Skeeve

• Skeeve 26 Jul 2014 11:54 UTC

  3 points

  in reply to: Jurily’s comment on: Harry Pot­ter and the Meth­ods of Ra­tion­al­ity dis­cus­sion thread, July 2014, chap­ter 102

  I would speculate that there’s some physiological component involved in spellcasting ability that grows with age, in much the same way that older children are often more coordinated and stronger than younger children. I have no evidence to back this up other than the repeated mentions of ‘age matters with spells’, however.

• Skeeve 12 Sep 2013 16:50 UTC

  3 points

  on: The Ul­ti­mate New­comb’s Problem

  (Note: I haven’t checked yet to see if 1033 is prime)

  So… basically, it’s the standard Newcomb’s problem, one box or two, one boxing means it’s a prime number and two boxing means it’s a composite number being displayed for the lottery, in this singular case.

  I’d still probably one box here. If 1033 is prime, and I two box… well, then, Omega probably wouldn’t have picked it and we wouldn’t be discussing this scenario.

  Put another way, I don’t see how the lottery number matching Omega’s number gives me any useful information about Omega’s accuracy, since the value of one number in no way depends on the other.

• Skeeve 28 Jul 2013 15:36 UTC

  8 points

  on: Pareto im­prove­ment in gym norms: Spread the word!

  I don’t belong to a gym, so I won’t comment on changing norms, but as far as the tone of this post goes, I have some trouble distinguishing this between “tongue firmly in cheek” and “condescending mockery”. I suspect it would be easier to tell if I knew you better.

• Skeeve 13 Jul 2013 16:48 UTC

  0 points

  in reply to: NancyLebovitz’s comment on: “Stupid” ques­tions thread

  The Handbook of Chemistry and Physics?

  But seriously, I have no idea either, other than ‘eyeball it’, and I’d like to see how other people answer this question too.

• Skeeve 6 Jul 2013 11:09 UTC

  0 points

  in reply to: Decius’s comment on: Harry Pot­ter and the Meth­ods of Ra­tion­al­ity dis­cus­sion thread, part 20, chap­ter 90

  That was originally where I was going with that, but further evidence of Harry’s plan (the lack of any use of time-turning until at least six hours after the fact) has pretty well falsified my prediction.

• Skeeve 2 Jul 2013 15:38 UTC

  6 points

  in reply to: Michael Wiebe’s comment on: Harry Pot­ter and the Meth­ods of Ra­tion­al­ity dis­cus­sion thread, part 20, chap­ter 90

  Prediction: Harry will attempt to learn Obliviation, use his Time-Turner to go back to before, and attempt to mess with his own head to save Hermione while preserving his own experience of events.

  This is more likely to not work than work.

• Skeeve 2 Jul 2013 15:30 UTC

  15 points

  in reply to: Velorien’s comment on: Harry Pot­ter and the Meth­ods of Ra­tion­al­ity dis­cus­sion thread, part 20, chap­ter 90

  Of course, she probably wouldn’t have believed him able to not give in to the temptation, and it’s hard to say whether she would have been right at that exact moment in time.

  Considering that she was reacting to the signs of time-turner addiction, a phenomena that had been observed in others before, I think it was a safe assumption for McGonagall to make.

• Skeeve 2 Jul 2013 11:50 UTC

  1 point

  in reply to: loserthree’s comment on: Harry Pot­ter and the Meth­ods of Ra­tion­al­ity dis­cus­sion thread, part 19, chap­ter 88-89

  It goes the other way. See, while he was being abused for two hours a day that no one else experienced, he was experiencing 26 hour days when everyone else was experiencing 24 hour days. So his body adjusted to that.

  I’m having a little trouble making the timeline work out on this, since one wouldn’t be able to notice his sleep issues while the time-turner abusing was ongoing; it would be a consequence that appeared after the fact. It’s mentioned in chapter 2 that Harry was in school when he was seven; that could be argued as evidence that his sleep issues hadn’t quite manifested at that point, and that he’d been pulled out of school soon after, once they did.

  But that still leaves a period of three or four years for Harry to readjust to 24 hour days. You’d think Harry and his parents would have at least tried some kind of therapy, if the issue was severe enough to pull him out of school, and in the absence of some kind of reinforcing factor, why wouldn’t said therapy at least have made some progress on the issue?

• Skeeve 2 Jul 2013 11:27 UTC

  0 points

  in reply to: Epiphany’s comment on: Public Ser­vice An­nounce­ment Collection

  You’re welcome.

• Skeeve 1 Jul 2013 15:58 UTC

  11 points

  in reply to: loserthree’s comment on: Harry Pot­ter and the Meth­ods of Ra­tion­al­ity dis­cus­sion thread, part 19, chap­ter 88-89

  Edit: I just realized that Harry was probably abused almost every night (or day) for some significant period. There was a time turner involved, and that’s why his sleep cycle is off.

  I don’t know about this, for a couple of reasons.

  1) If there was a time turner involved, why do the issues with Harry’s sleep schedule persist even after he gets to Hogwarts and gains a time-turner of his own?

  2) If someone spent a two-hour period of time abusing Harry and then time-turnering it away every day, wouldn’t he get tired two hours early nstead of two hours late? That is to say, wouldn’t his sleep cycle appear to be 22 hours instead of 26?

