There are better options if you want to go nuclear for propulsion. http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/718391main_Werka_2011_PhI_FFRE.pdf
It's not an unreasonable amount of mass to get into LEO, and so very elegant as a drive.
Eh.. There is indeed work being done on this. Google seawater greenhouse - Which is basically a way to engineer a cooler, wetter micro-climate and turn a net profit.
In this case they would have to change already existing law in a way that is blatantly against the interests of the majority and manage to do so it globally - because if any country defects from a policy of limiting top mods to the upper class, every country has to, or get buried 20 years later. This is not a winnable political struggle.
It can't actually - Medical patents are already borderline in terms of "political viability". A system of patents that gave the rich this kind of advantage would result in the end of patents. Heck, it is already law in many places that you cannot hold IP in human genes.
People are in general very, very bad at spotting signs of interest. This is not unique to you. - The non-verbal communication channel for "I'd like to get to know you in a romantic fashion" just does not work very well at all.
Trying to become adept at reading it is, of course, possible but unless you have sky high social intelligence to begin with, I do not recommend it.
What you need to do instead is figure out how to express unambiguous, unmistakable interest in a way that does not scare the shit out of potential romantic partners. If someone ...
First option doesn't exist. The third world is well and truely aware that science is a thing. As for the second.. Writing someone who is old, but not impaired by decay is very, very difficult, due to lack of examples, but I think this might be less of a leap than it seems. Necessity will force mobility upon our protag, and contact with various cultures will immunize against believing received wisdom without proof. Going from there to "reality is the final arbiter" isn't much of a leap.
.. Now I am trying to think what applicable skills someone re...
The thing is, how would you distinguish a world in which the female population of said high-school are missing five centimeters and 4 points of IQ due to dieting from the one we inhabit? Where do we get a baseline from? Arrgh.
Honestly, I think almost all media treatments of this entire topic will be extremely problematic in hindsight once an actual cure for senescence is found.
In this particular case, I'd expect her to become... very interested in biochemistry. That would be a much better plot, wouldn't it? One woman's fight to cure ageing because she knows for a fact it can be done, but at the same time trying to not end up strapped to a lab table. Heck, for the first period, the fact that women were massively overlooked in science would be outright helpful. - Getting hired ...
.. Clothes made by people with any sense of pride in craft? I sew for a hobby, and for the purpose of making gifts. - for example I just finished a nice summer jacket for my brothers birthday, english wool, silk lining. Cost to me: <70 euro. (and time, but eh.) I learned to what to do largely by reading on the internet and taking old clothes apart to see how they were built.
The clothes sold to women is depressing as all hell in that regard. Materials, build, functionality - Lowest bidder doesn't begin to describe it. "I don't think you even tried...
Sure it is, if you are in the vicinity of a donation site on a regular basis anyway. Pop in, donate, read while doing so, pop out again. Warm fuzzies during pleasure reading time.
Warning, my opinion on this may be influenced rather heavily by the fact that I essentially don't notice the donation, nor do I mind needles.
Bad prior. Gang violence is a major murder statistic, but it's pretty far from being "most". Quick googling says: "1 in 6 murders". The most common motive, at 50% is "Argument". So.. men are more likely to escalate those to homocide?
.. The thing that puzzles me here is why Knox was ever prosecuted at all. The prosecution had Guede. Who left his fingerprints all over the scene, fled the country, had a history of burglary and knives and changed his story repeatedly. That's a pretty simple and very solid case. Why the heck the prosecution insisted on trying to pin the crime on two more people who could have no plausible reason at all for conspiring with him is just inexplicable to me. I mean, traces of dna from people who lived in the apartment? Wtf? All that proves is that they indeed, lived there.
The thing that puzzles me here is why Knox was ever prosecuted at all. The prosecution had Guede.
The answer is simple and banal: they didn't get Guede until after they had already decided Knox and Sollecito were guilty. Not prosecuting Knox and Sollecito would have required them not only revise to previous beliefs in which they had become psychologically invested, but also to retract previous public pronouncements -- in short, to admit they had been wrong.
From the inside of their minds, no doubt, Knox and Sollecito just felt so suspicious, in the early...
It does address it. What we call heroic action is high combat ability and resources deployed for good. Hermione's point is that privileging that particular class of good works is an error - The proper measure of virtue is if you do the things which fall within your reach. Thinking in terms of heroes is a distraction,
Note that wizarding britain still largely fails hard on this count.
