(no subject)

I'd like to wish belated Happy Birthdays to stronae, adqam, and michiexile - I would have posted something on the actual days, but I haven't got to a computer for the last couple of days. Hope you all had a good one, guys.

I'd also like to post the text of the eBay auction I mentioned the other day, because it's likely to evaporate soon and I'd like to cherish it for years to come:

( Buccaneer-Americans, indeed )

I'm pleased to see that he got $108 for the crossbow. That should buy a few Kung-Fu lessons, but probably not enough for him to take on an entire clan of ninjas.

Work today has been depressing. The preliminary stage of my research (which I still haven't managed, after two years) was meant to produce a definition of a "weak T-category" for all algebraic theories T (you don't need to know what any of that means). The correct answer was known in a few special cases: I came up with a definition that gave the right thing in the easiest case, but failed on anything harder. So I was rather confused when I went to Canada this summer, to hear someone announce that they had a definition of weak T-category that sounded suspiciously like the thing I'd tried and thrown away. Currently, I'm going through his paper, trying to find out if a) his definition really is the same as mine, b) if it does actually work in the second-simplest case. He claims it does, but unfortunately offers no proof of this assertion, or even much of an indication of one. It's pretty frustrating. I've told my supervisor I'll know the answer by Friday, as much to motivate myself into doing some fscking work as anything.