I'm quite curious about the moment at which it becomes too much: is it the scenes at Azkaban or Hermione's trial? Because the Azkaban bit seemed fairly gruesome but in a standard horror movie sort of way, whereas the trial is really the moment where you have to say, "okay, this is a profoundly uncivilized society, if they're seriously willing to condemn an eleven-year-old girl to soul-crushing torture." But as a subject for conversation with small people, I'm not sure where I'd want to draw the line.
Hermione's character was actually the most disappointing part of HPMOR to me. I loved most of the rest of it.
I have a hard time imagining anyone from Unfogged not matriculating into Ravensclaw, unless there is some non-canonical snarky house that we would all fit into. A house with a lot of wand jokes.
1.last reminds me of my reaction to HPMOR...
I know this means more studio notes on my screenplay Harry Potter and the Most Dangerous Game.*
* Muggles.
It upsets him that she can't watch, say, The Lord of the Rings.
Noah started watching LOTR over and over again about the age of 4, and was particularly fascinated by the Balrog and Shelob scenes. But he won't watch Goosebumps because they give him nightmares. Go figure.
The question in 1 is my question as well.
I wish you had written Harry Potter, Al. I think you've got a better grasp of the cosmology than Rowling.
The house system is totally brilliant - makes a lot more sense than Myers Briggs.
I hope things work out with your spine, Al. I found surgery, which was absolutely necessary in my case, thus rendering it an easy choice to make, relatively non-horrible, though I do still think allowing doctors to monkey around with one's spine should be avoided, at least unless there really isn't a good alternative, as there wasn't, like I said above, in my case. Anyway, all the best to you.
I liked* HPMOR but lost track of it eventually. This kind of makes me want to pick up where I left off. After Azkaban but before any kind of a trial for Hermione, if I remember correctly.
* Not my favorite fanfic or something-published-online-for-free in general, but it was good enough, I just got out of the habit for a while and haven't picked up where I left off since. I liked Luminosity a lot, definitely more than HPMOR, for better or for worse Luminosity is also LessWrong-related. HPMOR was just annoying with the occasional joke for the first few chapters until its plot began to diverge from the original books.
2: I always assumed I'd be Ravensclaw because nerd, but they never seemed to do much worthwhile in the books, though maybe I'm just not remembering.
Al's series of posts have made me think I should just read HPMOR, since everyone else has.
I read a chunk of it when it got linked a while back, and then got bored and stopped. I'll finish almost anything if I've gotten ten pages or so into it, so while I can't remember what was happening when I got bored, I will ignorantly trust my own judgment to believe that it was objectively awful after some point.
I've had traction, it was fairly low key. Lower back in my case. I was convinced though that it would solve everything but not so much. I suspect I would have needed all the muscles therapy and serious stretching to go on around the same time.
My dad had traction in his 20s for a neck fracture (he was amazingly lucky not to have been paralysed) and he had two little dents in his skull where they had attached the weights.
I have no idea what house I would be. I'm not brave, I'm not devious or cunning, I'm not particularly studious, and I'm not a golden retriever. I'm House Boringblor.
Is there a Leave Me Alone house? Like an empty house? I'd like that one.
I disliked HPMOR but that's probably because the whole lesswrong project and attitude gives me hives. (Also, the characters really left something to be desired. I wish this delightsome Neville/Draco slash had gotten a hundredth the attention of HPMOR.)
Is there a Leave Me Alone house?
Haggrid's cottage.
Haggrid's cottage.
I REALLY like dogs, all dogs actually, but Fang can pretty much fuck off what with all the drooling.
I've made it through 3 chapters of HPMOR and I'm mostly rolling my eyes, though I realize I'm supposed to give it 5-10 to decide if it's for me. And speaking of what's for me, "devious or cunning" makes me think I'm a Slytherin at heart.
I disliked HPMOR but that's probably because the whole lesswrong project and attitude gives me hives.
Yes, that. Have we had a thread yet about how skeevy LessWrong is?
One of the people associated with lesswrong and HPMOR wrote something that's supposed to be a good introduction to Bayesian statistics. Is that at least worth reading? HPMOR seems incomprehensible to someone who's never read Harry Potter and I've never looked at lesswrong at all.
I've never read enough of LessWrong to form an honest opinion. I find it wearying and irritating, for reasons I can't quite identify.
HPMOR makes me want to start punching. Autoerotic fan fiction.
12: "And talk about your foregone conclusions. Harry didn't see why Hermione had been so tense about it. In what weird alternative universe would that girl not be Sorted into Ravenclaw? If Hermione Granger didn't go to Ravenclaw then there was no good reason for Ravenclaw House to exist."
25: If you're talking about "An Intuitive Explanation of Bayes' Theorem," then that's an explanation of Bayesian updating generally, not Bayesian statistics. I found it helpful after a few reads through, but I think how helpful you find it depends a lot on what you already know, and what kinds of explanation you find easy to follow.
19: Do they call themselves "Brights"?
28: I just got through that chapter, which means I get to quit now!