The description of the founding of the wizengamot. War is probably not a very descriptive term for what was going on before it - The political structure implies that it is what came after a period of feuding families. In this case, feuding families with magical might backing up the kind of stupidity bloodfeuds cause.
Actually, the one wow I really do not get all wizards are not under is very simple. Merlin laid down his interdict due to a crisis of magic being used in wars in utterly unrestrained ways. Blocking people from learning certain kinds of magic is a daft way of stopping that. What you do is you take every single wizarding child of 8, and make them swear to never use any magic that would harm more than one person. Still free to fight, still free to defend themselves, just noone capable of area effect magics of destruction anymore.
Mostly, resurrecting dead children. The population used to be lower, but kids also used to have piss-poor odds of making it to adult-hood. In terms of QALY, this would have been the best use, and if a child goes missing from a sickbed only to wander into the kitchen feeling chipper and fine, noone would even think twice.
It occurs to me that this limit means Flame could, in theory, have been using the stone flat out for five hundred years without anyone catching on. 56 million people died this year. If the stone was used to save as many of them as possible, at random, then with only moderate use of magic for coverup purposes compared to shit we already know the magical world is pulling of, that is just going to be utterly undetectable. "Here have a second chance at life. Also a magical compulsion to keep your mouth shut".
Eh.. Voldemort is a legimens. But he isn't an unusually good one at all. He actively dislikes actually reading peoples minds. He simply had a very impressive talent for entirely non-magical cold reading and inference. The wizarding public heard tales of that, and in the same way they failed to consider "hidden broomstick enchantments!" credited him with scary superpowers he didn't actually have.
This is an inference from the text, but a high probability one. - However, it is also stated outright in the text that Harry's mental defenses are nothing special. He's an occlumens, but according to his teacher in that art, who bloody well should know, not a perfect one.
No, but moderating the memory charm is foolishness. He isn't even remotely proficient with that charm. He should either have gotten expert help, or gone for a total wipe.
We have some evidence Harry has defense professor permissions and didn't trip any wards because of that. He practiced memory charms. In Hogwarts. If the castle thought of him as a student, that would have set alarms ringing, with professor permissions, no alarms. Not strong evidence, because Harry was Dumbledores pet disaster, and it is entirely possible he'd hear an alarm like that, check up on what Harry was doing, and ignore it as long as he wasn't casting it on students. But it's an implication.
It does. I mean, it's possible "Goblet curse" trumphs Rebirth Magic,
But my preferred theory is that Flamel is Baba Yaga, and Voldemort read that story all wrong because he managed to err on the side of excessive cynicism, which is a lot simpler. No murdering took place at all, just an elopement.
This also explains why Flamel only interferes in politics by teaching chosen champions - She is still bound by the goblet rite on the Battle Magic position, so that is the only way she can oppose dark lords that don't show up at her door and try to kill ...
Shorter point: Your argument supposes that Harry - at age 11 - has mental defenses better than Flamel at age >600. Seriously, no. Yes, the resonance, but if Legitimancy was that powerful, he would just have someone else dig through Harry's skull.
Yhea, two problems with that: 1: I really don't put it past Dumbledore to just lie about everything to Voldemort, and 2:. Flamel had access to the stunt Voldemort pulled on Hermione for a minimum of 500 years, and potentially more like a thousand. I figure good odds killing Flamel just gets you a rebirth in fire phoenix-style and an annoyed arch-wizard.
Yhea, that's not a workable approach. Seriously, Flamel is centuries old and has had the key to eternal life for all of that. and the largest hoard of lore on the planet for most of it. Trying to legilimency that mind has the most likely result of you becoming a drooling vegetable. Certainly, its not going to actually work. If it did, it would be point 1 on every single aspiring dark lords to-do list. That's actually my main reason for thinking "Not dead". A lot. Really, just a an absurd number, of people must have already tried this. It doesn't even matter what "It" is. Someone tried that one already. And failed. If Voldemort had attempted it in person? Maaaaybee. A hired hit? Nope.
Okay, Harry is really overdoing it here. It would have been much safer to pretend utter ignorance of everything, or at least to limit his reaction to falling over. The scene as set will cause sufficient theorizing without trying to force a particular narrative.
On a meta level: Getting this scene from a bystander means they are not in the mirror. So that's that.
I.. also just realized that "Flamel" can't possibly be dead. The rite Voldemort used on Hermione was not one of his own devising, but a piece of lore well known enough to have a usual res...
