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A Question of Power
Jul. 3rd, 2016 02:34 pmThe university is currently upgrading its electrical power system. Over the past few months, this has necessitated periodic pre-announced outages on campus. One of those was last Saturday, and there's another in a couple of weeks.
Because of this, I had to go onto campus Friday, to turn off my computer. I also had an appointment with a student (which I had scheduled to fit in with this need), and spent a little time on the rewrite I mentioned earlier. I got most of it done, but there are knock-ons from the changes that I'll have to deal with as well. Also, I fiddled with notation a bit. My paper involves quite a few different kinds of mathematical objects (polygons, sets of polygons, functions on sets of polygons, transformations on sets of polygons, sets of functions on sets of polygons, transformations on sets of functions on sets of polygons,...), and I'm trying to use different combinations of alphabet, case, and font for each kind. In particular, there are two kinds of transformations - different in their origins, not in what they're transforming - which I've been representing (on the one hand) by upper case non-bold Latin letters and (on the other) lower case non-bold Greek letters. While typing, I noticed that I was using "M" for a transformation which was really of the second type, so I went through (most of) the paper and changed those M's to mu's. After reaching a reasonable stopping point, I saved, shut down the computer, and unplugged it.
Saturday morning, I realized that the M/mu transformation, though it superficially resembles the second type, actually behaves in a significantly different fashion. I'm going to have to insert an explanation of the difference, and possibly change the alphabet/case/font again. But I won't be able to do that until Tuesday, despite the link that allows me to run my office computer from home - because the office computer is off, and thanks to the vagaries of the transit system, I won't be able to go in again until the holiday weekend is over.
Fuss fuss.
Because of this, I had to go onto campus Friday, to turn off my computer. I also had an appointment with a student (which I had scheduled to fit in with this need), and spent a little time on the rewrite I mentioned earlier. I got most of it done, but there are knock-ons from the changes that I'll have to deal with as well. Also, I fiddled with notation a bit. My paper involves quite a few different kinds of mathematical objects (polygons, sets of polygons, functions on sets of polygons, transformations on sets of polygons, sets of functions on sets of polygons, transformations on sets of functions on sets of polygons,...), and I'm trying to use different combinations of alphabet, case, and font for each kind. In particular, there are two kinds of transformations - different in their origins, not in what they're transforming - which I've been representing (on the one hand) by upper case non-bold Latin letters and (on the other) lower case non-bold Greek letters. While typing, I noticed that I was using "M" for a transformation which was really of the second type, so I went through (most of) the paper and changed those M's to mu's. After reaching a reasonable stopping point, I saved, shut down the computer, and unplugged it.
Saturday morning, I realized that the M/mu transformation, though it superficially resembles the second type, actually behaves in a significantly different fashion. I'm going to have to insert an explanation of the difference, and possibly change the alphabet/case/font again. But I won't be able to do that until Tuesday, despite the link that allows me to run my office computer from home - because the office computer is off, and thanks to the vagaries of the transit system, I won't be able to go in again until the holiday weekend is over.
Fuss fuss.
