly thing of his own invention into the headmaster's office before Dumbledore took over for Dipot. Perhaps as a gift to the old headmaster. It'd be an incredibly useful source of knowledge, if Wizards do in fact have magical listening devices.

Comment author: Anubhav 19 February 2012 04:17:59PM 1 point [-]

You'd expect the Headmaster's office to be laced with anti-eavesdropping charms.

Comment author: Locke 19 February 2012 05:39:19PM *  5 points [-]

How would that work, exactly? Would the Sorting Hat be unable to hear anything said in there? I should think not. And whatever doesn't work on the sorting hat probably wouldn't work on the instruments. Or what about all the portraits? There's some definite spying potential in the slytherin headmasters.

Comment author: gwern 19 February 2012 08:50:16PM 3 points [-]

Exactly. A recording device doesn't have to be actively broadcasting every thing; it could be just that Quirrel gets updates any time he is summoned to the headmaster's office. Untimely intel is better than no intel.

Comment author: wedrifid 20 February 2012 01:14:37PM *  1 point [-]

You'd expect the Headmaster's office to be laced with anti-eavesdropping charms.

Although when the Headmaster is Dumbledore who can control such things without aids with less than a flick of the finger or someone with the cunning to want to be selectively overheard the expectation is not quite so clear.

Comment author: Anubhav 20 February 2012 02:15:11PM 0 points [-]

Although when the Headmaster is Dumbledore who can control such things without aids with less than a flick of the finger or someone with the canny to want to be selectively overheard the expectation is not quite so clear.

..... what

What are you trying to say? Looks like a 'damn you autocorrect' moment to me... ('canny' isn't a noun, for instance)

Comment author: wedrifid 20 February 2012 02:36:18PM 1 point [-]

Eek. Somehow I changed from 'cunning' to 'savvy' mid-word!

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