Do you honestly believe that the classrooms would have been any emptier even if the same exact email had gone out at 7:30 or 7:45 when only preliminary information was known? No, it would be, "damn, that sucks...a shooting in the dorms - I know someone who lives in that building!" etc., and then they would have come to class.
There was also consideration for causing a panic, or having rumors spread. There was no possible reason to consider closing and clearing the entire campus, which wouldn't have been possible, especially in that timeframe. The ONLY thing they could have done was "canceled classes", which itself is something of a nebulous concept when you have thousands of students who either are already on campus, already en route, or won't hear about it until they get to campus.
I simply don't see any way the practical, real life response could have been different, or anything that would have changed had an informational email gone out even at 7:30. And even if they decided to cancel class, you'd have the situation I spoke about above, and in any situation like this, you think, "What's safest? What's most prudent? What makes the most sense?" And that's what the University did.
You don't assume things like, "Gee, this guy could be on his way across campus to chain up a building and start mass-executing people in classrooms." The very fact that this is the worst shooting in US history in itself kind of confirms that there is NO WAY that VT could or should have foreseen anything remotely like this. I'm sure policies will change as a result of this, and things will tilt to the overly cautious. And still, even if you know about everything going as the University knows it with an implant to your brain, how would this situation have unfolded any differently, unless you're in the vanishingly small minority of people who would have even *considered* not coming to class because there was a shooting in a dorm?
A minimum of 15 minutes for police response and to secure the immediate area.
A minimum of 15-30 minutes for information to be assessed, and filter back to university officials and other police agencies.
A minimum of probably another 15-30 minutes for university administrators to consider the response, and the fact that thousands of students will be coming to campus soon, with many already on campus or en route.
A minimum of another 15-20 minutes to organize a mass-email, and up to another 15 minutes for it to propagate. (Hint: for mass email on a 30000+ person campus, it's not just sending an email to a single distribution list that magically goes to the entire campus instantaneously).
And then, many people wouldn't have even seen this message, and several thousand students would still be coming to campus, and many would already be there.
The Virginia Tech police force and physical plant can't even begin to clear and lock all buildings, even the dozens of major classroom buildings.
So, even if they sent out an email message before they knew anything at all, what would it have said?
I don't know what they've been calling for, but if I were there, I would have liked to have been emailed at 7:30 instead of at 9:30.
So, you think you should have been emailed that something happened 15 minutes after it occurred, when chances are the police themselves didn't even have a handle on what happened yet, much less University administrators? Acting without thinking, right? Just like the school officials did in this case.
And if they'd emailed out something, it wouldn't have been to close the university because there was by all appearances a domestic shooting in a dorm - which do happen at universities, by the way. Hell, it probably takes a minimum of 15 minutes to even coordinate a mass email, knowing the bureaucracy of a campus that size. Within a couple of hours of what is believed to be an isolated incident with no real reason at the time to believe otherwise is perfectly reasonable.
A proper response is quick, not clumsy. This is both quick and clumsy. VT was slow and clumsy (though clumsy seems unavoidable given VT's size).
Your parenthetical statement at least shows some understanding of the situation here. Even IF they'd decided to cancel classes and close the University, that email probably wouldn't have been able to go out in any practical sense, and after having a very minimal handle on the situation, for at least 45 minutes to an hour. And even then, many students, and even faculty, would either never see it that morning, or already be on their way to class. And even if you could muster enough police presence to start going around locking buildings, how do you, in one hour, lock several hundred buildings, clear them, and then what do you do with the thousands of students already on campus?
Even in the best case lockdown scenario, if we're playing the "should have, could have, would have" game, what if there was then an outdoor shooting that killed 5 instead of an indoor one killing 32? 5 is better than 32? Except all we'd know about is the 5, and Virginia Tech would get raked over the coals for having a lockdown without thinking about it. Not to mention that we can't live in a state where we think that the worst shooting in US history may be about to occur, so we'd better react accordingly.
That's why I'm saying be careful what you wish for. We look at a daylight savings time story like this and scoff at its ridiculousness, and at the same time, believe that Virginia Tech should have made the same kind of reactive knee-jerk decisions without thinking and full consideration.
No, it would not have been "trivial", by any stretch, and the area with several hundred buildings is still some 500 acres. Claiming it would have been "trivial" represents a massive misunderstanding.
I'm glad you clearly don't grasp anything I said and just latched onto "2600", though.
But if you think that a campus of this size and scope could have been, or, rather, should have been "locked down", it would require a pretty comprehensive (and much larger) police and central monitoring/camera/locking and building access infrastructure, which itself would be extremely costly and far from perfect, and also pretty much requires you to support the knee-jerk like response to "school violence" that we're talking about in this article.
