TITLE: Change of Terms
AUTHOR: Eugene Wallingford
DATE: January 05, 2018  1:27 PM
DESC: 
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BODY:
 I received a Change of Terms message yesterday from one of my
 mutual fund companies, which included this unexpected note:

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
 Direction to buy or sell Vanguard funds must be placed online
 or verbally and may no longer be submitted in writing.
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

 I haven't mailed Vanguard or any other financial services company
 a paper form or a paper check in years, but still.  When I was
 growing up, I never would have imagined that I would see the day
 when you could not mail a letter to a company in order to conduct
 financial business.  Busy, busy, busy.

 In the academic world, this is the time for another type change
 of terms, as we prepare to launch our spring semester semester
 on Monday.  The temperatures in my part of the country the last
 two weeks make the name of the semester a cruel joke, but the
 hope of spring lives.

 For me, the transition is from my compiler course to my
 programming languages course.  Compilers went as well this fall
 as it has gone in a long time; I really wish I had blogged about
 it more.  I can only hope that Programming Languages goes as
 well.  I've been reading about some ways I might improve the
 course pedagogically.  That will require me to change some old
 habits, but trying to do so is part of the fun of teaching.  I
 intend to blog about my experiences with the new ideas.  As I
 said, the hope of spring lives.

 In any case, I get to write Racket code all semester, so at least
 I have that going for me, which is nice.
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