Jost

• JostMar 4, 2015, 10:56 PM

  3 points

  in reply to: MathMage’s comment on: Harry Pot­ter and the Meth­ods of Ra­tion­al­ity dis­cus­sion thread, March 2015, chap­ter 114 + chap­ter 115

  Possibly true; although I’m not sure whether Voldemort’s spirit would still stay inside the jewel once that transfiguration is made permanent. (Less of a problem now, thanks to the obliviation, but I’d still prefer some oversight, just to be safe.)

• JostMar 4, 2015, 3:38 PM

  1 point

  in reply to: Velorien’s comment on: Harry Pot­ter and the Meth­ods of Ra­tion­al­ity dis­cus­sion thread, March 2015, chap­ter 114 + chap­ter 115

  I agree.

  Also, the added complexity of distributed computations (Username’s suggestion) versus distributed real-time backups (the Horcrux 2.0) is enormous! Even for teams of extremely smart developers in 2015, distributed computing is not a simple problem. For one single “developer” in ~1990, like Voldemort (who has no like-minded individuals to discuss this with and has absolutely no background in computer science), this is near-impossible unless Magic has a built-in API that makes this extremely easy (which is unlikely, given what we know about the APIs for horcruxes, ghosts, etc.)

• JostMar 4, 2015, 1:29 PM

  4 points

  in reply to: avichapman’s comment on: Harry Pot­ter and the Meth­ods of Ra­tion­al­ity dis­cus­sion thread, March 2015, chap­ter 114 + chap­ter 115

  At least she won’t be unarmed.

• JostMar 4, 2015, 9:26 AM

  3 points

  in reply to: Bound_up’s comment on: Harry Pot­ter and the Meth­ods of Ra­tion­al­ity dis­cus­sion thread, March 2015, chap­ter 114 + chap­ter 115

  Harry can always do with the ring what Voldemort did with the Horcruxes and ensure it is lost forever.

  He can’t, unless he wants to visit one of the suggested hiding places several times a day:

  “Sustaining a Transfiguration is a constant drain on your magic which scales with the size of the target form. And you would need to recontact the target every few hours

  (McGonagall, chapter 15)

• JostMar 4, 2015, 9:18 AM

  7 points

  in reply to: Transfuturist’s comment on: Harry Pot­ter and the Meth­ods of Ra­tion­al­ity dis­cus­sion thread, March 2015, chap­ter 114 + chap­ter 115

  They were as close to being soul mates as two humans can possibly be.

• JostMar 4, 2015, 9:15 AM

  0 points

  in reply to: jkadlubo’s comment on: Harry Pot­ter and the Meth­ods of Ra­tion­al­ity dis­cus­sion thread, March 2015, chap­ter 114 + chap­ter 115

  so now that Harry used his last hour, he’s about 3 hours before his past self gets the note.

  In that case, the big explosion would happen about 2 hours before his past self gets the note, which would make the timeline inconsistent, since no such disturbance of the Quidditch match occurred while past!Harry was there.

  Given that constraint, everything that happened since Harry time-turned five hours back must have taken at least five hours.

• JostMar 3, 2015, 10:01 PM

  7 points

  in reply to: vericrat’s comment on: Harry Pot­ter and the Meth­ods of Ra­tion­al­ity dis­cus­sion thread, March 2015, chap­ter 114 + chap­ter 115

  This is bloody brilliant foreshadowing!

• JostMar 3, 2015, 9:58 PM

  7 points

  in reply to: Subbak’s comment on: Harry Pot­ter and the Meth­ods of Ra­tion­al­ity dis­cus­sion thread, March 2015, chap­ter 114 + chap­ter 115

  We don’t know enough details about how the Horcrux Network and the Special Connection between V and H work, but …

  “OBLIVIATE!”

  And it all poured out of Harry into the spell.

  Harry fell over on his side, dropping his wand, gritted screams coming from his throat, his hands going helplessly to his scar, even as the sudden blast of pain in his head began to fade. Only dimly did his eyes see that the air was filled with glowing snowflakes, drifting motes of silver light like tiny specks of Patronus Charm.

  … this is highly unusual for an obliviation, so I think it is very likely that V has not left his body.

• JostMar 3, 2015, 9:48 PM

  2 points

  in reply to: polymathwannabe’s comment on: Harry Pot­ter and the Meth­ods of Ra­tion­al­ity dis­cus­sion thread, March 2015, chap­ter 114 + chap­ter 115

  Could you elaborate on that? (Who implanted that memory? Why? What observations would that hypothesis explain, that are not explained well (or at all) by our current assumptions?)

• JostMar 3, 2015, 7:33 PM

  9 points

  in reply to: Vaniver’s comment on: Harry Pot­ter and the Meth­ods of Ra­tion­al­ity dis­cus­sion thread, March 2015, chap­ter 114 + chap­ter 115

  If I understand him correctly, H intends to keep V transformed until H is powerful enough to transform V’s body back to a healthy state (and make that permanent with the Stone).

  Imprisonment is a possibility after that, but depending on your views on the relation between identity and memories, this might not be appropriate after the obliviation.