This kind of draconian, presumptive, knee-jerk response is exactly what people seem to be calling for from Virginia Tech...after all, "what if" this could have been a real bombing? Maybe even the worst school bombing in US history? They needed to react vigorously and without thinking and full consideration of the situation, right? I mean, after all, the daylight savings change is just a minor oversight. They could have been saving lives, right?
I mean, we should be able to, within less than two hours, have an overly aggressive "lock down" a 700 building, 2600 acre, 30000+ person city-like area because of an isolated domestic incident in a dorm, but we shouldn't have an overly aggressive response against this kind of possible school violence?
To anyone who thinks Virginia Tech has ANY culpability here,
1. Remember what your response would be to ridiculous "zero tolerance" tactics on any topic, and
And yes, I believe this is "on topic" and highly related given the accusations that are being levied against VT.
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When what is believed to be a single, isolated shooting in a dorm happens on a 2600 acre public, open campus with hundreds of buildings, you can't assume that you're about to have the worst shooting incident (of any type) in US history.
Yet, people are already blaming Virginia Tech.
Would we close or "lock down" a city of 40000 people if there was a shooting? Because that's exactly what a campus of this size and type is (including students and faculty/staff).
No, but people are already calling for siren/PA systems in EVERY of HUNDREDS of buildings, of varying ages and constructions, centralized door locking/control and camera systems for not just outer building doors, but ALL doors.
The University reacted in a reasonable way. Yes, a shooter was "on the loose". Someone who had shot a person in a dorm, and the University immediately sent out notifications that such an event occurred; to be cautious and aware, and to report any suspicious activity to campus police. The area was "locked down", but after over two hours elapsed, there was no reason to believe that a madman was about to go on a random killing spree across campus.
This is not an elementary school. This is not a high school. This is a massive, open research campus with tens of thousands of people spreading over 2600 acres, with private, residential, and other buildings intermixed.
The only person to be blamed here is the shooter. And yes, he's dead. But Virginia Tech is not at fault.
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Colleges and universities do have the same kinds of procedures.
But a hospital is typically one building. Virginia Tech is hundreds of buildings - I believe close to 700 - of varying types, purposes, and ages. There is no central PA system or door locking system. Most of the buildings are wide open. They're intermixed with non-university lands and buildings, and span 2600 acres. Some of the buildings are over 50 and 100 years old. Do we retrofit literally tens of thousands of doors with centralized locking and cameras and install central warning/PA systems in all buildings, just because you might be the site of a madman's rampage?
There's security and prudence, and there's waste and ridiculousness.
And the area in the vicinity of the shooting was locked down and blanketed with police. It was determined to be a domestic-type, targeted incident. And by the time VT had a handle on the situation, thousands of students were already on their way to campus. Nothing happened for over two hours. Then what do you do when you have no means of directly communicating with everyone? Should the university have had a knee jerk to a shooting in one d
So, if there's a shooting in a city of, say, 35000 people, what would you do with, say 700 or so buildings across over 2000 acres in the city center?
How would you communicate with those people? (Email is really the only practical different option for the university.)
Would you go into a temporary state of quasi martial-law because a "killer is on the loose"?
I can see locking down a high school. I can't see anything different Virginia Tech could have done, especially since thousands of students would already have been on their way to campus or class by the time the university even figured out what the response to the first situation was.
And no, the appropriate response isn't to immediately close and evacuate what is essentially a good-sized city at the first sign there might be a shooting (which would have been the only thing they could have even tried at 7:15am, which would have been ridiculous).
Any claims that Virginia Tech could or should have done something to prevent this represents a massive misunderstanding of the scope and logistics of the situation - and I mean massive - and represents the worst in 20/20 hindsight armchair quarterbacking. Not to mention a worrying tilt toward apparently wanting the kind of police state infrastructure we'd need to even THINK of "locking down" a 2600 acre campus with hundreds and hundreds of buildings.
Colleges and universities do have the same kinds of procedures.
But a hospital is typically one building. Virginia Tech is hundreds of buildings - I believe close to 700 - of varying types, purposes, and ages. There is no central PA system or door locking system. Most of the buildings are wide open. They're intermixed with non-university lands and buildings, and span 2600 acres. Some of the buildings are over 50 and 100 years old. Do we retrofit literally tens of thousands of doors with centralized locking and cameras and install central warning/PA systems in all buildings, just because you might be the site of a madman's rampage?
There's security and prudence, and there's waste and ridiculousness.
And the area in the vicinity of the shooting was locked down and blanketed with police. It was determined to be a domestic-type, targeted incident. And by the time VT had a handle on the situation, thousands of students were already on their way to campus. Nothing happened for over two hours. Then what do you do when you have no means of directly communicating with everyone? Should the university have had a knee jerk to a shooting in one dorm, and before they even knew nearly anything about the situation, have canceled classes within the first 15 minutes? Even if they decided that, how do you contact everyone? Email? Facebook? The web? There would have been no practical way to notify everyone, meaning literally thousands of students would have made it t campus anyway, and then what do you do with them once there?
