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I work at the Princeton Neuroscience Institute, so I'm technically staff :)
I'll be there! Looking forward to it :)
On a related note: Why didn't the Death Eaters just blow up the Potter house? Sure, they wouldn't be able to find their actual bodies, but it seems like blowing up the most likely place your prey are hiding is a smart move.
Similarly, why did Voldemort go to Godric's Hollow all by himself? He KNEW the prophesy, so he should have been a bit cautious. Plus, considering the source of his info on the Potters, he should have been a little suspicious about walking into a trap. If he had gone with henchmen, the henchmen could have killed Harry/blown up the house after Voldemort disappeared, thus allowing the Death Eaters to cover up Voldemort's disappearance and at least try to figure things out for 5 minutes before surrendering completely.
Agreed, but wouldn't a true cloak of invisibility still be a good thing to have while fleeing? Hiding in a corner of your house would be stupid, since everybody knows that's where you live, but if the Death Eaters aren't quite sure what city you're in, it would be good to be able to walk into the supermarket without anybody recognizing you.
This explanation assumes that:
1) The Potters didn't have the cloak on them because they trusted in the Fidelius Charm to keep them safe from Voldemort/Death Eaters.
2) The Potters didn't have the cloak on them because they did not trust in the Fidelius Charm to keep it safe from Voldemort/Death Eaters.
So yeah, I don't buy it.
If the invisibility cloak is so good at shielding people from death AND the Potter/Peverell family is focused on defeating death, why didn't James put baby Harry and Lily under the cloak as soon as they knew Harry was a target?
Harry is going about his daily life under cloak w/ broomstick now; surely his parents--who spent more time with Mad Eye than Harry has--would appreciate the need for constant vigilance when Voldemort wants to kill your baby.
Looks great! I'll be there.
So I hear the Megameetup is now February 4th/5th.
I would be happy to speak about a topic in Neuroscience if people are interested.
Same exact thing for me! Can't wait for a Philly meet up, but I won't be in the area until the 17th. Weekend meetups would also work best.
I live right outside Philly and would be interested in meet-ups too!
Roland, piggybacking on couchsurfing.org's preexisting infrastructure could be very easy. However, I can think of a couple of reasons why it would not be as effective as adding a google map to LW.
1) There is a big cognitive cost to making a new user on couchsurfing.org and checking it for messages every so often. I'm assuming people in the LW community have a LW username and periodically check their private messages. It would be psychologically easier for people to not have to sign into multiple sites and manage multiple inboxes.
2) For the whole "look at the traveler's (or host's) posts to see how long they've been a member and read their posts (a fantastic measure of how interesting or obnoxious the potential traveler may be)", people would have to make couchsurfing profiles that have their LW username, references, how they want to be compensated/how they're willing to compensate. Then, whoever was reading their profile would have to go back to LW to look up references/the users' posts. This seems pretty annoying. It would be much easier to just have everything on one site.
3) Not very important, but I'm not sure how many people want to put personal details on couchsurfing.org. I'm also not sure about how couchsurfing.org works, but I would prefer for only people in the LW community to be able to contact me re: staying over.