I have Brother printer, full can of paint and sensor saying that is empty, I cannot do anything with it, and that is just one in long list of issues I had with printer...
They are replacing ceiling fans with wall mounted fans, otherwise non suicide death by heat exhaustion would increase. India is a poorer developing country, so actual AC in the dorms is still out of the question.
That's not true at all. Having AC in dorms is easily possible and affordable too. Centralized AC units comes to mind. Its there in all Government offices anyways.
The reason is different and it is even more silly. It has to do with generation gap. If you complain, as a student, about lack of any facilities the immediate response you get from the person in charge (typically of my parent's generation) is: "We used to study under candle light. See how weak you people are. You can't tolerate few hours of electricity cut". Now what answer can you give to this? It was very common when I was in NITK, Surathkal where we used to get cold water for bath (many would use electric heaters to warm water). When asked for installing geysers the typical answer would be: "This is coastal area. You should bathe in cold water. It is better for your health". But they had plenty of money to build 6 international standard mega blocks (each with 7 floors) but "apparently" no money to invest in ACs and hot water. Its a generation gap issue. "Let them struggle a bit. They'll understand harshness of life that way. Else they'll become lazy". Nothing to do with lack of money.
Note that this is not the case with private institutions which are much better equipped. Only with Government funded institutions. Which is a huge irony because the Government literally wastes money building new educational blocks and hostel blocks but doesn't invest a tiny portion of it in improving the facilities within those blocks. We just have to wait 1 generation more to fix these things. It is a mindset issue.
Why would you think that? The top universities in places like India and China get their positions mainly by selecting the brightest students, they don’t actually throw a lot resources their way, and these students are often paying their living expenses themselves or with a small stipend or subsidy.
No, I know multiple people who presently live there and have lived there in the past.
This is also one of the richest universities of India- not merely one of the best.
I also heard of someone who studied medicine at AIIMS Delhi. It is another of rich institutions of India. The rooms, although small, will match a 3 star hotel in terms of amenities. The same is simply not true for IISc. Despite being one of the richest unis of India, their amenities do not match that of AIIMS Delhi.
But that institute is not cash-sterved as Indian institutes go. The labs are great, the faculties are the same. Many of them can easily teach at any US uni.
What I think is the reason of absence of ACs in rooms is the Bangalore weather.
During most of the year, you really don't need an AC or even a ceiling fan.
Nah, you have to be at the very top spots of standardized tests for admission at each level.
At undergrad level, there is the BS (Research) programme, where you get through the KVPY exam, a specialised test for HS seniors for entry to this school only. (You can look up papers if you want)
Then, for entry to grad school, you have to rank near the top (~200 , ~60-100 for AI) among 100k (for CS paper candidates). And then you have to pass rigorous technical, and personality interview(s).
So, they take in the best students.
This institute always ranks the highest in internal rankings.
The labs are top-notch, the uni is cash-rich, and the faculty is as good as US unis (maybe not Stanford, Ivies, etc.).
I know multiple people who went there and/or still lives there.
I hear only good things.
But, yes, the people who are opting for grad schools after a 4 year CS degree are almost always from upper middle class and rich families (studies in India are almost always funded by parents unless you were already earning in a full-time job).
So, yes, the populace you would find there are almost all from affluent families, but there are some people from financially challenged families, too.
The undergrad exams are very hard and you can appear only once. I blew my one chance because I had severe typhoid at the time of the exam!
Now, if my plans to get into a grad school in North America / EU does not pan out, IISc is right at the top of my choice list in India.
From the article, the data is muddy and cause-effect is not claimable:
> For example, the effects in Texas are some of the highest in the country. Suicide rates have not declined over recent decades, even with the introduction and wide adaptation of air conditioning. If anything, the researchers say, the effect has grown stronger over time.
It's a boondoggle. With a bonus effect of increasing deaths from extreme heat.
Now, it might seem rude of me, but I am against killing people that want to live in order to maybe save people that want to die.
edit
In addition, 88 per cent of students said they did not think that “replacing ceiling fans with wall-mounted fans in all IISc hostels (would) help curb student suicide”.