Lockdown is simple in a controlled setting or a high school or elementary school. But at a 40000-person public land-grant university with hundreds of buildings? I'm sorry, but Virginia Tech simply has no culpability here. This is going to result in a lot of additional security measures that are either artificial and useless, or not representative of a free and open society, or both. I'm sure it will result in several multimillion dollar lawsuits by families against VT, too. After all, you can't be angry at a dead killer.
This tragedy has exactly one culprit: the killer. The alternative is locking down something that is essentially the equivalent of a city when something bad happens, because there is a chance that something else bad might happen. And even if we wanted to do that, it's barely possible or practical on this scale. Even assuming it is or should be represents a failure to understand the scope and logistics here. It's not just "oh, it's just a little bit of money" or "how about mass SMS messaging?" It's nowhere near that simple and there simply would have been no way to reach anything but a fraction of the students even if they had wanted to immediately after the first shooting. Even the "delay" in notifying students of the first shooting, which is now being bandied about, is meaningless, because it would have told them nothing different: there was a shooting today in the dorms. It is being investigated. Be cautious and aware, and remember to always report anything suspicious to the police.
When you have a shooter in a hospital or elementary school, you lock it down.
When you have a shooter in one of several hundred buildings on a sprawling city-like campus with 40000 adults, you don't lock anything down unless you want to live in a vastly different society than I.
I agree, and I don't think any police agency is typically prepared for something of this scale at once, given this is the worst single shooting incident in US history.
In an open and free society, if someone really wants to go on a rampage, there's not a lot that can stop them.
I do think you may have misunderstood one element of my post. When I said this was not an elementary school or high school, I meant it was not one, self-contained building. But your additional point is well-taken: not only was this not a single, self-contained building; it wasn't a single, self-contained building of children who need to be protected, and for which the school is charged with such responsibility.
A large research university like Virginia Tech is an open campus with hundreds of disparate buildings intermixed with non-university buildings, streets and roads, walkways, fields, laboratories, administrative offices, academic buildings, housing, dorms, and so on. Nearly all of the academic and administrative buildings are wide open, and, in an open society, rightly so. it is essentially a 40000-person city of (almost exclusively all) adults. This is a terrible tragedy, and the power of hindsight will no doubt provide many suggestions for what VT could have done differently.
This is the unedited transcript of the VT afternoon press conference at about 4:45 PM ET. Next press conference will be at 7:30 PM ET:
- I am vice president for university relations. We will begin this with a short statement by the president. All of the individuals will be available for comment. The president will identify him in his opening comments. We will stay here as long as you need us to. Afterwards, i will be available for comment. Obviously, there are an awful lot of you and there is one of me. I would recommend that we try to get as much as we can accomplish in this press briefing today.
- Thank you. Just a few minutes ago , i spoke with president bush and he conveyed his concern and condolences for everyone in washington and offered all of the help that they could possibly provide. I' ve also spoken with the governor who was coming back from tokyo. He has declared a state of emergency which allows us to access significant oth er assets at that will be required to do with this tragedy. With me today is the secretary for public service for the commonwealth of virginia, john marshall, and the superintendent for the virginia state police. Also is the mayor of b lacksburg, the chief of the blacksburg police department and the chief of the virginia tech police. I want to repeat my horror and disbelief and profound sorrow at the events of today. People from around the world have expressed their shock and their sorrow. I am really at a loss for words to explain or understand the carnage that has visited our campus. I know no other way to speak about this than to tell you what we now. It is now confirmed that we have at 31 deaths from the norris hall , including the gunman. 15 Other victims are being treated at hospitals. There are two confirmed deaths from the shooting in the dormitory, in addition to those at norris hall. We' ve not confirmed the activity of the gun man because he carried no at the dedication. We are in the process of attempting a dedication identification. We are in the proces s of notifying next of kin. This will take some time. We will not release any names unti l we are positive of this edification. We anticipate being able to release a list sometime tomorrow. We' re asking our students to contact their parents and let them know their status. Our investigation continues into whether there is a connection between the first and second incidents. That has not been decided. We know that the parents will want to embrace their children. We are not suggesting that you come to campus, however, if pa rents feel that it must come to campus, we are locating counselors at the end of virginia tech to be available. As you can imagine, security, investigation, operational, and counseling resources are very taxed at this moment. However, we are getting assistance from the state police, the fbi, the atf, local jurisdictions, and the red cross. We understand the desire and the compelling need to get information on the part of families, stu dents, and loved ones. Unfortunately, this is all of the information that we can verify at this point in time. We are posting information o n our web site as we learned it. I communication systems are taxed . We are posting information on the web site for the state police. I think we are ready to take questions.
- Why not shut down campus after the first shooting rather g -- shooting?
- The information that we have less to make the decision that it was an isolated event to that building and the decision was not made to cancel class' s at that time.
- Can you say why the students were not notified for tw o hours?
