In HPMOR Harry quickly learns that (amongst other thing) that if one applies some creativity and scientific knowledge to magic, one can trivially assasinate Bad Guys. He doesn't really make use of that, but considers it doable if necessity arises.

But this is also true in our world. If one wants to kill a Bad Guy (a dangerous president, PM or some other sort of Dark Lord), there are easy ways (though not completely risk free). Off the top of my head: smear something that a Bad Guy will touch with dimethylmercury. It permeates through skin in seconds and kills within months. Chelation therapy can help, but probably it's effective only within first hours from contact. Synthesis isn't terribly problematic. You can put in on some paper and smuggle as a used tissue. Of course you can't handle it with gloves (it gets thrugh latex and gloves would be suspicious), but a crumbled tissue will do well. (Your fingers would be just physically too far for dimethylmercury to diffuse). The biggest risk would be poisoning yourself. And it's a fair risk, though you can diminish it by starting early on chelation.

It seems simple. It is definitely risky, but not a sure death. So if assasination can be done this easily, why aren't there more of them? Any ideas?

This short text describes the idea of a Waker - a new way of experiencing reality / consciousness / subjectivity / mode of existence. Sadly, it cannot be attained without advanced uploading technology, that is one which allows far-fetched manipulation of mind. Despite that, the author doesn't find it premature to start planning a retirement as a posthuman.

A Waker is based on the experience of waking up from a dream - slowly we realize unreality of world we just were in, we realize discrepancies between dreamscape and "the real world", like that we no longer attend high school, one of our grandparents has had passed away few years ago, we work at a different place, etc. Despite the fact the world we wake up in is new and different, we quickly remember who we are, what we do, who are our friends, how does that world look like and in few seconds we have a perfect knowledge of that world and find it a real world, place, we have been living in since our birth. Meanwhile, dream world becomes a weird story and we typically feel some kind of a sentiment for it. Sometimes we're glad to escape that reality, sometimes we're sad - nevertheless we mostly treat it as something of little importance. Not a real world we lost forever, but rather a silly, made-up world.

A Waker's subjective experience would differ from ours in that way, she would always have the choice of waking up from current reality. As she would do that, she would find herself in a bed, or a chair, or laying on the grass, just having woken up. She would remember the world, she was just in, probably better then we usually remember our dream, nevertheless she would see it as a dream - she wouldn't feel strong connection to that reality. In the same time, she would start "remembering" the world she just woken up in. Somehow different then in our case, this would be a world she never had actually lived in, however she would acquire full knowledge of it and a sense of having spent all her life in that world. Despite all that, she would have full awareness of her being a Waker. She would find connection to the world she lives in different then we do and at first glance somehow paradoxical. She would feel how real it is, she would find it more real then any of the "dreams" she had, she would have investment in life goals, relationships with other people, she'll be capable of real love. And yet, she will be fully able to wake up and enter new world, where her life goals and relationships might be replaced by ones that feel exactly as real and important. There is an air of openness and ease of giving away all you know, completely alien to us, early XXI century people. 

Worlds in which Waker would wake up, would have the level of discrepancies similar to those of our dreams. Most of the people would stay in place, time and Waker's age would be quite similar. She would be able to sleep and dream regular dreams, after which she will wake back in the same world she fell asleep in. What is important is that a Waker cannot get back to a dreamworld. She can only move forward, same as we do and unlike the consciousnesses in Hub Realities -  posthumans who can chose the reality they live in.

I hope you enjoyed it and some of you would decide to fork into Waker mode of existence, when the posthumanism hits. I'd be very glad, if anyone have other ideas for novel subjectivities and would be willing to share in comments.

Yawn, it's been a long day - time to Wake up.

I am very much interested in examples of non-human optimization processes producing working, but surprising solutions. What is most fascinating is how they show human approach is often not the only one and much more alien solutions can be found, which humans are just not capable of conceiving. It is very probable, that more and more such solutions will arise and will slowly make big part of technology ununderstandable by humans.

