In the interest of keeping the record honest following my last post, it's only fair to report that I have now been pleasantly surprised. Not relishing the prospect of a phone call (including most probably a lengthy time spent on hold), I decided to try email first. Believe it or not, my email was actually acted on within a day, and I have now received confirmation that the claim is being handled properly. Whoever read my email and did the right thing, I doubt you're reading this, but thanks. You've saved my wife and me (and your company as well) a significant amount of hassle. It's nice to be reminded that things can actually work.

Today I had one of those experiences that make you wonder how anything ever gets accomplished in our society.

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I recently came across two articles talking about whether a traditional college education is really worth it any more, and they awakened a pet peeve of mine.

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After posting last week about how the Supreme Court's role has evolved since the US Constitution was adopted, I did some more poking around on the Charters of Freedom site.

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My alma mater, MIT, has always been in the forefront of Internet presence (since the Internet was, after all, largely developed there). Quite a few years ago now, the Open Courseware site was launched, which contains free online lecture notes, readings, past problem sets, and past exams for just about all of MIT's courses. To anyone who believes in the free sharing of knowledge, this is a great thing. But I found out today that MIT has gone one better; it also has DSpace, a site that makes MIT research materials freely available online.

When I got to the site and read the description, I immediately wondered: do they have theses posted? And of course the answer is yes; so here, for your reading pleasure, are my MIT theses, now available to the world courtesy of DSpace!

Bachelor's

Master's

After I posted my independence day post, I spent some time browsing around the Charters of Freedom site at the US national archives, which is where the transcript of the original Declaration of Independence is hosted. I noticed that, along with the pages on the Declaration, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, they have a page there on the Marbury v Madison Supreme Court case.

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Two hundred and thirty-five years ago today, these words were approved by the Continental Congress of the United States of America:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

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