- They were notified that there was a shooting. You have to remember that of the 26,000 is that we have, only about 9000 are on campus. When the class start at 9:00 A.M., Thou sands of people are in transit. The question is, where do you keep them when it is most safe? We concluded that the incident at the dormitory was domestic in question. This other events occurred two hours later.
So, right after I posted this, VT confirmed that "some" of the doors DID have chains. So, my above post is incorrect. I still don't see how it would be possible to chain all of the avenues of escape, but that was apparently not an issue here since VT said the shootings occurred on the second floor of the building.
Do you realize how many entrances and exits this building has? I have a feeling that even if it ends up true that he chained doors (which is still just a rumor, and has not been mentioned at either of the two VT press conferences (second one is in progress)), there would have been numerous, numerous avenues of escape. Yes, it's still sad.
When what is believed to be a single, isolated shooting in a dorm happens on a 2600 acre public, open campus with hundreds of buildings, you can't assume that you're about to have the worst shooting incident (of any type) in US history.
Yet, people are already blaming Virginia Tech.
Would we close or "lock down" a city of 40000 people if there was a shooting? Because that's exactly what a campus of this size and type is (including students and faculty/staff).
No, but people are already calling for siren/PA systems in EVERY of HUNDREDS of buildings, of varying ages and constructions, centralized door locking/control and camera systems for not just outer building doors, but ALL doors.
The University reacted in a reasonable way. Yes, a shooter was "on the loose". Someone who had shot a person in a dorm, and the University immediately sent out notifications that such an event occurred; to be cautious and aware, and to report any suspicious activity to campus police. The area was "locked down", but after over two hours elapsed, there was no reason to believe that a madman was about to go on a random killing spree across campus.
This is not an elementary school. This is not a high school. This is a massive, open research campus with tens of thousands of people spreading over 2600 acres, with private, residential, and other buildings intermixed.
The only person to be blamed here is the shooter. And yes, he's dead. But Virginia Tech is not at fault.
You're right, of course, and I even raised that question in my initial post. However, I don't think Apple will do much about this in a home/hobbyist setting, and this question of whether Apple TV is really a "computer" would only be raised if a vendor tried to, for example, sell Apple TVs preloaded with Leopard (and an associated Leopard license). This question will continue to leave the business of installing Mac OS X on Apple TVs squarely in the fringe experimenter realm, and not that of the mainstream.
It doesn't need to specifically say PowerPC. It is the license agreement for the product, which, as Apple views it, is technically Mac OS X (PowerPC). The precedent with Mac OS X Server (PowerPC) and Mac OS X Server (Universal) makes this all too clear in the context of Mac OS X 10.4.x and Mac OS X Server 10.4.x.
As I've said elsewhere, the Family Pack argument isn't a bad one, and frankly, it seems reasonable to believe it within the "spirit" of things. But even that doesn't change that there is still no way to get Mac OS X (Intel) other than pirating it. In the case where you happen to have an Intel Mac, or a friend does, then you can start kind of making up reasoning for why it's "okay" - and I'll agree, much of that reasoning isn't really bad.
As to Apple's public statements, I'd say they're largely referring to the hacks to the Apple TV as-is, i.e., enabling ssh, Remote Desktop, and so on, not pirating Mac OS X (Intel) and installing it on Apple TV.
But, to your larger point, I do agree that for home/hobbyist use, Apple probably will continue to take a hands-off approach; after all, individuals running Mac OS X on an Apple TV have, in fact, purchased an Apple TV. Those who actually have family pack licenses and/or other licenses for Mac OS X can certainly consider themselves to be within the spirit of the license. (However, from a purely legal standpoint, I'd take issue that an attorney would agree that it's "perfectly legal": your license for Mac OS X 10.4.x (PowerPC) and the associated family pack only covers that product, which can be argued to be only for Mac OS X (PowerPC), which is a distinct product from Mac OS X (Intel), which, itself, is not purchasable or available separately. This is especially true since there is a parallel precedent set by the two distinct versions of Mac OS X Server.)
The landscape changes considerably with Leopard, since it will be separately purchasable, and will be Universal, and the licenses for it and that of the associated family pack that one would presume would be available definitely cover a version of the product able to run on Intel, including Apple TV. But even then, the question exists of whether Apple would strictly consider Apple TV a "computer" in the context of the license. The fact that Apple will probably ignore this in the context of home/hobbyist/experimenter use no doubt remains. But that doesn't remove the veracity of any of my statements, either. Overall, though, you're right that Apple probably will care a lot less since it's being run on their own hardware someone has purchased, even now before Leopard.
But that's a minimum of $249 at education pricing for 10-client, and already over the price of a Mac mini.
Considering the very small number of people who'd legitimately want an Apple TV running Mac OS X Server - and would actually BUY it - that's another sophist stretch, if one were to make that argument.
