Daily Archives: 2020-08-19

Administrator welcomes students to Yale University and tells them to “emotionally prepare” for death there

Source: Boing Boing

Article note: I'm kind of refreshed by how honest this is. It's appropriately putting the fear into students. I'm shocked by how many outside commenters don't seem to catch that this is a faculty member projecting their displeasure at the situation they've been put in with what platform they have, rather than someone being callously complicit. Interesting that it only gently alludes to the "You students asked for this" angle that a lot of faculty discussions are tilting toward - which is sort of true, students largely indicated they weren't interested in knowingly signing up for all-remote, so administrators felt they had to push for in-person. And, as all of these, the tragedy that all institutions eventually fall to the iron law of bureaucracy, and the societal structures enable it.

Yale University's doors are opening to incoming students despite the pandemic, and one administrator, Head of College and psychology professor Laurie Santos, plainly told them the disease may kill them there this semester and that life will look more like hospital than college.

In a July 1 email to Silliman College residents when Yale first announced its plan to reopen on-campus housing, Head of College and psychology professor Laurie Santos warned Yale's "community compact" was not to be taken lightly [and] explained that some staff members are from sectors of society that are particularly vulnerable to COVID-19, and that they do not have the choice of whether to come to campus. …

"We all should be emotionally prepared for widespread infections — and possibly deaths — in our community," Santos's email reads. "You should emotionally prepare for the fact that your residential college life will look more like a hospital unit than a residential college."

We're past the point where the people in charge have decided widespread death is necessary for the financial wellbeing of American institutions, and at the point where they're calmly explaining to us the terms and conditions of our demise.

The Washington Post's Hannah Natanson writes: "Maybe at this point nothing should shock anymore. But this email, from a Yale administrator to returning students, is *stunning*"

Notre Dame started in-person classes a week ago; yesterday it reported that 146 students tested positive, more new cases than the whole of Ontario.

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The dual PhD problem of today’s startups

Source: Hacker News

Article note: Is this a ...complaint... that you actually have to have novel knowledge, skills and/or insight to add value, instead of being a lifestyle entrepreneur douchebag making the same rent-seeking bullshit as the rest of your clones on the fad-wagon? Is it startup-douche central admitting that major research labs at large, established companies and universities are better equipped to tackle some classes of problems than an actively-on-fire 55gallon drum of VC money handed to some business majors who once did a coding bootcamp? Nice.
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New Toyotas will upload data to AWS to help create custom insurance premiums

Source: Hacker News

Article note: Every year I read another story about how if you don't want your car sending every scrap of data it can to someone with every incentive to exploit it, and listening for sloppy check-box feature engineered remote control, you're going to have to tear the dash apart to remove a radio module, and it might be illegal to do so in your jurisdiction. How did we get this stupid this fast?
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