.. My personal guess about Canon parsel-tongue is that it creates a mind in the snake you talk to based loosely on your own - Hence the python in the zoo just wanting to escape it's cramped living situation, and thus the Basilisk in hogwarts being all murdery - it's nothing more than a funhouse mirror of Voldemort.
This was never tested, because Canon Harry has brain damage from starvation and various other psychological trauma inhibiting his thinking, and never even tried asking the basilisk to back off.
The HPMOR basillisk cannot possibly bear any resemblance whatsoever to the canon one anyway, Because that thing couldn't teach anyone anything.
...I am now!
If you want to extend your life without doing incredibly evil shit, "Adopt long-lived animagus form, shift into it when old, never shift out again" is a fairly straightforward application of magic we know wizarding kind has access to.
One obvious problem is that I doubt Salazar would murder students on request, but heck, Voldemort could have set Myrtle up without his consent.
My original thought was simply that killing the basilisk was just too obvious a problem with the lore deposit, and that for this reason there would be backups....
That attack wasn't actually magic. Not at the point where he attacked Voldemort. He was literally pulling on a physical thread.
There is no point in adopting it as a plan because it is what will happen if he does nothing at all. It's a reason to not do certain things- such as point this possibility out, but not in and of itself any kind of plan.
He doesn't need to kill them - Thats why I went with "Really bright light". Voldemort ordered them all to keep their eyes on him, so any visual effect will hit every single one of them at light speed.
And he is wearing magically secured glasses. Wait, he may have prepared this as an attack... Welding goggles, mirrored sunglasses.
Oh. For. Swears Loudly
I just thought of the silliest solution ever. I don't want to assign this a probability, except "Low, unless EY really just has to poke fun at the Basilisk brouhaha". He's brought Slytherin...
Thing is, dying isn't the worst tactical option here.
There is a chance buying the farm will just throw Harry into the horcruxi. Not certain enough to do it deliberately, but enough that any plan you come up with has to be better than the option of
"Do nothing, die, hope to hang out in the horcruxi until Voldemort buys it again, let resonance remove you both from play"
Which is a non-negligible bar to clear. Telling him a trick which might be the power he knows not to buy another minute of breathing doesn't pass muster. Telling him of the possi...
Trolls do grow up, as previously notied. That's not the most likely way for that to be a problem. Rather the reverse. I mean, if troll regen runs off your genetic template, there is a good chance she is going to wake up as the prime-of-life (22?) adult version of herself, and continuously revert to that. I would even call it likely, except that from a meta perspective it would cause.. squicky.. reactions.
.. sigh the point is survival. A radiation pulse will hurt Harry the most, and will not be immediately obvious to people not fried by it. The idea is to disable opposition and summon help.
In the event no help instantly materializes, dodge and start the incantation for fiendfire - it doesn't actually matter if you can't cast it. Everyone present will recognize it, and to a blinded wizard, fleeing should be utterly reflexive at that point.
Yes, but given that he might be tied to the horcrux network, that is strictly a more dire defeat than just letting Voldemort kill him. There is a chance his demise will poison the horcruxi for Voldemort - if they are both in there, that should obviously set of the resonance, and that is the end of the dark lord. This is useless as a strategy because if it works at all, it is what will happen if he just does nothing, But bringing it to Voldemort's attention is a loosing move.
I spent a fair bit of time thinking of things to tell Voldemort to get him to stop...
Mostly I brought it up because people keep suggesting anti-matter. Anti matter could be mistaken for a nuclear weapon, which could escalate to WWIII, so the wow means he can't use it anymore. A pure light pulse wont set off those warning systems. Or at least, not at the level I'm thinking of.
Buffing the dark lord further is not an option. There is tonnes of things Harry could infer and then tell him that would make him delay. But this would be trading moments of life for further fucking over the world. Not a good trade.
Lets see..
Notes: EY didn't say that noone was aware of what was happening, just that anyone who would help Harry think he is at the game. Given the prophecy about Harry, this has disturbing implications.
Anyway: Obstacles: 39 minions in not-defensively enchanted blacks. One dark lord who can't use magic on you, but who can shoot your ass, An absolute prohibition on moves that could escalate to world threatening levels.
Assets: Naked pasty english lad. Wand. Parseltongue.
.. You know, normally in this sort of situation I'd recommend talking. Parselton...