I think the really interesting case, as I'd also said in that above thread, is Apple TV + Leopard.
Um, some people actually want to run Mac OS X legally.
Sorry to, you know, actually discuss that aspect of it, and point out that for the first time, it will be a legitimate possibility with Apple TV and Leopard.
I know it's disappointing to you when people actually discuss things like this, though.
Mac OS X 10.4.x Family Packs are for Mac OS X 10.4.x (PowerPC), not Mac OS X 10.4.x (Intel). They are not the same product.
I spoke directly to this point in my post:
While it may get you around your own personal moral qualms (and isn't a bad argument, frankly), Mac OS X 10.4.x (Intel) and Mac OS X 10.4.x (PowerPC) are simply not the same product, and you can't juggle licenses between them. Your family pack license is for Mac OS X 10.4.x (PowerPC) only.
There already is standing precedent for this: Mac OS X Server 10.4.x (PowerPC) and Mac OS X Server 10.4.7 (Universal) are not the same product, and have different part numbers, and the license for the former does not entitle you to the latter: it is a separate product that must be repurchased.
Let me reiterate I don't think the argument is fundamentally a bad one! I'm sure that people with family packs will feel they're well within the "spirit" of things if they then pirate or otherwise obtain Mac OS X 10.4.x (Intel) for their AppleTV.
The only product I can see, right now, today, that could theoretically be purchased and run legally on AppleTV is Mac OS X Server 10.4.7 (Universal). In the future, of course, Mac OS X 10.5.x (Leopard) gets added to the mix.
So when Leopard (and presumably Leopard family packs) come out, you may have an argument.
But right now, like it or not, you have a family pack for Mac OS X 10.4.x (PowerPC), nothing more.
The latest ones for non-Apple hardware (i.e., not Apple TV)?
If so, I stand corrected.
That still doesn't change the fact that it violates the EULA, and is a system that is totally unsupported, not able to pull OS updates (that is, any update that could potentially touch/replace the hacked components) down via Software Update, etc.
If people really are that hell-bent on pirating and/or running Mac OS X on non-Apple hardware, then that's their call.
But because no mainstream company, vendor, or institution will ever rely on running a hacked OS X on non-Apple hardware, it will ALWAYS remain relegated to the small (yes, extremely small, even if it is thousands or tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of people) hacker/hobbyist/experimenter crowd. Legitimate customers and enterprises will continue to properly license and purchase Mac OS X.
And even if this did become a booming black market in, say, China, it would be no different from how any other software is pirated in those regions.
Did you just stop reading when you got to that point in my post? Not only is it correct, currently, but two lines below what you quoted, I say:
Mac OS X 10.5.x (Leopard) will be the first version of Mac OS X to have a legally purchasable standalone retail Intel version (actually, Leopard will be Universal).
And I have spoken about the fact that Leopard will be separately purchasable in the very post you replied to and others in this thread numerous times.
In fact, that's a huge chunk of what I was talking about: Leopard will be very interesting in the context of Apple TV, because it WILL be purchasable separately AND running Leopard on Apple TV, since it is an "Apple-labeled" product, doesn't appear to violate the EULA, either (as you still technically would if you purchased Leopard and ran it on non-Apple hardware, for example).
But it's also not a "$300 Mac", since you still, you know, need Mac OS X to go along with it.
If you want to pirate it and/or don't care about the legal side of it at all, fine: this argument isn't for you.
If you actually do want to find a legal way to do it that doesn't run afoul of license agreements, and possibly laws, in some jurisdictions, then Apple TV is actually an interesting case, since the big prohibition in the Mac OS X EULA has always been that it needs to be run on an "Apple-labeled" computer. Well, Apple TV is certainly an "Apple-labeled" product in that sense.
So yeah, some people care that they can go out and get an Apple TV for $300, and then legally get Leopard for $69 as a student, and then legally install it on their Apple TV.
To some people, the fact that they have a full Mac for $370 in the Apple TV form factor - AND it would be legal - is also "cool".
I'm simply laying out the arguments for the people who are looking for *legal* ways to justify it.
And Leopard will present an interesting case, since:
- It will be purchasable as a standalone product - Running Leopard on Apple TV does not appear to violate the Mac OS X license agreement on its face - Even more interesting if Leopard runs unmodified (i.e., without a kernel hack) - More interesting still if an installation method can be found that doesn't require disassembling Apple TV
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Do you honestly believe that the classrooms would have been any emptier even if the same exact email had gone out at 7:30 or 7:45 when only preliminary information was known? No, it would be, "damn, that sucks...a shooting in the dorms - I know someone who lives in that building!" etc., and then they would have come to class.
There was also consideration for causing a panic, or having rumors spread. There was no possible reason to consider closing and clearing the entire campus, which wouldn't have been possible, especially in that timeframe. The ONLY thing they could have done was "canceled classes", which itself is something of a nebulous concept when you have thousands of students who either are already on campus, already en route, or won't hear about it until they get to campus.
