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(For the record: I've programmed in C++, Python, Java, wrote some BASIC programs on a ZX80 when I was 5 or 6, and once very briefly when MacOS System 6 required it I wrote several lines of a program in 68K assembly. I admit I haven't done much coding recently, due to other comparative advantages beating that one out.)
I can't find it by search, but haven't you stated that you've written hundreds of KLOC?
Something should be done about this problem. I probably wouldn't check the main at all if not for using the rss feed.
Maybe promote posts more aggressively from the discussion section or encourage people more to make better versions of their posts for the main?
The front page is, in my opinion, pretty terrible. The centre is filled with static content, the promoted posts are barely deserving of the title, and any dynamic content loads several seconds after the rest of the page, even though the titles of posts could be cached and loaded far more quickly.
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Cooperating with agents with different ideas of fairness, while resisting exploitation
This is analogous to zero determinant strategies in the iterated prisoner's dilemma, posted on LW last year. In the IPD, there are certain ranges of payoffs for which one player can enforce a linear relationship between his payoff and that of his opponent. That relationship may be extortionate, i.e. such that the second player gains most by always cooperating, but less than her opponent.
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Open thread, September 2-8, 2013
Yet another article on the terribleness of schools as they exist today. It strikes me that Methods of Rationality is in large part a fantasy of good education. So is the Harry Potter/Sherlock Holmes crossover I just started reading. Alicorn's Radiance is a fair fit to the pattern as well, in that it depicts rapid development of a young character by incredible new experiences. So what solutions are coming out of the rational community? What concrete criteria would we like to see satisfied? Can education be 'solved' in a way that will sell outside this community?
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Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 27, chapter 98
1) A nuclear device
You can't buy nuclear or other WMDs for a hundred Galleons. And the instruction implied buying, not to stealing (and what wizard capable of stealing nuclear warheads would want or need such a paltry payment?)
More to the point, Harry - or any wizard - can just Transfigure WMDs. Quick, free, and no need to carry dangerous stuff around.
He can also Transfigure antimatter. If he can come up with a reliable remote trigger, that is gram per gram the deadliest thing known to Muggle science. It was also foreshadowed a bit (chapter 14):
Say, Professor McGonagall, did you know that time-reversed ordinary matter looks just like antimatter? Why yes it does! Did you know that one kilogram of antimatter encountering one kilogram of matter will annihilate in an explosion equivalent to 43 million tons of TNT? Do you realise that I myself weigh 41 kilograms and that the resulting blast would leave A GIANT SMOKING CRATER WHERE THERE USED TO BE SCOTLAND?
2) Some other form of muggle weapon
As above for any weapon I can think of. Antimatter and nuclear weapons trump any area-effect attack. Poisons and biological or chemical agents can be Transfigured too, unless you need them to last for a long time before acting. Magic trumps Muggle personal weapons. ETA: not Harry's magic, though, and guns can be useful against weak or unprepared wizards. Electronics, computers, and software are Sirs Not Appearing In This Fanfic.
Ingredients for a magical ritual/potion which will resurrect Hermione if the main plan fails
Interesting. An irreplaceable Muggle artifact that was created by expending life in some manner, so sacrificing it would release "life energy"? I think though that defeating Death in such a purely magical would not be appropriate for Harry.
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Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 27, chapter 98
I doubt he can Transfigure antimatter. If he can, the containment will be very hard to get right, and he would absolutely have to get it right. How do you even stop it blowing up your wand, if you have to contact the material you're Transfiguring?
Maybe Tazers! They'd work against some shields, are quite tricky to make, and if you want lots of them they're easier to buy. Other things: encrypted radios, Kevlar armour (to avoid Finite Incantem). Most things that can be bought for 5K could have been bought in Britain in the early 90s, apart from that sort of paramilitary gear. Guns are unlikely because the twins would have heard of them.
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Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 27, chapter 98
just Transfigure WMDs.
Transfigure a critical mass of uranium, ok. Transfigure several subcritical masses with a working trigger? Much more difficult. Since, as far as I can tell, you have to be within visual range of the thing you are Transfiguring, this would be a bit of a last-ditch option. At least with war gases you could work on the contents of a bottle, or something.
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Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 27, chapter 98
If he can make a model rocket, he can make a uranium gun design. It's one slightly sub-critical mass of uranium with a suitable hole for the second piece, which is shaped like a bullet and fired at it using a single unsynchronised electronic trigger down a barrel long enough to get up a decent speed. Edit: And then he or a friendly 7th year casts a charm of flawless function on it.
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Two angles on Repetitive Strain Injury
Was I alone in expecting something on recursive self improvement?
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Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 25, chapter 96
According to the Olde English Translator, gewunen doesn't mean defeated or destroyed. It's the present subjunctive plural form of the verb gewunian, which means "to remain continue stand to habituate oneself to" which puts me in mind of "tolerate" or "get used to."
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Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 25, chapter 96
Perhaps gewunnen, meaning conquered, and not gewunen. I don't think you can use present subjunctive after béo anyway. Here béo is almost surely the 3rd person singular subjunctive of béon, the verb that we know as to be. If gewunnen, then we can interpret it as being the past participle, which makes a lot more sense (and fits the provided translation). The past participle of gewunian is gewunod, which clearly isn't the word used here.
Edit: translator's automatic conjugation is broken, sorry for copy-paste.
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Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 25, chapter 96
My model of the Peverells has them substantially earlier than Hogwarts (because the Elder Wand seems like a more powerful artifact than the Sword of Gryffindor).
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Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 25, chapter 96
Aha! The prophecy we just heard in chapter 96 is Old English. However, by the 1200s, when, according to canon, the Peverell brothers were born, we're well into Middle English (which Harry might well understand on first hearing). I was beginning to wonder if there was not some old wizard or witch listening, for whom that prophecy was intended.
There's still the problem of why brothers with an Anglo-Norman surname would have Old English as a mother tongue... well, that could happen rather easily with a Norman father and English mother, I suppose.
And the coincidence of Canon!Ignotus Peverell being born in 1214, the estimated year of Roger Bacon's birth, seemed significant too... I shall have to go back over the chapters referring to his diary.
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24 participants in the study (11 of which took valproic acid), and the linked article hailing the new wonder-drug doesn't even get its name right.
The article is crap but referring to the sample size without considering the baseline success rate is misleading. If, say, the task were to be creating a billion dollar company, and the treated group had even one success, then that would be quite serious evidence for an effect, just because of how rare success is.