• JostMar 3, 2015, 7:20 PM

  1 point

  in reply to: gattsuru’s comment on: Harry Pot­ter and the Meth­ods of Ra­tion­al­ity dis­cus­sion thread, March 2015, chap­ter 114 + chap­ter 115

  Wasn’t that resolved in chapter 79?

• JostMar 3, 2015, 7:17 PM

  2 points

  in reply to: linkhyrule5’s comment on: Harry Pot­ter and the Meth­ods of Ra­tion­al­ity dis­cus­sion thread, March 2015, chap­ter 114 + chap­ter 115

  Chapter 63:

  But just in case… The Salem Witches’ Institute in America accepts boys as well, despite the name. They are good people and would protect you even from Dumbledore, if you needed it. Britain holds that you need Dumbledore’s permission to emigrate to magical America, but magical America disagrees. So in the final extremity, get outside the wards of Hogwarts and tear in half the King of Hearts from this deck of cards.

  That you should resort to it only in the final extremity goes without saying.

  Be well, Harry Potter.

  - Santa Claus

• JostMar 3, 2015, 6:59 PM

  5 points

  in reply to: jimrandomh’s comment on: Harry Pot­ter and the Meth­ods of Ra­tion­al­ity dis­cus­sion thread, March 2015, chap­ter 114 + chap­ter 115

  The strange smells are described as “coppery smells”, which probably refers to all the blood.

  (Of course, the hemoglobin in blood contains iron, rather than copper, but “irony smells” would not be a great choice of words, I suppose …)

• JostMar 3, 2015, 6:49 PM

  3 points

  in reply to: skeptical_lurker’s comment on: Harry Pot­ter and the Meth­ods of Ra­tion­al­ity dis­cus­sion thread, March 2015, chap­ter 114 + chap­ter 115

  Why raise shields, when they are instructed to hex Harry as soon as he raises his wand?

  Wordless, quasi-invisible partial transfiguration is a power they know not, so they did not prepare for it.

• JostMar 3, 2015, 6:43 PM

  1 point

  in reply to: [deleted]’s comment on: Harry Pot­ter and the Meth­ods of Ra­tion­al­ity dis­cus­sion thread, March 2015, chap­ter 114 + chap­ter 115

  Thanks to you and everyone else for the quick replies. I really should have re-read the earlier chapters, but I just couldn’t find the time …

• JostMar 3, 2015, 6:40 PM

  1 point

  in reply to: [deleted]’s comment on: Harry Pot­ter and the Meth­ods of Ra­tion­al­ity dis­cus­sion thread, Fe­bru­ary 2015, chap­ter 113

  Maybe you are answering the wrong comment?

  Indeed, I answered the comment that I thought you had written, not the comment that you had written. (Just a simple misunderstanding on my part; sorry about the confusion!)

• JostMar 3, 2015, 6:22 PM

  9 points

  in reply to: [deleted]’s comment on: Harry Pot­ter and the Meth­ods of Ra­tion­al­ity dis­cus­sion thread, March 2015, chap­ter 114 + chap­ter 115

  Same here.

  On the other hand, the description in chapter 114 read a lot nicer than all the suggestions that I read in the discussion thread on chapter 113. I guess there’s a difference between the bare-bones suggestion (which is clever, but unsatisfying) and the fully fleshed out story (which I found satisfying enough) and I did not think of this in my earlier comments. My apologies to everyone who got a doubtful response from me!

• JostMar 3, 2015, 6:17 PM

  0 points

  on: Harry Pot­ter and the Meth­ods of Ra­tion­al­ity dis­cus­sion thread, March 2015, chap­ter 114 + chap­ter 115

  Quick note:

  Harry’s eyes only saw the Dark Lord’s hands and wand and gun dropping downward, and then Harry’s wand was rising, pointing -

  Harry screamed, “STUPORFY!”

  The stunning spell is Stupefy.

• JostMar 1, 2015, 9:09 PM

  1 point

  in reply to: [deleted]’s comment on: Harry Pot­ter and the Meth­ods of Ra­tion­al­ity dis­cus­sion thread, Fe­bru­ary 2015, chap­ter 113

  Note that the goggles would only save his eyes, not the rest of his body. So while blinding the Death Eaters may be possible, everything else isn’t. Also, the DEs would likely start blindly shooting spells very quickly, so Harry need’s a plan to avoid those, as well.

• JostMar 1, 2015, 9:01 PM

  3 points

  in reply to: spriteless’s comment on: Harry Pot­ter and the Meth­ods of Ra­tion­al­ity dis­cus­sion thread, Fe­bru­ary 2015, chap­ter 113

  he’d have to permanant the phosphorus transfiguration anyways, though, since he doesn’t want any bits of inhaled smoke to turn into wood inside people’s cells.

  This would most likely require the Philosopher’s Stone to be in contact with the transfigured matter for several minutes (see chapter 111), which is impossible:

  “Professor,” Harry said, “if the worst happens in a case like that, is there any way of maintaining the Transfiguration?”

  “No,” Professor McGonagall said flatly. “Sustaining a Transfiguration is a constant drain on your magic which scales with the size of the target form. And you would need to recontact the target every few hours, which is, in a case like this, impossible. Disasters like this are unrecoverable! ”

  (chapter 15; emphasis mine)