I still say it's a boondoggle, the resources could be better spent elsewhere. However, this looks like a really small matter, one institute of learning a relatively small number of suicides. I'm going to relax and not worry about it.
end edit
> Now, it might seem rude of me, but I am against killing people that want to live in order to maybe save people that want to die.
The point is that most times people who commit suicide don't want to die, they simply feel life is currently so awful, and they is so little hope of change, that there is no alternative.
Those thoughts are usually transitory and people on the other side express relief that steps were taken to stop them, buying time in which to heal.
That is a common meme, but it’s wrong. For every ten people who attempt suicide and fail, only one will eventually die by suicide[0]. 70% of survivors will never even reattempt suicide, and only 7% or so of suicide survivors will eventually successfully commit suicide.
Furthermore, I’m disturbed by the cavalier attitude here. Suicide isn’t a predestined thing that we’re helpless to prevent as a society. There is real suffering and we can do something about it in aggregate. Framing it as something “they’ll do anyways” is both factually incorrect, and absolves society of any responsibility to help prevent suicide.
> Suicide isn’t a predestined thing that we’re helpless to prevent as a society. There is real suffering and we can do something about it in aggregate.
I agree with most of your comment but somewhat disagree with this. Suicide is not, itself, suffering. It's the result of suffering. David Foster Wallace compared suicide to jumping from a burning building; it's not that necessarily that jumping seems like a way out, it's something you are driven to because of your fear of the flames.
Speaking only for myself, as someone who has been depressed to the point of being suicidal before and still has recurrent bouts of strong depression, I find the obsessive focus on the issue of suicide unhelpful and hurtful. It is, so to speak, putting bars on the windows so that we have to face the flames instead. It is hard to convey to someone who hasn't experienced depression how it can turn every second of living into pure agony.
I agree that taking away easy routes to suicide is a good thing. I accept the research which says that most people attempt it rashly, though I don't think you can say that a low re-attempt rate indicates a rash decision. Suicide hotlines are good things. I do believe strongly that people have a right to die, including for persistent depression, if they so wish.
If anyone out there actually cares about depressed people, the best way to help them is to help fix the depression; give us a better way out than suicide and we'll take it. This means fixing healthcare in America, for example; a top-class universal healthcare system with support for mental health would do a world of good. Secondarily, making sure people have financial security - lift people out of poverty and homelessness. Give them access to community resources and activities. The fact that people are so willing to take on suicide as a problem, but not willing to resolve its causes pains me.
Yes, I intended the phrase “suffering” to encompass the causes leading to suicide as well, and clearly cut my wording a bit too short for clarity. My apologies.
> Furthermore, I’m disturbed by the cavalier attitude here. Suicide isn’t a predestined thing that we’re helpless to prevent as a society.
That wasn’t the point that people were making. The point they were making is that removing fans doesn’t address the underlying mental health issues. If anything, arguing that everyone is ok now because fewer people are dying is the cavalier attitude because it overlooks the daily struggles that many will still be having.
Thus regardless of the points you’ve put excellently in your first paragraph, the students mental health issues do also need to be addressed too.
So I see your rebuttal as complimentary to the other points rather than fully dismissing them (ie it shouldn’t be “either/or” but rather “both things needs doing”).
> That wasn’t the point that people were making. The point they were making is that removing fans doesn’t address the underlying mental health issues.
That is a fair argument, but not how I interpreted GP. In the context it seemed like they were arguing against any measure that removes means of suicide away from people because “they’ll just do it regardless”.
> If anything, arguing that everyone is ok now because fewer people are dying
Literally nobody here is saying this. Everyone here has acknowledged that this doesn’t solve the underlying mental health issues (or material issues, per a now dead comment), but might be a good band aid (over a “bullet wound” per another commenter).
What’s more common here is the acknowledgment that this doesn’t solve the mental health issue, and the grim realization that the university won’t do anything about it either way.
This then demonstrates how hard it is to understand the full context of a comment from only the short post and, I hope, makes you appreciate how important it is to assume a more charitable interpretation.
