back up your data!

yesterday i lost all of my dissertation data. don't ask. just remember to back up your computer. fortunately, i had only collected data on 4 subjects thus far and hadn't done much processing of the data because i have been too busy collecting. by the end of this evening, i'll have collected data on 4 more subjects, so at least i'm ending the week where i was half way through it?

i got a piece of fun news this evening too. during my senior year of college, i was one of the two coordinators for my graduating class for our "senior gift." each year the graduating class at mit gives something back to the institute. my year we noticed that there was no picture of the mit seal anywhere in that we could find on campus, so we decided to fix that problem. we decided to have a large copy of the seal made in bronze and hung in lobby 7, a large lobby on campus that is just off of mass. ave. many a visitor and most students pass through that lobby a couple times during the day. well, the seal was funded by monetary gifts from my graduating class. its taken 7 years (i graduated in 2003), but the money was finally obtained. today, i received an email informing me that the seal had finally been installed. the picture above is a picture of the seal after it was installed in lobby 7. the next time you're in boston, head to mit and check it out!