• Skeeve 1 Jul 2013 14:47 UTC

  1 point

  in reply to: Alsadius’s comment on: Harry Pot­ter and the Meth­ods of Ra­tion­al­ity dis­cus­sion thread, part 19, chap­ter 88-89

  Hmmm… it’s also possible in that scenario that Hermione was hot-swapped out of the combat. Real!Hermione responded with a terrified scream to the Patronus, and while Present!Harry was racing to her on a broom, Time-Turned!Harry did some kind of obscuring spell (fog, blast of light, something like that), tossed an invisibility cloak (not Harry’s) over Real!Hermione, and then fed Simulacrum!Hermione to the troll just in time for Present!Harry to show up.

• Skeeve 1 Jul 2013 3:06 UTC

  7 points

  in reply to: linkhyrule5’s comment on: Harry Pot­ter and the Meth­ods of Ra­tion­al­ity dis­cus­sion thread, part 19, chap­ter 88-89

  It does, but I interpreted it as Harry having to wrestle himself back towards acknowledging the painful fact of Hermione’s injuries, as opposed to flinching away.

• Skeeve 1 Jul 2013 2:38 UTC

  7 points

  in reply to: skeptical_lurker’s comment on: Harry Pot­ter and the Meth­ods of Ra­tion­al­ity dis­cus­sion thread, part 19, chap­ter 88-89

  I think that in the aftermath of Hermione’s death, Harry’s breaking the rules and leaving the Great Hall is barely even going to be a blip on the radar. I’d be surprised if McGonagall even brings it up. It seems too callous for her.

• Skeeve 30 Jun 2013 23:00 UTC

  6 points

  in reply to: Tripitaka’s comment on: Harry Pot­ter and the Meth­ods of Ra­tion­al­ity dis­cus­sion thread, part 19, chap­ter 88-89

  That’s plausible, but if so, it seems like a very disproportionate response from the Remembrall; that is assuming that under ordinary circumstances Remembralls light up like they do in canon, which I suppose is not necessarily a given.

• Skeeve 30 Jun 2013 21:11 UTC

  0 points

  in reply to: Dreaded_Anomaly’s comment on: Harry Pot­ter and the Meth­ods of Ra­tion­al­ity dis­cus­sion thread, part 19, chap­ter 88-89

  If the Patronus that came back was Future-Harry’s Patronus, then what happened to Present-Harry’s Patronus? When Harry’s Patronus was countered with Quirell’s Killing Curse in Chapter 54, Harry definitely felt it being countered.

• Skeeve 30 Jun 2013 20:45 UTC

  1 point

  in reply to: Alsadius’s comment on: Harry Pot­ter and the Meth­ods of Ra­tion­al­ity dis­cus­sion thread, part 19, chap­ter 88-89

  From Chapter 56:

  Bellatrix was still transparent within the Cloak, but to Harry she was no longer hidden, he knew that she was there, as obvious to him as a Thestral.

  It would have had to have been a different cloak than Harry’s, but then, I guess Hermione did have one on her; it might not have been good enough to hide her from the troll, but perhaps it would have hid her from Harry. And I suppose that obscuring the real Hermione from Harry would make sense under the ‘if you want to change the past, you can’t know if you’ve already succeeded’ rule, from the end of 76.

• Skeeve 30 Jun 2013 19:44 UTC

  11 points

  in reply to: buybuydandavis’s comment on: Harry Pot­ter and the Meth­ods of Ra­tion­al­ity dis­cus­sion thread, part 19, chap­ter 88-89

  But, strange that Harry doesn’t think to keep experimenting with the Remembrall.

  This bothered me as well. It’s a mysterious phenomenon that directly relates to Harry’s own mental state. He should have been all over that.

• Skeeve 30 Jun 2013 19:05 UTC

  16 points

  in reply to: buybuydandavis’s comment on: Harry Pot­ter and the Meth­ods of Ra­tion­al­ity dis­cus­sion thread, part 19, chap­ter 88-89

  You know, speaking of foreshadowing…

  That very quote led into McGonagall’s theory that Harry had suffered some kind of trauma and had it Obliviated. And then there was that business with the Remembrall in chapter 17. I’d have to go back and check for more instances of Harry specifically foreshadowing a future event like this, but more and more I’m beginning to think that Harry has forgotten or locked foreknowledge that’s leaking into his subconscious.

• Skeeve 30 Jun 2013 17:34 UTC

  5 points

  in reply to: linkhyrule5’s comment on: Harry Pot­ter and the Meth­ods of Ra­tion­al­ity dis­cus­sion thread, part 19, chap­ter 88-89

  “Lead it away, keep it off me,” said a voice.

  Harry, feeling disassociated from himself? No; a few seconds later we have

  “Fire and acid!” Harry shouted. “Use fire or acid!”

  Disassociated-Harry shows up later, I think, but that first call doesn’t seem to be Harry’s.

  I think it is supposed to be Harry—before a voice said that, the text simply blanked out, refused to state what the troll held or the troll dropped. After the text explicitly states the state Hermione is in, then we get Harry’s statement about fire and acid.

• Skeeve 30 Jun 2013 13:47 UTC

  17 points

  in reply to: Decius’s comment on: Harry Pot­ter and the Meth­ods of Ra­tion­al­ity dis­cus­sion thread, part 19, chap­ter 88-89

  When asked to find Hermione, why would Harry’s Patronus have found a simulacrum instead of the real one?