one first step, of many.

it's done: the maths, anyway. i've thought out how to organize it all, rewrote some parts, and found lemmas that i needed to prove. then i proved them.

all six sections and the silly appendix on functional analysis that i planned are written up in LaTeX, in a file called thesis_draft5.6.tex.

it's on my computer. i've attached a copy in an email draft in my web account. another copy is on a trustworthy usb drive [1], and one additional copy was ftp'ed [2] into my university server space.

if this were a film, then armageddon would happen, the internet would collapse, and an electromagnetic pulse would wipe out all my hardware.

then again, if it were that sort of film, i might run into a secret organization with the intent of taking over the world. probably i'd also run into their arch-nemeses, who would be dedicated to keeping the world a safe place and all that idealist cr@p.

the odds would then be good that i'd get to save the world in some amazing situation with many explosions and stunts. i might even duel a megalomaniac, lose my weapon, be told the secret world-domination plan in my seeming few seconds left of life, and in the last instant, there is a distraction and seizing the opportunity, i fell the villain.

nah.

i'm sure that i could beat him more quickly than that. q:

with all of this in mind [3], i was considering burning the file onto a data cd, just in case. even my paranoia has its limits, though ..

.. and besides, i printed out a copy. i can always scan it back in, or if worse comes to worse, i can always retype it.

then again, under the margin parameters
\setlength{\textwidth}{7.2in}
\setlength{\textheight}{10.5in}
\setlength{\topmargin}{-.8in}
\setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-.5in}
\setlength{\evensidemargin}{-.5in}
it's 47 pages long.

when i add \linespread{1.5}, it grows to 64 pages.
when i switch to \linespread{2}, it's 84 pages.

yes, that would be a lot of typing, but as for fail-safe plans, it's better than re-writing it from scratch!

what remains is an introduction; i'll write it this week. tomorrow i'll read it and see if i simply wrote rubbish, make the corrections, and then give it to the supervisor.

then i'll get the red ink back, and iterate. who knows? maybe the process will even terminate. (;

[1] yes, there are untrustworthy usb drives. i own one. in one of my few conference talks, i had brought that d@mned drive with me, intending to give a PDF slide talk (not beamer). as it happened, i attach the drive, the software is loading, and then the computer in the lecture room freezes.

for a long time i thought i was just being silly in making backup transparencies. in the end, though, i turn off the beamer and give my talk on the overhead. i think everyone was impressed.

[2] short for "file transfer protocol," in case you didn't feel like googling it.

[3] for the record, i was envisioning a grey-colored lightsabre.