As for the rest of your post: I think we are in complete agreement.
No, it's ab out removing important equipment. Fans in hot weather really help if you don't have AC, As far as I know it gets quite hot in (all of) India. Now their fans are gone as a "hack" for some other problem. At the very least, life of those students will be more uncomfortable. Ceiling fans also have a number of advantages over others, like being mostly noiseless and creating vertical movement, so replacing them with desk fans won't be as good.
> As far as I know it gets quite hot in (all of) India
Nope this is a myth. India has all sorts of weather (from snowy winters to hot/humid/arid climate and everything in between). The institute this article points to is in Bangalore. Where temperatures are between 15 degree Celsius and 30 degree celsius throughout the year (only during peak summer does it touch 38 to max 40 degree celsius). You don't even need fans for most of the year. Not to mention Bangalore rains.
As there are many ways to commit suicide, school could equally tie everyone in padded cells, and tube feed students in order to avoid any suicide.
Be careful when using such studies, as future AI may use those and similar - to remove all freedoms from humans, arguing that humans are dangerous for themselves, thus creating new Matrix?!
Root cause can be maybe a terrible education system and society that is fit more for robots then humans. It just feels wrong blaming individuals for not wanting to participate in it.
Imaginative scenario so to politely avoid pointing finger to overly corrupt governments and individuals that could use similar excuse to limit your freedom, in one way or another.
Assuming teenagers and low 20 something’s are the similar the world over, they should have restricted access to terraces and rooftops for a variety of reasons unrelated to suicide. Alcohol and heights tend not to be very close friends, and my college restricted access to the latter as much as they could (the former was a lost cause).
Honestly my university giving us rooftop access for working on and setting up radio equipment was one of the most educational and enriching things I did there. Restricting access to rooftops for students seems like a terrible idea for education, where a lot of science literally happens on rooftops, whether with antennas or telescopes. (some students used the rooftop access to monitor fukushima reactor radiation in the atmosphere as well!)
Also: Never had a single accident or suicide for over 2 decades
There's a big difference between "we're going to the rooftop for a project" and "we just left the rooftop door permanently unlocked". The former is fine, the latter is where I'd say that the University is probably making a mistake.
Exceptions of course for high traffic rooftops specifically designed for human occupation, with appropriate amenities and guard rails. The ones my university locked off were either full of industrial equipment (ACs, etc.), or had low stone ledges that were no longer up to modern spec. Closing them off was the right call.
As a father of two in that age group, I would prefer to restrict their access especially to my precious world of perfect tranquility.
Assuming teenagers and low 20 something's are the similar the world over, which I find a bit debatable, there still is the question whether there were or are better models to cope with puberty and coming of age for the individual and society.
You may have noticed various pensions being bailed out by taxpayers - assume this will continue, although the rampant and excessive inflation is also alleviating this problem (to the detriment of beneficiaries).
This perspective seems common, so I’m curious where you are keeping your money that you have been seeing returns in the 5% range given that basic S&P 500 index funds have turned in a 10-year average of closer to 17%.
What types of investments are you using to generate the perspective that 7% is rather optimistic?
US stocks have experienced stellar returns over the past 10 years that exceed growth in underlying earnings. Returns over the next 10 years will likely be lower as the stock market reverts to the mean. The cyclically-adjusted P/E ratio (CAPE ratio)—defined as current stock price divided by average annual earnings over the past decade—is a common way of looking at mean reversion. The relevant results can be found in Figure 5 (page 10) of a 2016 study by StarCapital Research [1] or Figure 1 of a 1996 study by Robert Shiller [2].
As of Fri Dec 3 2021 the CAPE ratio for the S&P 500 was ~38 [3].
Valuations are important, thanks for raising the CAPE ratio. My intuition is to adjust every valuation concern for the extremely low level of prevailing interest rates. Fortunately, Schiller (of the CAPE ratio) already has a measure for this: excess CAPE yield[1]. Current ECY is roughly where it was in a decade ago, near the beginning of a long bull run. TL;DR; as long as interest rates stay low, equity valuations are not necessarily out of whack.
