So, like, is Snape in that crowd of Death Eaters, or what?

I'd sooner go for one a week; I think that's closer to the likely reading pace and it means we quickly find out whether it works. We could easily follow it with an article-a-day presentation if that's what we think is best after learning from the sequence-a-week presentation.

Observations:

1. Quirrell does not say what the Stone really does. Harry does, in normal speech. (Presumably Parseltongue only prevents willful lies.)
2. "Anyone else in Hogwarts" is pretty weak, especially since Dumbledore is presumably absent, and most of the people are at the Quidditch match (where is Sprout leading the others?). Especially as Quirrell interprets Hogwarts as "castle" in Parseltongue, and "unlesss I musst" is a pretty wide exemption.

Speculation:

1. Harry will not be saved by the power of love. (80%?)
2. Everyone involved in the deal gets 'what they want'--that is, cooperation on the Prisoner's Dilemma with a rational agent who (somewhat) shares your source code is rational, especially when defect-defect is miserable (presumably, both of them dead). (60%?)
3. Hermione is revived (90%?) and is an Alicorn Princess (20%?).

[EDIT: the Dark Lord of the Matrix have fixed this.]

There's a glitch in the Matrix:

A blank-eyed Professor Sprout had now risen from the ground, had picked up Harry's wand and was wrapping it in a shimmering cloth.

Then Harry does some bargaining, and then...

After that, Professor Sprout picked up Harry's wand, and wrapped it in shimmering cloth; then she placed it on the floor, and pointed her own wand at Harry.

Do you have any papers or other resources on why freezing one's cells would be a good idea for transhumanists? I think that we'd be interested in hearing you elaborate on why you think any given method of freezing cells would be worthwhile, which isn't something that you've discussed in the above post.

To be fair, your readers can Google things, too-- but in general, it is really nice when people who make posts give readers a bit of background knowledge on the topic the post is about, especially when the topic (freezing cells) is something that isn't commonly discussed on LW.

Hm.

So, as we approach the end of the fic, there's one question left that looks really hard.

Let's try to solve it!

...but in all seriousness: I expect Harry to solve Death before the end of the fic - it's too central to both Harry's current motive and thus the current plot arc, and Eliezer's motives in writing this fic, to avoid, even putting aside the conspicuous Peverell prophecy.

There is not enough time left for Harry to do this by learning some secret art or by putting his own spin on an existing spell. Therefore, this problem should be soluble with what Harry has on hand.

For now, I will treat Quirrelmort and Dumbledore (come on, you don't honestly think he's going to be absent for the big climactic duel of words and ideals, do you?) as resources - never mind how Harry convinces them for now.

• Between Dumbledore and Quirrel, essentially any existing spell. This is known to be insufficient for the task.
• Dumbledore has the Elder Wand. Harry has the Invisibility Cloak. Quirrel is highly implied to have the Stone of Resurrection. All three Hallows are gathered, and Harry seems to have activated something in that prophecy stone.
• The Patronus 2.0.
• The Killing Curse 2.0. Harry is never going to hate someone enough to want them dead, but I could imagine him being sufficiently angry with Quirrel to consciously put him outside of his monkeysphere - aka, not care/be indifferent to his death.
• Partial Transfiguration
• The secret to creating new potions.
  • The secret to creating new spells could probably be taught to him in the remaining time, too.
• Hermione's corpse (probably.)
• The Philosopher's Stone, which appears to be some sort of conceptual anti-Death tool already. (Gold being the least reactive metal and thus the longest-lived in its original state, though that begs the question "why not xenon." Maybe because xenon is a gas and thus will mix/lose its form?)
• A Time Turner. Harry can only go back one or two more hours today, but he can send information back another six as long as he figures out the plan now.
• Minions. Lesath Lestrange in particular.
• A large, probably ordinary rock.

Am I missing any resources?

The current definition of the gravitational constant maximizes the simplicity of Newton's law F = Gmm'/r^2.

Absolutely, and Planck's constant maximizes the simplicity of finding the energy of a photon from its wavelength, and π maximally simplifies finding the circumference of of a circle from its diameter. But in all those cases, it feels to me like we're simplifying the wrong equation.

ETA: To be explicit, it feels like there should be a 4π in Newton's law. The formula is calculating the gravitational flux on the surface of a 3-dimensional sphere, and 3-dimensional spheres have a surface area 4π times their radii.

Here's a shirt I made, stating that PA is consistent in mysterious looking symbols. Not directly rationality related, but could be a conversation starter. http://teespring.com/paconsistent

I have a question for anyone who spends a fair amount of their time thinking about math: how exactly do you do it, and why?

To specify, I've tried thinking about math in two rather distinct ways. One is verbal and involves stating terms, definitions, and the logical steps of inference I'm making in my head or out loud, as I frequently talk to myself during this process. This type of thinking is slow, but it tends to work better for actually writing proofs and when I don't yet have an intuitive understanding of the concepts involved.

The other is nonverbal and based on understanding terms, definitions, theorems, and the ways they connect to each other on an intuitive level (note: this takes a while to achieve, and I haven't always managed it) and letting my mind think it out, making logical steps of inference in my head, somewhat less consciously. This type of thinking is much faster, though it has a tendency to get derailed or stuck and produces good results less reliably.

Which of those, if any, sounds closer to the way you think about math? (Note: most of the people I've talked to about this don't polarize it quite so much and tend to do a bit of both, i.e. thinking through a proof consciously but solving potential problems that come up while writing it more intuitively. Do you also divide different types of thinking into separate processes, or use them together?)

The reason I'm asking is that I'm trying to transition to spending more of my time thinking about math not in a classroom setting and I need to figure out how I should go about it. The fast kind of thinking would be much more convenient, but it appears to have downsides that I haven't been able to study properly due to insufficient data.

I'm still not seeing the payoff... all that stuff has already been done by other people, probably more than enough for most games you would create.