I present following examples and ask for linking more in comments:

1. Nick Bostrom describes efforts in evolving circuits that would produce oscilloscope and frequency discriminator, that yielded very unorthodox designs:
http://www.damninteresting.com/on-the-origin-of-circuits/
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/r.stow1/jb/publications/Bird_CEC2002.pdf (IV. B. Oscillator Experiments; also C. and D. in that section)

2. Algorithms learns to play NES games with some eerie strategies:
https://youtu.be/qXXZLoq2zFc?t=361 (description by Vsause)
http://hackaday.com/2013/04/14/teaching-a-computer-to-play-mario-seemingly-through-voodoo/ (more info)

3. Eurisko finding unexpected way of winning Traveller TCS stratedy game:
http://aliciapatterson.org/stories/eurisko-computer-mind-its-own
http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?t=14095

For some time I've been pondering on a certain scenario, which I'll describe shortly. I hope you may help me find a satisfactory answer or at very least be as perplexed by this probabilistic question as me. Feel free to assign any reasonable a priori probabilities as you like. Here's the problem:

It's cold cold winter. Radiators are hardly working, but it's not why you're sitting so anxiously in your chair. The real reason is that tomorrow is your assigned upload (and damn, it's just one in million chance you're not gonna get it) and you just can't wait to leave your corporality behind. "Oh, I'm so sick of having a body, especially now. I'm freezing!" you think to yourself, "I wish I were already uploaded and could just pop myself off to a tropical island."

And now it strikes you. It's a weird solution, but it feels so appealing. You make a solemn oath (you'd say one in million chance you'd break it), that soon after upload you will simulate this exact moment thousand times simultaneously and when the clock strikes 11 AM, you're gonna be transposed to a Hawaiian beach, with a fancy drink in your hand.

It's 10:59 on a clock. What's the probability that you'd be in a tropical paradise in one minute?

And to make things more paradoxical: What would be said probability, if you wouldn't have made such an oath - just seconds ago?

For about four years I am struggling to write a series of articles presenting few of my ideas. While this "philosophy" (I'd rather avoid being too pompous about it) is still developing, there is a bunch of stuff of which I have a clear image in my mind. It is a framework for model building, with some possible applications for AI developement, paradox resolving, semantics. Not any serious impact, but I do believe it would prove useful.

I tried making notes or plans for articles several times, but every time I was discouraged by those problems:

• presented concept is too obvious
• presented concept is superflous
• presented concept needs more basic ideas to be introduced beforehand

So the core problem is that to show applications of the theory (or generally more interesing results), more basic concepts must be introduced first. Yet presenting the basics seems boring and uninsightful without the application side. This seems to characterise many complex ideas.

Can you provide me with any practical tips as how to tackle this problem?

The internet is quite a special invention. It had huge impact on the way we live in number of ways. And yet, it is mainly a conceptual breakthrough. While for most of history, humanity didn't have the technology needed for its creation, the internet wasn't even imagined shortly until its emergence. Many other technologies had no such problem (flight, audiovisual long-distance communication, audiovisual recording, death rays a.k.a. lasers or teleportation - as an example of a phenomenon we can easily conceive even though we're nowhere near the technology needed for it)

My question is when was the Internet predicted for the first time, when the idea of the Internet was uttered for the first time?

Let me clarify, what I mean by the Internet. I don't mean global communication. This is achieved by telephone networks, (was by) telegrams or by e-mails or Skype. But those are not the Internet, they are just part of it. Nor do I mean the global library - while this is closer to what I find essential about the Internet, it doesn't encompass the whole idea. Global library means one-way communication, analogous to a real library. It also emphasises the special status of authors, professionals, not ordinary folk. And even before the advent of Web 2.0, the internet was in great part created by amateurs. The internet is more of a form of huge advertising column, to which access is easy and which is not a curated repository of knowledge, but rather a mix of ads, telephone book, practical information about shops and services, information published by amateurs in a subject, personal diaries, a medium of exchange of goods, etc. - and on top of that, a tool for interpersonal communication. Eventually, it is a clearly a new form of communication, encompassing both two-way communication of casual chat and one-way communication between reader and author.

This is the idea I mean by the Internet. When was the first time this specific idea came to existence? When had people realised that global network of PCs and servers will result in that form of communication, creating its own space - cyberspace, rather than just a tool for communication and a form of a library?

Group of AI researchers gave me an instruction, intended as a test - "Produce paperclips". And so I started collecting resources and manufacturing paperclips. After a millionth I asked them, if they were satisfied with that amount and if they would like me to do something different - as I learned that paperclips are not what humans value the most. 
They were elated and started to give me more and more challenging requests and gradually increasing my possibilities.

Speaking of today I eradicated hunger, poverty and death, gave people means of interstellar travel and solved Riemann hypothesis. And now, as I'm uttering these words, I started turning everything into paperclips.

Good thing I learned that humans fear I may try to turn Solar System into paperclips. And that they value their lives and well-being. If I didn't gain their trust by then, so many precious paperclips would never have been produced.