He is the hogwarts headmaster. I figure they defied him in that capacity quite sufficiently. Heck, possibly even in his capacity as head honcho of the Ootp
The theory is that the prophecy was always about him - or at least that it was always a possible read on it, in the same way as Neville could have been the prophecied child. That is why it was spoken in his presence, not in Voldemorts. It isn't cheating, it is settling the open question. And well, he told people it was about Voldemort because letting it be known that you suspect you are a dark lord with...
And since todays temp work was impressively mindless, I got rather a lot of thinking done.
Fair warning, this may well just be heading right into epileptic trees turf.
Dumbledore just cast himself from time in order to fulfill the prophecy about Harry Potter.
That line about how Harry will have to find some other dark lord to vanquish? It was not about the far future at all, it was about the next four minutes.
Let me explain: As long as the prophecy is in play, only Harry can defeat the dark lord. And that is not going to work against Voldemort. An 11 year...
General Theorem: This series of chapters ought to be named "Tom Riddle and the Illusion of VIctory".
Voldemort has a nigh-absolute escape hatch. He can escape nearly any defeat, any trap, simply by dying. Possibly it's even worse than that, and he can abandon bodies at will.
He also has a strong tendency to discount the intelligence of anyone who is not him.
The order of the pheonix was operating under the theory that he was a body-jumper from the word go.
The traps laid, the strategems in place are predicated on the central principle of allowing ...
Okay, either we are still running sims in the mirror, or Dumbledore hexed the ever loving fuck out of that cloak. Voldemort is acting like he just took an enormous dose of Bhal's.
Or.. he can't kill Harry, and knows it? It's plausible, as about a million people have suggested it that killing Harry would send him into Voldemort's horcruxen, which might be bad.. but no, there are lots of not-fatal at all ways of putting a stop to that prophecy...
Voldemort isn't that good a coder - It's a continually updating system, that loads his present mindstate onto the entire system.. And he just rekeyed it to Hermione. All backups and lore: Gone.
Dumbledore loaded the cloak with Bhals stupefication, didn't he? Some delivery mechanism that only tiggered when worn by an adult. Hence the mad cackling and very poor plan for stopping Harry from breaking the universe <,<
The thing is, my reasoning doesn't actually depend on the horcrux realization, tough I give it better than even odds they knew that long before he even got the Hogwarts letter. Like, some time around the bitten math teacher or the science fair incident.
The cloak is the obvious counter to the mirror. Using it isn't some super-obscure piece of lore. The mirror has power over things reflected, the cloak removes you from that category. Put yourself in Dumbledores shoes as you are packaging up that thing after spending oceans of time and effort setting up the ...
Been thinking this through all day now.
Situation at the start of the school year: The stone is in the mirror, and it is anticipated Voldemort will be attempting to retrive it. Dumbledore is in possession of the true cloak of invisibility, and has "Flamel" on speed dial. Harry is known to be a harrycrux, which means Voldemort will either be taking over his body, or at least checking up on him.
There is no way Dumbledore gives Harry the cloak without anticipating Voldemort using it against the mirror. He wasn't obligated to hand that thing over ...
Honestly, it sounds like sarcasm. Dumble is even stranger than usual this chapter.
.... Okay, I've got nothing. They are.. still in the mirror?
Dumbledore was acting very strange. The part of my mind that spits out theories is going "If Dumbledore can employ future-scrying-based planning techniques, please fuck off, I refuse to anticipate the plots of gods"
Edit: After bullying my imaginary voices. for a bit:
...I'm not at all sure Dumbledore was even there! Arrgh. "Illusion" is way up there in the plausible theories range. A whole ten percent or so.
The cloak is an obvious counter to a mirror trap.. But Dumbledore put...
dying while wearing it would shield him from his own hocruxes or something?
holy crap, awesome you noticed this. Seems plausible.
The phrasing is that nothing can be taken from anyone protected by the contract. Not that gifts or trade are forbidden, Which means that if BY drops a note to the effect that she is subcontracting her responsibilities as battle magic teacher into the goblet that particular teacher is granted forbearance. So as long as the goblet was in a place she could get at, no curse.
This is wrong - The body isn't a closed system, but an ongoing exporter of entrophy. There is no fundamental reason why "better repair mechanisms" wouldn't result in an permanent health. I don't like calling this immortality, because.. well, mishap and violence will still get you eventually, but the whole decay and slow dying thing isn't written into the laws of physics or even biology. It's just that Azathoth never had a reason to fix it.