Interest rate forecasting is a different beast entirely, but worth noting that we have not had "normal" interest rates for ~15 years (and then only for a couple of years), and Japan has not had "normal" rates for close to 30 years.
I have aphantasia but somehow I am having a feeling it is self induced.
Let me explain. You know how in movies sometimes people who have hallucinations (basically uncontrolled prophantasia) start screening in terror because of the horror images they see.
So, good portion of my life my dreams were black and white and they look like room with under the strobe light. Only rarely I could see horizon in "outdoor dreams" or colors in my dreams. But, from time to time I have vivid color dreams, and even fewer of those, look like a reality.
So, when I started practicing meditation coupled with imagination and visualization of objects phantasia improved a bit, but dreams improved ten fold. But, soon as it improved a bit I stop practicing, I did not know why.
So, few weeks ago I started again, and few days I had a extremely sharp dream in which I saw viper snake attacking me, it was so vivid that I jumped out of bad. And while opening eyes, that image was still there, "snake" in the dark, on my bed.
So, my question is what if subconscious mind is doing it in order to protect us? Basically shutting down parts that feel unbearable for emotions to handle. Has anyone else had similar experience?
Additionally, when I have gimps during visual streaming (practice designed to improve visual imagination) objects are too complex and moving to fast, it is like video is streamed into my mind and I cannot control it. Last thing I remember is seeing some kind of very complex puzzle, element that was reshaping in breathing very rapid motion. Also those streams look more like AI generated visuals, they kind of looks as something but you cannot recognize anything.
So, I guess if I would have those all the time, my sanity would be in question, so I suppose "slow conciseness" in order to sustain itself needs to "shut down" certain brain function, or optimize skills we used the most on expense of others, for instance I am good with imagining abstract things and logic.
I would like to know how to invoke those visualisations on demand, but it seem they just happen.
What I also find strange is that people who can vividly imagine, cannot recollect people faces.
On the other hand, I cannot describe any face, not even my closest love ones, but I can recognize them.
I could not describe anything to let say a police photo robot how crime suspect looks like, but I could pick it from the line among thousand of faces.
I am finding that very strange, it is like having one directional mind, in the sense you can understand foreign language (read/listen) but you cannot create your own sentences, write or speak.
I am good at drawing, but only for things that are in front of me. Issue, is I can recognize face in split second, but I cannot recollect face. And, as I cannot recollect I cannot describe, if I say let say friend John, what I get is just abstraction of John, void blob. Someone already mentioned - imagine there is hash function, so once someone uses his password (face) I exactly know who is the person, but if you say persons name, nothing comes back, even remembering what he said, how he behaved or else, will not give me picture of person so I can use it from memory do describe and give distinctive features except he has two ears, nose, two eyes, maybe glasses, is bald... issue is you could explain same way most of the people.
Some of explanations sound (no pun intended) as Woody Norris best-known invention, HyperSonic Sound technology (HSS).
HSS, or directional sound, targets a listener with sound waves similar to the way a laser beam directs light, so that the individual who is targeted is the only one who can hear it.
This is quite interesting, recently I watched video explaining similar rail-gun/cannon concept, end explanation what would it take to work for human payload.
What kind of training is there to survive 38G for 0.5s? Maybe the body can become habituated to accelerations over time or something, but what would you be training to actually do before or during those 0.5s?
Not without problems though. He "sustained a fracture of his right wrist during the runs on two separate occasions, also broke ribs, lost fillings from his teeth and bleeding into his retinas that caused temporary vision loss".
This is during short periods (of deceleration), so very different from SpinLaunch's launches.
Physical training I guess, trying different G's for long time, exercising breathing under elevated G's ... I do not know, I just wrote what author said in video.
Interesting view, I thought it happens as with computers, that your memory gets saturated with wast amount of things and emotions, so your CPU with age starts getting slower, and as it slows down as your brain does not work as fast as when we were young, we perceive time as it appear to pass faster.
But it seems according article my perception was wrong ...