Eggplant, I think I hurt your feelings several years ago by overgeneralizing meanly about Geek Pride types, but HPMOR seems like a perfect example of what I meant. I just get so frustrated at people who are horrible and think they're right about everything and smarter than everyone else, which pretty much means I'm a hypocrite. But the HPMOR smugness is driving me over the edge. (And sure, there's a bit of that in the early Harry Potter and I'm being dense and not seing how it's so totes meta or whatever, but I'm done.)
29: I think that's it. I knew it had Bayes' something in the title.
I read Geek Pride as Greek Pride and wondered if a heated classics discussion broke out a while back.
Boy, after 31 it's probably the wrong time to mention my negative reaction to LW is driven mostly by self-recognition.
29, 32: I certainly thought it was worth a read and "a think" through the examples.
34: Well, probably mine too. And clearly I'm still being a jerk, if not intentionally.
34: Also, and most obviously, I'm sorry! I haven't had more than four hours or so of sleep, often interrupted, since I don't know when and it's making me thoughtless and cranky. (And I'm extra angry because last night I only had to get up twice for Mara and the problem was that I'm having some sinus trouble AGAIN after two rounds of bronchitis already this year, and so I couldn't fall asleep and was being miserable and self-pitying even though I recognize this is not even a millialameida on th pain scale and nothing at all compared to the craters in emir's father's head(!!!! WTF???))
My negative reaction to LW is also driven hugely by self-recognition. It's that uncanny valley of loathing.
And my sympathies, Thorn. I like the idea of an Alameida-based pain scale, though "millimeida" probably works better.
I think that both x. and Eggplant are awesome and neither of you comes across as stuffily self-righteous here, for whatever that's worth.
I don't have much self-recognition with the Less Wrong people but based on what I've seen I'd also like them to taste the sharp end of an irrational blade. Let's join forces and destroy!
More seriously, 40 gets it right.
42: Yes it does. Self-righteous? Of course. Stuffily self-righteous? No.
It had never occurred to me to wonder where the sorting hat would put me, but I am dead certain that I would have gotten expelled from Hogwarts in really spectacular fashion, given my magic-free school history. So not Slytherin, because I would clearly never have gotten away with it.
Did anyone here ever encounter The Girl Who Owned a City, a book written to introduce the ideas of Ayn Rand to children? It was read to my fourth-grade class until it mysteriously went missing, just shy of the climax. An ardent fan, I grieved for months.
Sorting-hat-like procedures are interesting examples of self-fulfilling prophecies. You take someone with a slight propensity toward Ravenclawery, and surround him with people who already fit the stereotype. He will become one of them. But he might have also grown to fit in with any of the other houses, as well. r
Aw, 43 was mean. IP terrorism group hug.
44.2: I must have read it because I was obsessed with post-apocalyptic YA for a long time and I was certainly aware of it, but I don't remember anything particularly positive about it.
It is an awful book, make no mistake. I think I was given Z for Zachariah as consolation.
48.2 has the awful creepy sex stuff. I thought the best one is Brother in the Land, but I don't think it was ever all that well-known, maybe because it's not American.
Aw, thanks Thorn. No apology needed. My overreaction in that thread made me realize I was losing emotional regulation even when ostensibly sober. I'm much better now, so mock away.
I wonder why William Sleator didn't write post-apocalyptic YA. I guess House of Stairs probably counts.
I also wonder how much procrastinating I'm going to do in the next hour until I get to take the girls to the dentist. New dentist, too, which might mean things will be better for Mara. (Not new for Nia and I'm a little nervous whether one of her mom's friends works there and we'll be potentially giving our our names and address, but such is life.)
If only you'd been around when I was 9! I think I burned out on the genre after that. I now barely remember the unpleasantness that made me stop reading Z for Z; I probably just went back to writing my own stuff after running out of readily available, acceptable books.
OT: NMM to Dennis Rodman not being in love with Kim-Jong Un.
First Depardieu, now Rodman. Must all our heroes betray us?
Carmen Electra is only 40, which seems entirely reasonable.
55: Yes. And Michael Jordan is 50.
54: There's still heebie. She won't let us down.
Dennis Rodman is 51?!?
Heh, my reflexive thoughts about sports are also letting me know I'm not young. Like, my first thought is still that the Rams are in LA with Dickerson and Flipper Anderson and such. Oh well.
56: I know someone who went to high school with Carmen Electra. Apparently she was not great at algebra, but not as bad as stereotypes might suggest.
Lewis Barnavelt and Rose Rita vs. Harry Potter, What's-her-bluestocking and Useless Ginger. Show your work.
51: house of stairs is the creepiest fucking thing I ever read as a child, I think. straight fucked. up. sorry to hear about your being sick thorn, that sucks, and no amount of thinking someone else has it worse makes anything better. I tried to cheer myself up by thinking I have a new spine surgeon instead of a new oncologist. no, wait, that was pretty effective. but dealing with pain in your head in the middle of the night, no. and I would prefer the millalameida also be used to measure pleasure and predominantly in mouse orgasm research for utilitarians otherwise fuck this. additionally, how did vice magazine...? dennis rodman I what...?
We're reading HP 5 to our first grader and he's more afraid of Harry getting detention than dying.