Comment author: Macaulay 30 June 2013 07:07:07PM 24 points [-]

This is interesting. From the end of Ch. 89:

Unseen by anyone, the Defense Professor's lips curved up in a thin smile. Despite its little ups and downs, on the whole this had been a surprisingly good day

From Ch. 46, after Harry destroys the dementor:

I must admit, Mr. Potter, that although it has had its ups and downs, on the whole, this has been a surprisingly good day.

Comment author: pedanterrific 01 July 2013 11:01:32PM 11 points [-]

Every day that Harry kills something is a good day, of course.

Comment author: somervta 01 July 2013 05:00:04AM 16 points [-]

Although I'm not at all sure it was deliberate (is there a way to submit potential typos?), we may have just gotten some new evidence about the true nature of magic. In Ch 89 Fred/George cast a spell solely from the memory of seeing Dumbledore cast it ("Deligitor prodi"), got the incantation wrong ("Deligitor prodeas"), and yet still achieved an (apparently) identical effect (The summoning of the Sorting Hat). It appears that if this is legitimate evidence rather than a typo, magic has an error bound for the correct pronunciation of spells.

Comment author: pedanterrific 01 July 2013 10:53:45PM 10 points [-]

"Prodi" is the imperative ("come forth"), "prodeas" is the subjunctive (here used in supplication, for which there is no precise English translation; perhaps "wouldst thou come forth").

Which itself suggests something quite interesting about the nature of incantations... unless it's not actually an incantation, just talking to Hogwarts in Latin.

Comment author: 75th 11 March 2013 09:50:38PM 1 point [-]

It couldn't have been Dumbledore or McGonagall or Snape, could it? Because at the time they thought of testing Harry they had already not-experienced Harry appearing in front of them at 3:00. Which itself, though, I suppose, could be a clue pointing to Harry's guilt. But maybe that's too much like "messing with time"?

Comment author: pedanterrific 12 March 2013 01:28:52PM 0 points [-]

I wasn't sure what time they were meeting- it seemed like it was a short time after retrieving Harry from lunch, but I couldn't find any specifics. Even if it was after three, though, they could (for example) send a Patronus to Flitwick asking where he was at three o'clock, but not to tell them anything else but that; and have Harry come there at nine, tell him to tell Flitwick not to report his arrival to anyone before nine, then Time-Turn in front of them.

Comment author: Yuu 09 March 2013 09:06:54AM 3 points [-]

Chapter 62:

Wasn't test to check Harry's Time turner too simple? Harry cheated very easy, he just used another person with Time turner. But this is grave matter, escape from Azkaban, and professors had chosen this kind of test...

Comment author: pedanterrific 10 March 2013 03:29:44AM 0 points [-]

Yeah, I don't know why the test didn't involve Time-Turning such that he would appear right in front of Dumbledore or whoever at three o'clock. It shouldn't be too difficult to prevent cheating with the Cloak.

It doesn't even require having thought of the test before three, just knowing where someone (Flitwick, etc) was at three, without actually seeing it yourself.

Comment author: [deleted] 27 February 2013 11:10:35AM 0 points [-]

Ah.

In response to comment by [deleted] on Open thread, February 15-28, 2013
Comment author: pedanterrific 27 February 2013 04:07:45PM *  3 points [-]

He can edit his own without leaving an * , for the record.

Comment author: handoflixue 19 February 2013 08:24:10PM 0 points [-]

Wouldn't you just call that something like "no-god-ism?" Perhaps with a latin translation?

Well, "no" would be "a-"

"-theism- actually contains two roots: -the-, meaning "god, divinity", and "-ism", which is a suffix used to create abstract nouns denoting a actions, conditions, or beliefs." - http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_does_the_root_theism_mean

So "athe" would mean "no gods", and "atheism" would be that belief.

Which is a long-winded way of saying that, um, atheism already is the correct term.

I also learned that "athe" is a fun word to say ^_^

Comment author: pedanterrific 19 February 2013 08:49:33PM 1 point [-]

I can't tell if you're aware that that was Manfred's point.

