All of Alsadius's Comments + Replies

Alsadius-10

I am explicitly against subsidies, full stop. I am also of the belief that the fashionable sorts of renewables(wind, solar, etc.) get vastly more subsidies than any other form of power, particularly in the developed world, and this belief is borne out by my own experiences with my local government and with stories from elsewhere. And I thought the US was being discussed, because it usually is, but looking upthread it seems I was in error there. If any country was being discussed it was Germany, though their example is hardly different - they're spending a ton of money for an inferior power source.

If that non-OECD number is to be believed, 2% of non-OECD GDP goes to fuel subsidies. Or, if you prefer to think of it this way, it's close to 1/3 of the total world oil market to fossil fuel subsidies. And this number comes from a think-tank that's obviously out to make an anti-subsidy point, with no detail as to where it came from or why we should believe it. Think tanks aren't to be immediately dismissed, but they frequently exaggerate badly.

And the discussion is about why renewables get used. German use of renewables is very different than Canadian or... (read more)

0D_Alex
I still do not understand your objective in this discussion. It seems that you are implicitly against subsidising renewable energy. Is this correct? (I work in the oil and gas industry, by the way, so fossil fuel subsidies sort of help me out...). For that matter, I do not understand the upvotes in this thread. A citation was asked for - then it was provided - and then there are several posts attempting to invalidate the citation, attracting upvotes. Strange. We all do... could you please provide one? I don't know when this discussion started to be about the US, and I don't know if I really care enough about what you think to put in more effort... are you in a position to influence what the US chooses? If yes, then I will explain why this statement: is wrong.
Alsadius-10

Remember, a lot of renewables get thrown in together without being the same. The renewables that get subsidies are mostly the flashy new ones, like wind, solar, and ethanol. Those are only a few percent of world consumption. Virtually all renewable energy production is either hydroelectric(which is quite profitable, and attracts basically no subsidies) or burning of wood and dung(which almost entirely happens in poor countries that can't afford to subsidize much of anything). Slightly dated graph, but one that gives a good sense of how things break down: h... (read more)

2D_Alex
I have provided a few facts... you are trying to put a certain interpretation on them. To what end? What is it exactly that you are trying to argue? And now you are denying the data. What is subsidised and where, is decided by factors that are not necessarily obvious or "sensible", and there is a huge element of political electability. In OECD, fuels are a source of taxation revenue, whereas farmers, for example, benefit from subsidies. In the middle east and South-East Asia, fossil fuel is heavily subsidised, eg. in Indonesia gasoline sold for about 90% of crude oil price while I was there (and Indonesia imports their crude). I read that fully half of government revenue was at one point used to pay for the fuel subsidies. Why? Well, as soon as there is a discussion of reducing the subsidies, protests break out, and the politicians supporting the reductions do not get re-elected....

But renewables are vastly smaller than fossil fuels, and the relevant number is subsidy per unit energy.

0D_Alex
Not really. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy : "Based on REN21's 2014 report, renewables contributed 19 percent to our energy consumption and 22 percent to our electricity generation in 2012 and 2013, respectively" So if you believe Wikipedia (and is there a better general source?), fossil fuels attract more subsidies per unit energy as well as in total.

https://parahumans.wordpress.com/category/stories-arcs-21/arc-23-drone/23-04/

(edited slightly for spoilers)

“I always hated the speeches when I was in school, the preaching in auditoriums, the one-note message. Stuff like saying drugs are bad. It’s wrong. Drugs are fantastic.”

“Um,” Fox-mask said.

Mrs. Yamada was glaring at me, but she hadn’t interrupted.

“People wouldn’t do them if they weren’t. They make you feel good, make your day brighter, give you energy-”

“Taylor,” Mrs. Yamada cut in.

“-until they don’t,” I said. “People hear the message that drugs a... (read more)

3) Voldemort is evil and cannot be persuaded to be good; the Dark Lord's utility function cannot be changed by talking to him.

5Ander
The rules stated that we couldn't change Voldemort's utility function or turn him good, but his utility function already placed an extremely high value on not having the world destroyed, or losing his immortality. It was quite possible that the solution would have been to convince him that killing Harry would end the world, or that he required Harry in the future in order to save it. The Vow and the parseltongue both were valuable tools in convincing Voldemort of this.

Voldemort doesn't want the world destroyed, and he just made Harry into a world-destruction-preventer. Pointing this out — and pointing out that Harry is now a better world-destruction-preventer than Voldemort could become — doesn't involve changing Voldemort's utility function.

(Voldemort can't swear an Unbreakable Vow akin to Harry's because nobody has trust in him that could be sacrificed to power it.)

7MathMage
He doesn't have to be persuaded to be good, he just has to be persuaded to let Harry out of the box. If he lets Harry out of the box for non-good reasons, that still counts.

Anyone who gives a speech in a school talking about how drugs are fun is a good person to emulate, IMO.

0Ben Pace
Er, Taylor Hebert from Worm did that? Could you remind me of when that was? Edit: I mean talked about drugs in a school.
Alsadius-10

Despite the fact that the rules of the exam specifically prohibited such?