I simply don't see any way the practical, real life response could have been different, or anything that would have changed had an informational email gone out even at 7:30. And even if they decided to cancel class, you'd have the situation I spoke about above, and in any situation like this, you think, "What's safest? What's most prudent? What makes the most sense?" And that's what the University did.
You don't assume things like, "Gee, this guy could be on his way across campus to chain up a building and start mass-executing people in classrooms." The very fact that this is the worst shooting in US history in itself kind of confirms that there is NO WAY that VT could or should have foreseen anything remotely like this. I'm sure policies will change as a result of this, and things will tilt to the overly cautious. And still, even if you know about everything going as the University knows it with an implant to your brain, how would this situation have unfolded any differently, unless you're in the vanishingly small minority of people who would have even *considered* not coming to class because there was a shooting in a dorm?
Two hours later is "immediately"?
Yes, in this context, it is.
A minimum of 15 minutes for police response and to secure the immediate area.
A minimum of 15-30 minutes for information to be assessed, and filter back to university officials and other police agencies.
A minimum of probably another 15-30 minutes for university administrators to consider the response, and the fact that thousands of students will be coming to campus soon, with many already on campus or en route.
A minimum of another 15-20 minutes to organize a mass-email, and up to another 15 minutes for it to propagate. (Hint: for mass email on a 30000+ person campus, it's not just sending an email to a single distribution list that magically goes to the entire campus instantaneously).
And then, many people wouldn't have even seen this message, and several thousand students would still be coming to campus, and many would already be there.
The Virginia Tech police force and physical plant can't even begin to clear and lock all buildings, even the dozens of major classroom buildings.
So, even if they sent out an email message before they knew anything at all, what would it have said?
I don't know what they've been calling for, but if I were there, I would have liked to have been emailed at 7:30 instead of at 9:30.
So, you think you should have been emailed that something happened 15 minutes after it occurred, when chances are the police themselves didn't even have a handle on what happened yet, much less University administrators? Acting without thinking, right? Just like the school officials did in this case.
And if they'd emailed out something, it wouldn't have been to close the university because there was by all appearances a domestic shooting in a dorm - which do happen at universities, by the way. Hell, it probably takes a minimum of 15 minutes to even coordinate a mass email, knowing the bureaucracy of a campus that size. Within a couple of hours of what is believed to be an isolated incident with no real reason at the time to believe otherwise is perfectly reasonable.
A proper response is quick, not clumsy. This is both quick and clumsy. VT was slow and clumsy (though clumsy seems unavoidable given VT's size).
Your parenthetical statement at least shows some understanding of the situation here. Even IF they'd decided to cancel classes and close the University, that email probably wouldn't have been able to go out in any practical sense, and after having a very minimal handle on the situation, for at least 45 minutes to an hour. And even then, many students, and even faculty, would either never see it that morning, or already be on their way to class. And even if you could muster enough police presence to start going around locking buildings, how do you, in one hour, lock several hundred buildings, clear them, and then what do you do with the thousands of students already on campus?
Even in the best case lockdown scenario, if we're playing the "should have, could have, would have" game, what if there was then an outdoor shooting that killed 5 instead of an indoor one killing 32? 5 is better than 32? Except all we'd know about is the 5, and Virginia Tech would get raked over the coals for having a lockdown without thinking about it. Not to mention that we can't live in a state where we think that the worst shooting in US history may be about to occur, so we'd better react accordingly.
That's why I'm saying be careful what you wish for. We look at a daylight savings time story like this and scoff at its ridiculousness, and at the same time, believe that Virginia Tech should have made the same kind of reactive knee-jerk decisions without thinking and full consideration.
No, it would not have been "trivial", by any stretch, and the area with several hundred buildings is still some 500 acres. Claiming it would have been "trivial" represents a massive misunderstanding.
I'm glad you clearly don't grasp anything I said and just latched onto "2600", though.
But if you think that a campus of this size and scope could have been, or, rather, should have been "locked down", it would require a pretty comprehensive (and much larger) police and central monitoring/camera/locking and building access infrastructure, which itself would be extremely costly and far from perfect, and also pretty much requires you to support the knee-jerk like response to "school violence" that we're talking about in this article.
This kind of draconian, presumptive, knee-jerk response is exactly what people seem to be calling for from Virginia Tech...after all, "what if" this could have been a real bombing? Maybe even the worst school bombing in US history? They needed to react vigorously and without thinking and full consideration of the situation, right? I mean, after all, the daylight savings change is just a minor oversight. They could have been saving lives, right?
I mean, we should be able to, within less than two hours, have an overly aggressive "lock down" a 700 building, 2600 acre, 30000+ person city-like area because of an isolated domestic incident in a dorm, but we shouldn't have an overly aggressive response against this kind of possible school violence?
