Closing time

Well, it seems like things are looking up. My prof is currently filing for application (he has been for a week afaik) and I'm making the final passes. Read the whole thing thoroughly in the last two weeks or so after fixing the last major problems. Had two intensive days, yesterday and today. Rewrote a whole chapter on the operation of $\Gamma$ which was very old and didn't fit anymore.

Read the whole beast in one take today. Took around ten hours. Hope I got most simple mistakes, but who can tell. Trying to get the page count to a round number for lucky charm. Will print and reread one last time. Then it's off for the orals.

WLC

It's like looking behind the curtain at a cheap magician's show: In most cases, you already knew or guessed. But some just make you go: Ah!

Ready for Application

More importantly, I told my prof, that I wanted to apply this month and he gave his ok.

Okay!

So it's been a while. In August, I gave my prof something to read and stacked stuff on top as I finished it. About a month ago, I finally had reached feature completeness. In the last two weeks I made a renewed correction run, which completed today with the inclusion and improvement of some diagrams. Wohlbeschwingt, I approached my prof to demand my stuff back by Monday in whatever state it may be and to my surprise, he agreed.

So after his lecture on Monday, we'll meet and discuss the title and some minor stuff. And most importantly, he will give me a stack of notes to include! Already, he hinted that the big picture looks quite well, but locally there is still much work to be done, especially with regard to small errors.

Preliminarily, I changed the title to "Stern-Brocot-Br\"uche und die Modulgruppe", but perhaps we can find an even better one.

Celebrated this occasion by going to the Weihnachtsmarkt!

Why you should check your pockets before washing

Really, you should!

This one has a bit of a back story. Every once in a while I tried to check the filter on our washing machine, which always resulted in failure, as I just couldn't open it. Somehow it seemed constructed in the wrong way, the lid opening just to reveal a slightly movable plastic part.

Yesterday after a long work day I tried again, much too tired to think straight, with the same result plus a bit of spillage, as I had washed before and the feed was still full. I rattled that plastic part a bit, but it just wouldn't move much. I tried to pry it open, but it bent a little and reason got the better of me.

So I closed it again, very tight of course, because there was no gasket visible.

An hour ago, as I returned home from just another long day, I realized, that I had to wash clothes or I wouldn't have anything to wear tomorrow. I started the machine, sat down in front of the computer, reading the news and getting ready for sleeping, when I heard an unusual dripping sound over the noise of water rushing into the machine. I ran to the bathroom to see it leaking from the bottom. I ripped the cover open to see lots of water spilling out from the filter access.

I shut off the machine, but it was of course already quite full, so it continued to spill. I tried jamming the lid tighter, which helped a bit, but not much. I got some pincers and squeezed even more, a plastic lid that is. It still dripped.

So I opened it completely breaking a piece of the lid in the process (and cursing wildly during, after and before), to take a better look, trying to build cofferdams of towels around the spill site - it ran around the backside.

The filter looked the same beside the cracked lid. Already I was planning scenarios to call service, but before that I wanted to take a look at the machine proper. I upturned it, it slid from my hands crashing to the floor (and onto a strategically placed wet towel) reveling its underside, a cheap plastic cover, easily removed.

My hopes rose, as I saw the filter being part of a small intake pump that I could easily access. So I did. And as I removed it, something clacked inside, it sounded like ... coins?

That darned thing was full of corroded metal. That is:
- 2 hairpins
- a piece of a screw
- a Micro battery
- 1 Euro
- 5 Cents

I take responsibility for everything except the hairpins. In fact I think we are lucky that all that metal didn't jam the intake pump.

Now why did it just start to leak today? When I tried to open the filter yesterday, I lifted its gasket just enough for a piece of metal to settle in between. The reason I could not open the filter in the first place, were of course the metal parts.

Damage is minimal by the way. The bathroom floor is full of water (so it won't have to be wiped for a while, hooray!) and I touched the corroded battery and slightly burned my fingertip(washed them in vinegar to neutralize the base, now they smell like salad).

Lesson: Check your pockets before you wash!

The Hurt Locker

With all its praise, this seemed like one I should watch while my "backlog-catchup" phase lasts. While okay as a movie, with even a moderately atmospheric sniper sequence, I am - again - appalled by the subtext.

I had this when I watched Platoon, which I hated, the feeling of watching a pro-war film. Both say in effect, that War is a place men need. To be molded in the case of Platoon or just to feel alive. Even if I can agree with that on some level, reducing the millions upon millions of deaths American wars of aggression have caused to mere props in a Bildungsroman seems utterly disdainful to me.

Also, why doesn't anyone think one second about the societies that caused these men to turn out that way? Or is the scene in the big box mart at the end of Hurt Locker really a critique of consumerism and I just don't get it?

Read it

Finished reading my Alpha. I implemented a "signature" for 2 by 2 matrices and it's giving me headaches. Apart from that, I think it's ok.