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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

#511

Post by cm2187 »

smallgovt wrote: post #94
PureParadigm wrote: post #50

I think large decisive moves like this may seem to some to be an overreaction, but it will prove to be the correct decision in hindsight (like the early travel bans). Exponential growth is real, and anything we can do to slow the rate of infection will save lives. As a current undergrad at UC Berkeley, they've moved all classes here online [1], and exams are either being postponed or converted to take-home assignment…

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.

Hum. On the other side it is the story of the madman holding an umbrella in the middle of the summer. Someone asks him why he is holding an umbrella, it's not raining. He answers that it is to keep pink elephants from flying around. But there aren't any pink elephant flying. The madman responds: you see, it works.

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

#512

Post by willj »

thebruce87m wrote: post #150
mumblemumble wrote: post #51

The "empty out campus" bit seems a bit overmuch to me. What's the epidemiologists' take on something like this? I can see asking students who left for spring break not to come back. But asking students currently on campus to leave, and even demanding that they travel internationally, seems like it might just increase everyone's risk of exposure, and spread it around. Especially considering that, at least according to…

Two weeks ago today Italy had 322 cases. Today they have over 10,000. This thing moves fast. The situation will be very different a week from now so maybe their only a few days ahead of everyone else. This site is good for tracking the data: https://studylib.net/coronavirus Click on a country to see the graphs.

Do you know if it’s because they’re testing more?

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

#513

Post by dr_zoidberg »

afiori wrote: post #505
dr_zoidberg wrote: post #504

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Sure, and in retrospective my answer was a bit more to gp than to you.

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

#514

Post by easytiger »

fudged71 wrote: post #389
pbourke wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>a successful response would be seen by the uninformed as an overreaction This is what worries me the most. Is there a name for this bias? Seems similar to survivorship bias, I'm sure it's seen across all kinds of contexts.

Have you thought about inverting your thinking? Every pandemic this century ended up being a damp squib despite WHO et al promising doomsday.

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

#515

Post by auiya »

I wish more schools would do this and lower tuition significantly. I completed Georgia Tech's online M.S. in information security some years ago and it was an incredible learning experience. After having done college both ways, for me at least online was absolutely the best method, it's not even close.

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

#516

Post by trakter »

dr_zoidberg wrote: post #503
magicalhippo wrote: post #494

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

One of the Feb 29 bugs I saw this year was that when I logged on to Skype for Business Monday March 2nd, everyone in my company that had logged off their computers on Friday Feb 28th, had a message about being offline for anywhere between 20-40 days. It just didn't know how to handle that day.

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

#517

Post by ghaff »

petschge wrote: post #78
enitihas wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should there be extra effort for online classes? My university had a course where an external professor would deliver a mixed online/offline course. Videos were available on institute website. Professor would hold a class every week to go through that week's contents and clarify student doubts. This saved a ton of effort on the professor's part.

Because nothing is set up for it yet. There is a reserved scheduled class room for the class, but there is no organized zoom meeting yet (or maybe not use zoom after all?). There is a mail box to drop of home work assignments, but nobody has figured out where students should email things for grading (the prof, the TA or a function account?). The prof has a set of notes that (s)he writes onto the white board, but not…

The lab courses and to a somewhat lesser degree seminar-type classes are the really tough question. A course like 2.007 [1] which is one of the best known and most useful classes in the Mech Eng curriculum can't be replicated online to any meaningful degree--especially with zero notice and planning.

I'm honestly not sure what you do at this point. Finish up the semester as best you can and just give everyone a Pass? Force people to attend a summer session whether or not they can afford to not be working? There aren't any good options.

[1] https://me-2007.mit.edu/

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

#518

Post by DyslexicAtheist »

rockmeamedee wrote: post #415
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.

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…

"Everything we do before a pandemic will seem alarmist. Everything we do after will seem inadequate" --M. Leavitt DHHS

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

#519

Post by bluGill »

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.

Most of the bad things predicted by the media wouldn't have happened even if no effort was spent. However there would have been a lot of things not predicted by the media that would have been bad. The bad things the media predicted were easy to put into a sentence, while the bad things that would have happened would take books to explain. They would only really be bad because of the sum total happening all at once.

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

#520

Post by SkyBelow »

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.

What does the rootkit even achieve? People can easily have a second laptop available.
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