To anyone who thinks Virginia Tech has ANY culpability here,
1. Remember what your response would be to ridiculous "zero tolerance" tactics on any topic, and
2. Read the below first.
Commentary included from here, here, and here.
And yes, I believe this is "on topic" and highly related given the accusations that are being levied against VT.
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When what is believed to be a single, isolated shooting in a dorm happens on a 2600 acre public, open campus with hundreds of buildings, you can't assume that you're about to have the worst shooting incident (of any type) in US history.
Yet, people are already blaming Virginia Tech.
Would we close or "lock down" a city of 40000 people if there was a shooting? Because that's exactly what a campus of this size and type is (including students and faculty/staff).
No, but people are already calling for siren/PA systems in EVERY of HUNDREDS of buildings, of varying ages and constructions, centralized door locking/control and camera systems for not just outer building doors, but ALL doors.
The University reacted in a reasonable way. Yes, a shooter was "on the loose". Someone who had shot a person in a dorm, and the University immediately sent out notifications that such an event occurred; to be cautious and aware, and to report any suspicious activity to campus police. The area was "locked down", but after over two hours elapsed, there was no reason to believe that a madman was about to go on a random killing spree across campus.
This is not an elementary school. This is not a high school. This is a massive, open research campus with tens of thousands of people spreading over 2600 acres, with private, residential, and other buildings intermixed.
The only person to be blamed here is the shooter. And yes, he's dead. But Virginia Tech is not at fault.
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Colleges and universities do have the same kinds of procedures.
But a hospital is typically one building. Virginia Tech is hundreds of buildings - I believe close to 700 - of varying types, purposes, and ages. There is no central PA system or door locking system. Most of the buildings are wide open. They're intermixed with non-university lands and buildings, and span 2600 acres. Some of the buildings are over 50 and 100 years old. Do we retrofit literally tens of thousands of doors with centralized locking and cameras and install central warning/PA systems in all buildings, just because you might be the site of a madman's rampage?
There's security and prudence, and there's waste and ridiculousness.
And the area in the vicinity of the shooting was locked down and blanketed with police. It was determined to be a domestic-type, targeted incident. And by the time VT had a handle on the situation, thousands of students were already on their way to campus. Nothing happened for over two hours. Then what do you do when you have no means of directly communicating with everyone? Should the university have had a knee jerk to a shooting in one d
So, if there's a shooting in a city of, say, 35000 people, what would you do with, say 700 or so buildings across over 2000 acres in the city center?
How would you communicate with those people? (Email is really the only practical different option for the university.)
Would you go into a temporary state of quasi martial-law because a "killer is on the loose"?
I can see locking down a high school. I can't see anything different Virginia Tech could have done, especially since thousands of students would already have been on their way to campus or class by the time the university even figured out what the response to the first situation was.
And no, the appropriate response isn't to immediately close and evacuate what is essentially a good-sized city at the first sign there might be a shooting (which would have been the only thing they could have even tried at 7:15am, which would have been ridiculous).
Any claims that Virginia Tech could or should have done something to prevent this represents a massive misunderstanding of the scope and logistics of the situation - and I mean massive - and represents the worst in 20/20 hindsight armchair quarterbacking. Not to mention a worrying tilt toward apparently wanting the kind of police state infrastructure we'd need to even THINK of "locking down" a 2600 acre campus with hundreds and hundreds of buildings.
Colleges and universities do have the same kinds of procedures.
But a hospital is typically one building. Virginia Tech is hundreds of buildings - I believe close to 700 - of varying types, purposes, and ages. There is no central PA system or door locking system. Most of the buildings are wide open. They're intermixed with non-university lands and buildings, and span 2600 acres. Some of the buildings are over 50 and 100 years old. Do we retrofit literally tens of thousands of doors with centralized locking and cameras and install central warning/PA systems in all buildings, just because you might be the site of a madman's rampage?
There's security and prudence, and there's waste and ridiculousness.
And the area in the vicinity of the shooting was locked down and blanketed with police. It was determined to be a domestic-type, targeted incident. And by the time VT had a handle on the situation, thousands of students were already on their way to campus. Nothing happened for over two hours. Then what do you do when you have no means of directly communicating with everyone? Should the university have had a knee jerk to a shooting in one dorm, and before they even knew nearly anything about the situation, have canceled classes within the first 15 minutes? Even if they decided that, how do you contact everyone? Email? Facebook? The web? There would have been no practical way to notify everyone, meaning literally thousands of students would have made it t campus anyway, and then what do you do with them once there?
Lockdown is simple in a controlled setting or a high school or elementary school. But at a 40000-person public land-grant university with hundreds of buildings? I'm sorry, but Virginia Tech simply has no culpability here. This is going to result in a lot of additional security measures that are either artificial and useless, or not representative of a free and open society, or both. I'm sure it will result in several multimillion dollar lawsuits by families against VT, too. After all, you can't be angry at a dead killer.
