Meaningless, meaningless

So what do you attach jump leads to, then?

Hurrah!  As of about 4.30pm yesterday, am Dr Rosie.  Viva was dead easy, dunno if they were being soft because I'm not staying on in astronomy or because the thesis stood on its own merits and all they needed to do was check I wrote it.  I don't feel like I worried myself unduly about it, either.  Had a nice distraction to keep my mind off things...

Talking of which -- Alan et al., though Leeds sounds fantastic, I may have a prior engagement in London.  Involving floppy hair and a nice smile.  Mmmmmm.... 

How about you and I get together and make gravitational waves?

" " " " " " " " " a rapidly varying quadrupolar mass distribution?

The way you move perturbs my metric, baby.

Is that a laser interferometer in your pocket...?

Hmm, bit lame. Any more offers? Subject is gravitational waves.

Today marks a day of tremendous achievement.  I have completed the challenge set me by my supervisor: to insert the words "engorged" and "pert" into my thesis.

However, I managed to get them both in the same paragraph, which is only 1 part of a long chapter, which is only 1 of 7 in the whole thesis.  I need more!  So challenge me... I will choose the 6 best words presented to me to fit into the other 6 chapters.  Give me your words - I am not afraid! 

I got the units wrong.  Code isn't doing what I thought it was.  It's working just fine (in that respect).

Went to see Graham, who pointed out that it shouldn't affect anything.  So all I've got to worry about is that my models are still as shit as they were.

 (And Pro Plus?  Bring it on!)

subsection{Slowly Rotating Model}
E15A, E20A
These models are utter shit. They conserve neither energy nor angular momentum, and after bounce they re-expand, apparently indefinitely. I have no idea how to include them in my results section without calling the integrity of my whole thesis into question.

subsection{Rapidly Rotating Model}
E15B, E20B
These models are quite shit but may be salvageable.

subsection{``Binary'' Models}
E15Bfast, E15Bqfast, E20C
These models are arbitrarily shit, as I enhanced their rotation rates without any justification. What is more, I eyeballed the rates straight off a graph of a model which itself is shit. Double shitness.

subsection{Models With ``Alpha'' Viscosity}
E15Bvisc, E15Bfvisc, E15Bqfvisc
These models are also shit, since the formulation for viscosity that I use is entirely made up. However, they do tend to help the collapse and also look pretty when I put them in 2-d colour plots.

subsection{Models With Density Perturbations}
These models are shit because the magnitude of the density perturbations I put in was far too small to have any effect
whatsoever. They are virtual copies of the runs without density perturbations. I don't know why I am continuing them.

I've just been told that a really good way to clean your computer keyboard is by putting it in the dishwasher (with liquid detergent).  Seriously!  As long as you let it dry out properly before you plug it back in it does no damage.  Makes perfect sense of course, but still I am awed.

Roger's right, of course. It is best to wait a bit before trying on any new make-up. I have my cousins wedding coming up, which will keep me out of the country for a couple of weeks. I reckon that's long enough. It's not like I'm going to rush straight into slathering it on - I'll probably start with a hint and build up gradually if it seems to be working.

Been thinking about perturbations at work today. Trying to figure out how to set up my particles with m=1 and m=2 mode density perturbations of 0.1%. There was a nice, simple formula in a paper I was reading but unfortunately I don't use the same kind of code as the author - I can't just tweak the density, I have to change the distribution of the particles, and that's a bit trickier.

James did point out that I could just try out a scheme and then plot it to see if it looks OK. Having spent most of Monday with him helping me make movies of my data, I can say that trial and error seems to be his approach to life in general. Can't fault him for it - he does seem to be able to make things work.

I realised today that when I get back from the States I'll have just over 3 months to get results and write up. Scary!

Just did my "Lunchtime Talk" and it was shit. :( I rambled, went into auto-pilot and started reading my slides. And went over time, when the speaker before me had also done so, so all anyone wanted to do was get out of the stuffy, dark room and not ask me any questions. :(

On the plus side, Dean had a suggestion for my work which he told me afterwards - so extra incident of social interaction + good idea. Yay! :D