9Gondolinian
They prohibited saying something too abstract, like "Harry comes up with a way to persuade Voldemort to let him out of the box." They did not prohibit actually figuring out a way to persuade Voldemort. By extension, it would also not be allowed to say "Harry comes up with a way to kill all the Death Eaters with magic." It just had to be specific enough.

As opposed to? (I wasn't keeping close track of the theories as we went forward).

1hairyfigment
I'm surprised the Vow allowed Harry to do anything except talk to Hermione. I did worry that V would think of Harry triggering resonance by touching her. But I also thought the doom-sense would allow V to detect any spell whatsoever that Harry used.
6Gondolinian
Those who tried to honestly persuade or verbally trick Voldemort into letting Harry out of the box.
3MarkusRamikin
Filibuster. /abg frevbhf

Passed in the first 30 seconds and then spent 60 hours worried that it can't be that easy.

You think he had two guns in his pouch? I mean, it's not impossible, but it seems unlikely(and if he did, why did he use the lesser gun to shoot at Voldemort?).

0TobyBartels
Not seriously. I'm just trying to save the beautiful theory (that what the Weasleys' contact had to leave Britain to get was a gun) from the ugly fact (that guns were available in Britain at the time).

Right. I mean, it has to have some sort of effect, and that was my first thought. But then, it's small enough that Dumbledore can lift it, so I'm not sure how effective it can be.

Maybe he can jump behind it?

That solves neither Voldemort's lack of patience nor Harry's whole "dying horribly" problem.

That happened about 1997 after a famous school massacre, but the story is set in 1992. Guns are still available in the UK(though, obviously not so freely as in the US).

0TobyBartels
Right, so what he actually must asked them for is a gun that was already banned in the UK but not in the U.S.. Maybe one of those ‘assault rifles’?

1) Cancel the Transfiguration on his father's rock, use it as a physical shield to block Death Eater attacks.

2) Patronus 2.0 to block Voldemort's attacks - we only know for a fact that it blocks Avada Kedavra, but it is an instance of Harry's magic, which seems to interact poorly with any of Voldemort's magic. If he's got sufficient control, put the Patronus coincident with Voldemort's body - at minimum it'll prevent him from doing too much with magic, and with luck it'll actuaolly cause some sort of resonance that disables Voldemort.

Those two together b... (read more)

3Vaniver
It is lying in a pile on the ground. How will he use it as a shield?
Alsadius100

I've spent too long on LW, I think - I saw "Ktlzybplq" and assumed it was rot13.

0TobyBartels
It's almost Mxyzptlk.
0[anonymous]
Heh, had the same thing. I already figured it wouldn't be rot13, but I was still uncertain enough that I went and checked.

It allows for honesty in Parseltongue when hinting at his plan earlier.

I suspect I'm spoiling the in-joke here, but is that a literal in-story thing, or just a fan joke? Honestly, it's getting hard to tell sometimes.

0Vaniver
It has to deal with an author's note written after Hermione's death, in which Eliezer responded to claims that the story was insufficiently feminist with 'wait until the story is finished!', and ended with the line that she would be resurrected as an alicorn princess. It was, I believe, at the same time that the MLP community was still reacting to Twilight Sparkle being turned from a unicorn to an alicorn princess. People have been genuinely uncertain how serious he was, given his reputation for both honesty and silliness.

Hermione needed them immediately, due to fears of Transfiguration sickness. Voldemort did not.

He presumably planned on killing Harry, or just Apparating somewhere and killing a random person.

Is poison really a good attack against someone who holds the Philosopher's Stone?

2Phigment
Depends on the poison. If it's something that prevents the poisoned person from noticing he has been poisoned, sure. Doesn't matter if you could fix the problem, if your brain has been prevented from realizing there IS a problem. Alternately, if the "poison" is some sort of deleterious transfiguration effect upon the subject, which the stone will immediately make permanent, it would be hilarious. Snape, at least, thinks this way. Remember his attempt spike Voldemort's resurrection components with LSD?
1linkhyrule5
It is if the poison's effect is to make the person a complete drooling moron. Google Bahl's Stupefaction, and then Idiot Ball.
2buybuydandavis
They're not numbers, they're people. They're neither "equal" nor "opposite". What they are is very similar, with some differences. I guess if Magic Land recognizes them as two versions of the "same" person, as in labeling them both as Tom Riddle, you can play that game. I've seen some comments here or on reddit to that effect, but they seemed snide comments about confusing the Atlantean operating system. The snideness would be appropriate, IMO.

Worth noting - it is immediately after that laughter that he gives over his father's rock. And given that this chapter comments on how Dumbledore has access to wacky divination, that rock starts to make a heck of a lot more sense. (I mean, we always knew it's be an Important Quest Item, but this does shed a bit of light on why)

Both are withdrawn from circulation as they decay, and if they don't decay they'll stick around for a while. As it gets old enough, it'll get picked up by a collector of some sort, who will keep it better-preserved and think nothing of its long lifespan. (This does, however, limit the amount of possessing it can do)

Better idea: Door handles.

