| Episode
| The following events take place on February 9, 2007, between the hours of:
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| 1
| Midnight - 1:00 am
Paper exists in skeletal form, with preliminary results. All seems well until hero exposes shadowy bugs in implementation of core routines.
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| 2
| 1:00 am - 2:00 am
Hero assembles crack team of students and postdocs by email. Suffers moral anguish knowing that one or more will need to be sacrificed for greater good.
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| 3
| 2:00 am - 3:00 am
As bugs are systematically eliminated, hints of overarching flaws emerge in hero's conceptual framework.
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| 4
| 3:00 am - 4:00 am
New experiments are planned. Before they can begin, monthly scheduled departmental maintenance shuts down all machines.
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| 5
| 4:00 am - 5:00 am
Team shows signs of cracking under pressure. Hero reverts to "motivational methods" from covert and troubled past. (Episode contains flashbacks.)
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| 6
| 5:00 am - 6:00 am
Tensions flare. Team members put aside personal differences when late-breaking experiments yield better than expected results.
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| 7
| 6:00 am - 7:00 am
Long overdue literature search reveals large body of related work. Scarce resources must be diverted to decipher its relevance.
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| 8
| 7:00 am - 8:00 am
One by one, key members of team disappear for coffee, precisely when they are needed most.
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| 9
| 8:00 am - 9:00 am
More pieces of the puzzle fall in place, forcing a complete overhaul of the paper. A new outline emerges.
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| 10
| 9:00 am - 10:00 am
Student who cannot let go of old ideas must be "retired".
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| 11
| 10:00 am - 11:00 am
Hero is trapped in committee meeting. A secretive channel is opened for instant messaging, enabling further progress.
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| 12
| 11:00 am - Noon
The body of the paper takes shape as hero overcomes writer's block. (Viewer discretion advised.)
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| 13
| Noon - 1:00 pm
Hero, exhausted, responds without thinking to knock at door. Undergraduates swarm office with questions about Monday's homework assignment.
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| 14
| 1:00 pm - 2:00 pm
Final experiments show signs of scaling poorly. Team confronts grim reality that they will not complete in time.
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| 15
| 2:00 pm - 3:00 pm
Scavenger hunt within the department: machines at large are commandeered for extra processing power.
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| 16
| 3:00 pm - 4:00 pm
Argument over terminology temporarily derails writing. Clever acronym is discovered by chance on mysteriously abandoned whiteboard.
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| 17
| 4:00 pm - 5:00 pm
Rumblings of hunger prompt surgical raid on department TGIF party. Dinner is assembled from pretzels, chips, and soda.
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| 18
| 5:00 pm - 6:00 pm
First draft of technical section completed. Hopelessly impenetrable.
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| 19
| 6:00 pm - 7:00 pm
Sluggish CPUs reveal rogue team member (previously retired in episode 10) running unauthorized background processes.
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| 20
| 7:00 pm - 8:00 pm
From intermediate logs, final results projected to arrive at 10:03 pm. Writing proceeds imaginatively.
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| 21
| 8:00 pm - 9:00 pm
Background section cut and pasted from previous papers. Double-column format forces re-typesetting of all equations.
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| 22
| 9:00 pm - 10:00 pm
Rumor of extended deadline is picked up on Internet chatter. Sources are tracked down and ultimately discredited.
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| 23
| 10:00 pm - 11:00 pm
Figures and references added to paper, which consequently overflows to ten pages. Frantic pruning. Rough draft submitted at 10:58 pm.
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| 24
| 11:00 pm - Midnight
Proofreading reveals extensive typos and sign errors. Paper teeters on brink of eight page limit through multiple revisions. In act of ultimate sacrifice, hero removes all self-citations. Final submission: 11:59:59 pm.
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