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Comment by ufo | Hacker News Reader

I hate to be pedantic, but mistake #1 misses the point a bit. While the serial killer doesn't want to be found, he certainly wants to be known.

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Agreed. It is interesting, though, to consider just how many bits of identifying information you must sacrifice in order to make your existence known while securing your anonymity. Also, considering Light’s ultimate goal was world domination, he would’ve had to make strategic anonymity sacrifices all along regardless. I say his first mistake was just jumping the gun with insufficient research.

Absolutely. I think a somewhat easier way for him to gain world domination would've been to start with another country than his own. If he could find a way to obtain information about another country's criminals without being exposed, it would probably be easier to first take over that country and then expand it from there.

Whilst it was a mistake in leading to his capture I must agree, he wanted it to be known he existed. It was the entire point, scare people into not being evil.

If you really want to scare people, you should make every cause of death "Batman". Or maybe "space laser".

The death has to be possible; Light tests out the limits early and finds IIRC that if you specify an imprisoned criminal dies outside the prison, the Death Note just gives up and kills them normally or something like that. 'Batman' and 'space laser' are right out, as is making criminals solve NP-hard or Halting problems.

What are the odds that three victims would write out notes that combine to encode a message about death gods eating apples? I wouldn't rule out their writing solutions to NP-hard problems. Even halting problem problems. It's just a matter of getting them to write a note that begins with a certain letter, or that includes the word "yes" or "no".

"Death by ironic circumstances. Time of death chosen from within the allowed range such that hazards to bystanders are minimized, then such that irony is maximized, then randomly."

Solving for maxima in the Law of Universal Perversity should do it.

Might as well wish for a Deathnote that was Touring Complete.

The story emphasises that Deathnotes are fairly literal, and that if you try to push it you'll just get a heart attack death.

"Death by starvation while yelling repeatedly the solution to the P=NP problem or if a solution is possible"

You just cause an exception in the Deathnote implementation code and crashed the universe...

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