Computer Science and Fire Hazards

In an effort to cut down on the amount of scrap paper that I go through when working on my computer science homework, I have decided to use my white board. This required me to free up space on my board by taking all of my long-standing reminders to myself and putting them on post-it notes and sticking them to the "chin" of my office iMac. Every desktop computer should have a well-defined spot for putting post-it notes, and the iMac chin is perfect for this. I should have done this a long time ago; I no longer need to write cryptic notes about sensitive matters -- like I did when all my notes were on my whiteboard ("J re: grade"). I also erased a cryptic note to my self about some sort of algebra nonsense. Something about an extention of an integral domain where if you localized at one element and then looked at some sort of grading of the algebra and... I don't know, it made no sense to me, and I was the one who wrote it. Maybe the integral domain was the homomorphic image of a polynomial ring? Who knows.

In any event, most of that crap had been on the board for a long time, so it didn't erase well. Some of the dye stained the board.

So I had to break out the volatile organic solvents. Board cleaner, rubbing alcohol, whatever. Something that dissolves marker crud.

I've mentioned that this building is falling apart, right? That they don't really fix anything any more since they're planning a total gut and remodel starting in December? Yeah, well, the radiator in my office doesn't work, so I have a space heater.

Midway through spraying the board-cleaning stuff, I wondered what the chances were of it starting a fire.

Fortunately, nothing erupted into flames, and I was able to fill my board back up with a justification that will allow me to believe that my short and sweet answer to problem 4.1e is correct.