Linda Cerniglia lost her only copy of her Master’s thesis saved on a jump drive when a burgler stole her purse from her car. After a few hours of her own detective work and a dive inside a dumpster, her perseverance paid off and she found her purse with her jump drive in it. She graduated soon after that and everything worked out well. Read the whole story here.

I am just totally and completely amazed that this lady was so absolutely careless to have only one copy of her thesis on a small device that can be easily lost. I remember from my thesis-writing days that I used to back up my thesis on 2 computers (one at home and one at my lab) and one Iomega zip-drive every night.

Just to be the devil’s advocate: It almost seems unfair that Linda got her thesis back. She should have been punished for being so careless by making her write the whole thing again.