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Comment by Hyphen-ated on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, July 2014, chapter 102 · 2014-07-29T06:31:07.079Z · LW · GW

-One who holdss it now, wass not born to name now ussed. -One who holdss Sstone iss repossitory of much lore. -Taught sschoolmasster many ssecretss.

I've been under the impression through the whole story that Harry's father's rock is the philosopher's stone. Is Quirrel just referring to Harry here?

The Harry we know wasn't "born to the name now used", or really born at all, because his current self comes from a merger of the original Harry and Voldemort.

Harry is the repository of much lore about science.

Harry has taught Dumbledore many "secrets" about muggle science and rationality. (hasn't he? I can't remember any specifics because I haven't done a reread in a long time)

Comment by Hyphen-ated on New Year's Prediction Thread (2014) · 2014-01-02T03:04:51.610Z · LW · GW

I know that; I've played FPSes with that control layout for thousands of hours. I said "while controlling your vehicle with both hands" which means, for example, with a steering wheel, a throttle+joystick, or a keyboard+mouse with the mouse controlling something besides camera angle.

Comment by Hyphen-ated on New Year's Prediction Thread (2014) · 2014-01-01T15:02:35.456Z · LW · GW

The big advantage over a monitor is immersion. When I tried out an oculus rift I felt like I was inside the virtual space in a way that I've never felt while playing FPSes on a monitor. That's not a small thing.

Another advantage is that it increases how many input axes you have. Think of games where you're flying a spaceship or driving a car and you can freely look in all directions while controlling your vehicle with both hands. That's impossible on a standard monitor.

Comment by Hyphen-ated on Meetup : Portland Meetup? · 2012-01-10T03:11:26.709Z · LW · GW

How about we meet by the board games in the science fiction section? That's in the gold room. If I remember right it's near the asterisk on this map: http://www.powells.com/pdf/burnside_map_2011.pdf

I am 6'3", I will wear a black T-shirt with a realistic-looking lightning bolt on the front, and I will have a backpack with a helmet hanging from it.

Comment by Hyphen-ated on Meetup : Portland Meetup? · 2011-12-27T10:22:08.625Z · LW · GW

I am interested in this.

Comment by Hyphen-ated on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 9 · 2011-09-15T04:28:34.701Z · LW · GW

"187" is a slang term for murder, which comes from the California penal code. Is this a coincidence?

Comment by Hyphen-ated on The Absent-Minded Driver · 2011-02-02T21:55:56.616Z · LW · GW

I slapped together some C++ in under ten minutes, with an eye towards making it run fast. This runs a billion iterations in slightly under one minute on my machine.

#include <cstdlib>
#include <ctime>
#include <iostream>
using namespace std;
long long threshhold = 4 * (RAND_MAX / 9);
int main() {
   srand((unsigned)time(0));
   long long utility = 0;
   long long iterations = 1000000000;
   for(long long i = 0; i < iterations; ++i) {
      if(rand() < threshhold)
         continue;
      else if(rand() < threshhold) {
         utility += 4;
         continue;
      }
      ++utility;
   }
   cout << "avg utility: " << (double)utility/iterations << endl;
   return 0;
}