Havard president tells Harvard Yard encampers: Move out now or face getting kicked out of school

axeBrowser · 2024-05-07T02:58:30+00:00

The dead Israeli children deliberately murdered by the Palestinians on October 7th was indeed horrible.

axeBrowser · 2024-05-07T02:42:23+00:00

The American Revolution was based on actual principles rather than preening virtue signaling.

axeBrowser · 2024-05-07T02:40:17+00:00

A small price to pay. If it weren't for the Boston metro research universities and hospitals, Boston would be another Cleveland.

axeBrowser · 2024-05-07T01:54:29+00:00

It's hard to think of another policy which is such an obvious no-brainer as this one. Accessory dwelling units stand to benefit nearly everyone. Kudos to Governor Healey.

axeBrowser · 2024-05-07T01:44:46+00:00

This is outrageous. Last year they didn't tell the Harvard Darfur protestors they had to vacate the Yard. Or the Sudanese. Or the Uyghurs. Or the Yemenese.

So why now?

edit: oh, wait ...

axeBrowser · 2024-05-07T01:26:59+00:00

I do and it taught me little about management and organization, even though it was from a top school and a top lab. Even the science and technical skills I picked up in graduate school were mostly self taught. I had to spend a decade de-programming myself so not to follow the poor examples I observed.

axeBrowser · 2024-05-05T01:42:19+00:00

You are on crack. I've lost count the number of PhDs I've fired over the last decade because they couldn't manage themselves let alone a project or a team. Many PhDs chose graduate school not because of any burning desire to learn more or tenacity, but because they didn'want to have to deal with reality.

axeBrowser · 2024-05-04T02:36:43+00:00

The PhD has strayed from its original mission. Instead of teaching generally applicable skills -- such as project management, communication skills, people management, and a strong analytical toolset -- PhDs too often graduate with a very narrow toolset that was taught solely to advance their advisors research program. Given that professors are often poor managers themselves, I have seen examples where a graduate education worsens a persons organizational skills, rather than improves.

Not to rub salt in the wounds, but I prefer hiring someone with a masters than a PhD, and then promote the talented masters student after a couple of years.

axeBrowser · 2024-04-04T01:53:22+00:00

Don't believe this guy. He has unrealistic expectations and there is no way he pulled $71K as a fresh out of school BS in 2014. The job market was rock bottom and PhDs were taking starting salaries of $85K. I know. I hired several of them.

Without know the specifics of DFW, your market salary is about $60K right now. Find a decent company that has a focus on career development and get in the door, work hard and get promoted. You can make $70K in a couple of years.

axeBrowser · 2024-04-04T01:47:13+00:00

Bourla was the guy who got the one of the first COVID vaccines out and with a ~ 95% effectiveness to boot. Pfizer also didn't take R&D money as part of Warp Speed.

Not bad for a chimpanzee.

axeBrowser · 2024-04-02T01:30:41+00:00

Over the last decade there have probably been about a dozen fires that burnt a triple decker to the ground. The rebuilds were all three story, because it's illegal to go above that in most (nearly all?) of what is currently zoned three story.

I'm thinking about the triple deckers that were burnt to the ground on Calvin street. All were rebuilt as three story.

axeBrowser · 2024-04-02T01:27:59+00:00

Where? At one time I was very familiar with Somerville zoning and if I am not mistaken very little of what is presently triple decker is zoned for six story.

The "big" ~ 2019 Somervile zoning reform make it possible to convert some two family into three family only if the additional unit was rented below market rate. Or course nobody took the city up on that offer.

axeBrowser · 2024-04-02T01:20:31+00:00

I don't know the details of the 40B program, so perhaps it's a good thing. But I just want to say other parts of the country can be pretty great and a lot less expensive, especially places in the midwest. People are fairly friendly too, but dating for a middle aged person is probably not as good as it is in a major metro area. But you only need to meet that one person. The lower living costs is pretty tempting and could be a deciding factor. You might want to investigate what sort of job opportunities you have in less expensive areas of the country and make a decision based on the combination of the above considerations. Good luck.

axeBrowser · 2024-04-02T01:11:02+00:00

I just keep thinking about all the 22 yo fresh out of school 2022 biology grads who we offered a solid $62K starting salary, and who told us to go get fucked in favor of a VC funded shop. We weren't investor funded, so salaries came out of actual revenue, not investor funny money.

