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MIT moves all classes online for the rest of the semester

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Re: MIT moves all classes online for the rest of the semester

#501

Post by [deleted] »

Symbiote wrote: post #476
ijidak wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably, the better way to view these measures by various organizations is in terms of liability. Child gets sick at home, that's on the parents. Child gets sick in a dorm, that's on MIT. That might explain a lot of the drastic reactions by institutions everywhere. You can't let yourself be accused of doing too little. It's probably less liability for doing too much than the potential liability of doing too little.…

> Child gets sick in a dorm, that's on MIT. I'd argue that they're adults, but from the rest of this thread (not allowed to cook, not trusted to keep clean, restrictions on alcohol, without a genuine lease on their home) maybe you're right. When do American students / young people learn these things?

[deleted]

Re: MIT moves all classes online for the rest of the semester

#502

Post by afiori »

hateful wrote: post #435
rockmeamedee wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a common thread in Incident Response & "Resilience Engineering" that preventative measures that reduce the blast of incidents are always blamed, especially if they work. Whatever ends up working to fix the incident, you should have done it sooner or it was too drastic a response. (No matter the fact that it _did_ fix the incident, outsiders will blame you that way). One example is the Knight Capital trading disa…

I see this in Programming/IT a lot. Also a very similar case whereby the person fixing the issue gets pressure to complete the fix and even blame after the fact. It would be like going to doctor and blaming the doctors for why I was sick.

> It would be like going to doctor and blaming the doctors for why I was sick.

To be fair, I am sure doctors experience that a lot.

Re: MIT moves all classes online for the rest of the semester

#503

Post by dr_zoidberg »

magicalhippo wrote: post #494
rockmeamedee wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a common thread in Incident Response & "Resilience Engineering" that preventative measures that reduce the blast of incidents are always blamed, especially if they work. Whatever ends up working to fix the incident, you should have done it sooner or it was too drastic a response. (No matter the fact that it _did_ fix the incident, outsiders will blame you that way). One example is the Knight Capital trading disa…

I'm reminded of year 2000. Yes complete overreaction, but I'm also certain it would not have been such a non-event if it weren't for that extreme attention it got.

You mean Y2K? Yeah I remember there was even a Simpson episode about it being absolute chaos (one of the Tree House Horror episodes). And then pretty much "nothing happened" (a few ATMs here and there spitting money randomly, a few funny incidents, but nothing of scale) and the world thought IT people had been paranoid over nothing.

Fast forward to 2020, we still have Feb 29 bugs around (I saw a few posted on twitter, none in person). The response back then was huge and adequate, but totally underappreciated as time went by.

Re: MIT moves all classes online for the rest of the semester

#504

Post by dr_zoidberg »

afiori wrote: post #502
hateful wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see this in Programming/IT a lot. Also a very similar case whereby the person fixing the issue gets pressure to complete the fix and even blame after the fact. It would be like going to doctor and blaming the doctors for why I was sick.

> It would be like going to doctor and blaming the doctors for why I was sick. To be fair, I am sure doctors experience that a lot.

It depends. I blame the dentist that fixed my tooth in a substandard way and then I had to have it removed, because the bad fix had it broken a couple of years down the line.

I also blame him because, over the years, other patients of him had trouble for his sloppy work.

I absolutely praise the dentist I went after that one, who made his best to fix everything, explained me the pros and cons of every decision he made, and ultimately got me top notch (as best as could be done).

Sorry for he weird "counterpoint", but the example could be open to ambiguity. I still get the point: don't blame the guy fixing things when it's someone elses responsibility.

In my case: I'd be wrong to blame the 2nd dentist for the mistakes of the 1st.

Re: MIT moves all classes online for the rest of the semester

#505

Post by afiori »

dr_zoidberg wrote: post #504
afiori wrote: post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It would be like going to doctor and blaming the doctors for why I was sick. To be fair, I am sure doctors experience that a lot.

It depends. I blame the dentist that fixed my tooth in a substandard way and then I had to have it removed, because the bad fix had it broken a couple of years down the line. I also blame him because, over the years, other patients of him had trouble for his sloppy work. I absolutely praise the dentist I went after that one, who made his best to fix everything, explained me the pros and cons of every decision he made…

Sure, I just wanted to say that the criticized behavior of blaming the problem on the person that is trying to solve it is something that also happen to doctor. Simply to say that it is not a prerogative of programming or safety.

Re: MIT moves all classes online for the rest of the semester

#506

Post by tim333 »

pbourke wrote: post #114
smallgovt wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, I think it's likely going to be seen as an overreaction in hindsight by the general public (even though it may not be). If these actions are successful in curbing the virus' spread, most people won't appreciate how bad things could have really gotten.

Yeah, I've been thinking something similar. In the American context, a successful response would be seen by the uninformed as an overreaction. The administration responsible (federal or state) would be blamed for the economic damage and voted out. It would take a very strong leader who was willing to act without thought to reelection to really meet the crisis head on. That would be ... rare.

Places like Singapore and Taiwan have had successful responses and the locals seem happy with them. The US response re testing is just awful. (I've just read the NYT article https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/10/us/coronavirus-testing-de...)

Re: MIT moves all classes online for the rest of the semester

#507

Post by saagarjha »

kart23 wrote: post #307
fwipsy wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So far, I've heard that UCSD, UCSC, UC Davis, and Stanford have taken similar precautions to Berkeley.

UC Irvine as well! Not excited to install a rootkit on my computer to take finals, but oh well.

Can you pretend to exclusively use a Chromebook as your computing device?

Re: MIT moves all classes online for the rest of the semester

#508

Post by tim333 »

chrisco255 wrote: post #113
smallgovt wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, I think it's likely going to be seen as an overreaction in hindsight by the general public (even though it may not be). If these actions are successful in curbing the virus' spread, most people won't appreciate how bad things could have really gotten.

So what do we do if this virus festers for another couple of years? We can't shut down society forever.

Maybe there will be vaccines, better treatment.

Re: MIT moves all classes online for the rest of the semester

#509

Post by saagarjha »

Gibbon1 wrote: post #296
CydeWeys wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't matter. Universities generally are governed by specific laws.

Yeah people make the mistake of thinking your can figure out the law based on deduction and first principals. You can't you need to be familiar with applicable case law. Thing to remember law predates science by about 3000 years.

> Thing to remember law predates science by about 3000 years.

Does it really?

Re: MIT moves all classes online for the rest of the semester

#510

Post by willj »

WalterBright wrote: post #441
jedberg wrote: post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hopefully everything is graded on a curve to at least minimize the performance effects

Grading on a curve is nice, but it defeats the purpose of having a standard.

There’s no such thing as an objective standard. Professors change, course materials change, and as with here, circumstances can be different. That’s why we use a curve.
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