+1 Truecrypt. However my fingers get the password wrong regularly, today for instance!
The reassurance it provides is very valuable, I have PCs laptop, netbook, ext HDD, and memory sticks all encrypted as confidential client data could be on any of them.
Prior to this I used regularly get in a funk whenever I couldn't locate a memory stick
OTOH some colleges are easer to get degrees from than others.
I'd be more impressed with a CS degree from MIT than pretty much anywhere else.
For starters you were no mug to accepted there in the first place. While there you would have benefited from interaction with a high achieving peer group.
And the teaching would probably be pretty good as well.
Actually if you were from MIT and you wanted to work for me I'd be wondering what's wrong with you!
I think technical debt is a much better metaphor than the unhedged call option one. That's unnecessarily complex and worse, it's less accurate.
The downside isn't unlimited as he suggests, there is a well defined limit, 0 sales.