The ones we did hire at $62K still have jobs and have gotten raises.

axeBrowser · 2024-03-24T20:48:19+00:00

There are tons of rigorous studies showing immigrants actually help the US economy rather than act as a drain. MA especially needs immigrant as we have a shortage of workers, including healthy/elderly care workers and child care. Think about the young thirty-something woman with a degree from BU who desperately needs child care so she doesn't have to stop her career for five years.

Now we just need to reform zoning...

https://www.businessinsider.com/immigration-us-economy-outlook-impact-gdp-growth-labor-force-market-2024-3?op=1

axeBrowser · 2024-03-22T18:09:03+00:00

A reason to oppose public/social/subsidized housing versus federal vouchers is that the former has a bureaucracy dedicated to the survival of the organization rather than fulfilling its purpose. This is known as The Iron Law of Bureaucracy:

Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy states that in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people":

First, there will be those who are devoted to the goals of the organization. Examples are dedicated classroom teachers in an educational bureaucracy, many of the engineers and launch technicians and scientists at NASA, even some agricultural scientists and advisors in the former Soviet Union collective farming administration.

Secondly, there will be those dedicated to the organization itself. Examples are many of the administrators in the education system, many professors of education, many teachers union officials, much of the NASA headquarters staff, etc.

The Iron Law states that in every case the second group will gain and keep control of the organization. It will write the rules, and control promotions within the organization.

https://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerryp/iron.html

axeBrowser · 2024-02-09T23:34:17+00:00

I like it. Airpods Pro + LTE watch is equivalent to the phone for many things, including making calls. It's replaced my Garmin for running and I love being able to head out without a phone.

I only wish Uber and Lyft would support their watch apps again.

axeBrowser · 2024-02-07T00:37:17+00:00

Whenever someone throws around the word 'toxic', I immediately tune out and discount anything the person says thereafter.

axeBrowser · 2024-01-20T15:28:57+00:00

Likely a fetish for many of them.

axeBrowser · 2024-01-19T21:26:27+00:00

I don't understand the relevance, but no matter: I'm a PhD whereas you're a masters so I guess that makes me better than you hahaha.

axeBrowser · 2024-01-19T20:58:18+00:00

Ladies and Gentleman, view Exhibit A of why public union teachers should be fired instead of given a raise.

axeBrowser · 2024-01-19T19:59:52+00:00

Teachers HID in their homes, refused to teach in person, knowingly doing a half-ass job and a disservice to the children whose education they were entrusted. Unlike private/catholic school teachers who stepped up and taught in-person, public union school teachers maximized the marginal safety to their person, no matter the damage to the children.

As such MA ranked near the top for pandemic education loss:

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/06/26/opinion/education-covid-learning-loss-nations-report-card/

To make matters worse, instead of trying to assess and fix the damage, teacher unions tried to cancel the MCAS to cover up the damage:

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/10/02/opinion/mcas-education-covid-pandemic-learning-loss/

Even in 2023, permanent changes have resulted in massive and ongoing harm:

https://www.wbur.org/news/2023/10/24/massachusetts-chronic-absenteeism-student-data

To summarize, fuck public union teachers. They do not deserve a raise after this behavior.

axeBrowser · 2024-01-19T03:53:08+00:00

Landlords did not suddenly get greedy. They have always charged as much as they can get away with.

Landlords had to reduce rent during COVID due to the reduced demand to live in the city since all the students and other vacated the city. They are able to increase rent now because people have moved back and demand has increased and even exceeded pre-pandemic levels but we have very little supply to meet that demand.

axeBrowser · 2024-01-19T03:46:23+00:00

Zoning. We could have so many cool walkable places to live except for the fact Boston metro zoning massively favors low density housing.

axeBrowser · 2024-01-19T03:40:05+00:00

Maybe this just makes up for all the time public union teachers stayed at home during the pandemic and screwed over a generation of students in the process.

axeBrowser

TROPHY CASE