1Transfuturist
The great Lord Voldemort, foiled by interior redecorating.

Good call - I only double-checked 108. That makes my theory far less likely.

I will point out, one per 500 comments was the old system. There was ~30 threads for the first ~100 chapters.

0dxu
Yeah, I'm not seeing it either. I suppose the top comments are set after while if you use longer threads, but that's easily handled by setting the "Sort By:" option to "New" instead of "Best". Still, the majority has spoken. I guess people really want new threads for some reason.

Is he? I don't recall any such line in this chapter. I mean, it's probably something he's taken precautions against, but it's hard to be sure(unless I missed something).

2Squark
From chapter 107:

Except that magical power has already been established to be genetic. The Potterverse doesn't have Wheel of Time-style shields or cutting people off from their magic, to the best of my knowledge.

0[anonymous]
Ugh, stilling. What a horrible idea that was.

Crazy theory: Voldy resurrects Hermione to keep his promise, then kills Harry. Hermione then drops Voldy somehow, and resurrects Harry using the same means that were used on her.

Additional crazy theory: The method for doing both will be the Philosopher's Stone. She will transmute Voldemort into something mortal-but-inert - a bristlecone pine, perhaps.

2solipsist
Or through different means. You might be able to brew a Harry resurrection potion with forcibly drawn Thestral blood, Hermione's body, and unknowingly bequeathed bones of a Potter, Slytherin heir, or Peverell.
0skeptical_lurker
The stone makes transfigureation perminant. It doesn't mean you can transfigure through shields.
2Squark
Fine tuning: She will transmute Voldermort's spirit into something inert (since he is free to leave his body otherwise).

Yeah, that. There's no way of getting money that's so ugly that some poor, desperate person somewhere won't try.

Only if the ability to lie to Harry Potter is more valuable than having a clearly-functioning mind that accurately represents the real world.

0TobyBartels
Well, I'm not denying that it's a Dark Art. He'd have to apply this very selectively. I couldn't pull it off. Eliezer probably couldn't pull it off. But this is Quirinus Quirrell we're talking about! Edit after Ch 109: That's actually pretty similar.
1TobyBartels
But rationalists should win, so MoR!Voldie should self-modify to be less Spock-rational and more capable of deceiving himself.

Is a sheet of carbon nanotube so thin that it's invisible actually going to stop a bullet? And even if it does, once Quirrell realizes what happened, what are the odds Harry can keep such a wall up for more than three tenths of a second?

2ChristianKl
Glass also manages to let light through. Carbon nanotubes are very strong. To make them invisible you just have to get the structure right and have big enough pores in the net for the wavelength of light to pass through. The wall is Harry magic and as thus not able to be simply canceled by Quirrell. It also doesn't take that long to grab the time turner and activate it. Probably less than a second.

In canon, Harry has also resisted even scarier magic cast by Voldemort.

For an obvious reason - pretend to have more limits than you do, to be underestimated.

I'd argue that's still the case in this story. If anything, it's more misleading than spoiler. (Which is fine for an in-joke, of course)

Alsadius210

Parseltongue is a low-information-density language - it lacks a lot of technical terms, colloquial phrases, and the like. Communication is much faster in English.

I called it long ago(well before the confession) that the killer was Dumbledore, and that this pledge would cause a rift between Harry and either Dumbledore or Draco. Not 100% sure which side Harry will come down on there, but I'd say I'm about 90% that he sides with honesty.

3JoshuaZ
No. Spoiler that it essentially this story will emphasize that. No also that it isn't "canon"- in the canonical version there's a piece of Riddle in the real Harry but its influence is pretty minimal and the person making decisions is still Harry.

The promise was "tonight", and Harry left the Quidditch game at about 11:30 PM. Using colloquial meanings gives Quirrelmort until roughly sunrise to make good, which leaves him plenty of time even using the short nights of Scotland in June.

I don't have HP&PS on hand, but if true, that'd be evidence for your theory. That said, while Transfiguration sickness is canonical, it seems that the whole point of the Philosopher's Stone is to bypass concerns like that, so I still lean against it being true.

After a long gap, or when the old thread hits/gets close to 500 comments and starts getting cut off. During the last serious run of chapters, they were hitting 500 virtually every chapter, but that seemed to be the principle adhered to in past.

Petunia was made pretty by a potion that made her ill for an extended period, which doesn't sound like the Philosopher's Stone. Interesting theory, but I lean towards it being false.

3polymathwannabe
If I remember correctly, in the canon first book the Stone is meant to be used to make a potion.

I dislike this - the existing thread is only at 140 comments, and should be used for at least today's chapter. There's probably going to be another posted Wednesday, at this rate.

2b_sen
Is there a consensus on when to post new threads (and conversely, when to keep using the old thread for new chapters) that I should be aware of? If so, please let me know. For comparison, the thread before last is at 172 comments, although that's from late January.
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