Comment author: Manfred 18 February 2013 11:41:50PM 15 points [-]

Potato potato.

Comment author: pedanterrific 19 February 2013 04:15:57PM 4 points [-]

Huh, it works even better in text with undifferentiated spelling. I'll have to remember that one.

Comment author: Qiaochu_Yuan 15 February 2013 01:00:25AM *  0 points [-]

1) Evidence/Reasoning?

Harry being a Horcrux explains the origin of his mysterious dark side. He's also a Horcrux in canon; the murder that created him was the murder of Harry's parents, which still happened.

6) Evidence/Reasoning?

Chapter 29, Chapter 42. Harry learns that Scabbers was an ordinary rat in this continuity and Bill Weasley went crazy after believing otherwise. That means Pettigrew is not hiding out with the Weasleys. Lupin reveals that Sirius and Pettigrew were former lovers who had some kind of quarrel. That gives Sirius a motive to do something terrible to Pettigrew. And if "I'm not serious" is supposed to be read as "I'm not Sirius," then it starts to seem more plausible that Sirius somehow got everybody to convict and incarcerate Pettigrew in his place (Imperius + repeated doses of Polyjuice?).

7) The terrible secret is that Dumbledore intentionally sabotaged Snape and Lily's relationship by writing bad advice into her textbooks in Snape's handwriting. It would indeed be bad if Snape discovered this.

Doesn't Dumbledore also simultaneously provide Lily with the recipe of the potion she eventually gives to Petunia, which leads to Harry being raised by a scientist? It's unclear to me whether this was intentional though.

Comment author: pedanterrific 18 February 2013 05:52:10PM *  2 points [-]

He's also a Horcrux in canon; the murder that created him was the murder of Harry's parents, which still happened.

It wasn't the murder of Harry's parents, it was

when Lily cast her own life between them as a shield, the Killing Curse rebounded upon Lord Voldemort, and a fragment of Voldemort’s soul was blasted apart from the whole, and latched itself onto the only living soul left in that collapsed building.

(Deathly Hallows, Ch 33)

The Killing-Curse-reflecting Love Shield doesn't exist in HPMoR, so if Harry is a Horcrux it's not because things happened the same as in canon.

Sirius somehow got everybody to convict and incarcerate Pettigrew in his place (Imperius + repeated doses of Polyjuice?).

He wasn't even convicted, just tossed straight into Azkaban. And another piece of evidence is the Quibbler article claiming Pettigrew and Sirius are the same person.

Comment author: Manfred 18 February 2013 09:08:06AM *  0 points [-]

Just finished Lawrence Watt-Evans' The Sword of Bheleu. It was quite good. I'm guessing with P=70% that Eliezer has actually cracked open a Watt-Evans book while preparing to write hp:mor. Really, take away the old-timey sexism and replace half of the scene description with dialogue and I would have guessed Eliezer as an author.

Edit: okay, I was over-pattern-matching.

Comment author: pedanterrific 18 February 2013 05:46:13PM 1 point [-]

Quirrell's "ritual to summon Death" is a reference to the Seething Death from LWE's Ethshar novels, so it's a pretty safe bet.

Comment author: ewbrownv 04 February 2013 09:31:12PM 0 points [-]

Because you can't create real, 100% physical isolation. At a minimum you're going to have power lines that breach the walls, and either people moving in and out (while potentially carrying portable electronics) or communication lines going out to terminals that aren't isolated. Also, this kind of physical facility is very expensive to build, so the more elaborate your plan is the less likely it is to get financed.

Military organizations have been trying to solve these problems ever since the 1950s, with only a modest degree of success. Even paranoid, well-funded organizations with a willingness to shoot people have security breaches on a fairly regular basis.

Comment author: pedanterrific 05 February 2013 03:56:00AM 0 points [-]

1) The generator would be in the isolated area.

2) Lead-lined airlock, and obviously portable electronics wouldn't be allowed in the isolated area.

3) If you have communication lines going to terminals which are not isolated, then you haven't even made an attempt at isolation in the first place.

4) This is a point about practicalities, not possibilities.

5) The relevant comparison would be the CDC, not the military.

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