This tragedy has exactly one culprit: the killer. The alternative is locking down something that is essentially the equivalent of a city when something bad happens, because there is a chance that something else bad might happen. And even if we wanted to do that, it's barely possible or practical on this scale. Even assuming it is or should be represents a failure to understand the scope and logistics here. It's not just "oh, it's just a little bit of money" or "how about mass SMS messaging?" It's nowhere near that simple and there simply would have been no way to reach anything but a fraction of the students even if they had wanted to immediately after the first shooting. Even the "delay" in notifying students of the first shooting, which is now being bandied about, is meaningless, because it would have told them nothing different: there was a shooting today in the dorms. It is being investigated. Be cautious and aware, and remember to always report anything suspicious to the police.
When you have a shooter in a hospital or elementary school, you lock it down.
When you have a shooter in one of several hundred buildings on a sprawling city-like campus with 40000 adults, you don't lock anything down unless you want to live in a vastly different society than I.
I agree, and I don't think any police agency is typically prepared for something of this scale at once, given this is the worst single shooting incident in US history.
In an open and free society, if someone really wants to go on a rampage, there's not a lot that can stop them.
No. The biggest target of the blame, by far, will be Virginia Tech itself, even though they didn't do anything wrong, and couldn't have really conceived of anything different to do at the time, given the information at hand.
I do think you may have misunderstood one element of my post. When I said this was not an elementary school or high school, I meant it was not one, self-contained building. But your additional point is well-taken: not only was this not a single, self-contained building; it wasn't a single, self-contained building of children who need to be protected, and for which the school is charged with such responsibility.
A large research university like Virginia Tech is an open campus with hundreds of disparate buildings intermixed with non-university buildings, streets and roads, walkways, fields, laboratories, administrative offices, academic buildings, housing, dorms, and so on. Nearly all of the academic and administrative buildings are wide open, and, in an open society, rightly so. it is essentially a 40000-person city of (almost exclusively all) adults. This is a terrible tragedy, and the power of hindsight will no doubt provide many suggestions for what VT could have done differently.
This is the unedited transcript of the VT afternoon press conference at about 4:45 PM ET. Next press conference will be at 7:30 PM ET:
- I am vice president for university relations. We will begin this with a short statement by the president. All of the individuals will be available for comment. The president will identify him in his opening comments. We will stay here as long as you need us to. Afterwards, i will be available for comment. Obviously, there are an awful lot of you and there is one of me. I would recommend that we try to get as much as we can accomplish in this press briefing today.
- Thank you. Just a few minutes ago , i spoke with president bush and he conveyed his concern and condolences for everyone in washington and offered all of the help that they could possibly provide. I' ve also spoken with the governor who was coming back from tokyo. He has declared a state of emergency which allows us to access significant oth er assets at that will be required to do with this tragedy. With me today is the secretary for public service for the commonwealth of virginia, john marshall, and the superintendent for the virginia state police. Also is the mayor of b lacksburg, the chief of the blacksburg police department and the chief of the virginia tech police. I want to repeat my horror and disbelief and profound sorrow at the events of today. People from around the world have expressed their shock and their sorrow. I am really at a loss for words to explain or understand the carnage that has visited our campus. I know no other way to speak about this than to tell you what we now. It is now confirmed that we have at 31 deaths from the norris hall , including the gunman. 15 Other victims are being treated at hospitals. There are two confirmed deaths from the shooting in the dormitory, in addition to those at norris hall. We' ve not confirmed the activity of the gun man because he carried no at the dedication. We are in the process of attempting a dedication identification. We are in the proces s of notifying next of kin. This will take some time. We will not release any names unti l we are positive of this edification. We anticipate being able to release a list sometime tomorrow. We' re asking our students to contact their parents and let them know their status. Our investigation continues into whether there is a connection between the first and second incidents. That has not been decided. We know that the parents will want to embrace their children. We are not suggesting that you come to campus, however, if pa rents feel that it must come to campus, we are locating counselors at the end of virginia tech to be available. As you can imagine, security, investigation, operational, and counseling resources are very taxed at this moment. However, we are getting assistance from the state police, the fbi, the atf, local jurisdictions, and the red cross. We understand the desire and the compelling need to get information on the part of families, stu dents, and loved ones. Unfortunately, this is all of the information that we can verify at this point in time. We are posting information o n our web site as we learned it. I communication systems are taxed . We are posting information on the web site for the state police. I think we are ready to take questions.
- Why not shut down campus after the first shooting rather g -- shooting?
- The information that we have less to make the decision that it was an isolated event to that building and the decision was not made to cancel class' s at that time.
- Can you say why the students were not notified for tw o hours?
- They were notified that there was a shooting. You have to remember that of the 26,000 is that we have, only about 9000 are on campus. When the class start at 9:00 A.M., Thou sands of people are in transit. The question is, where do you keep them when it is most safe? We concluded that the incident at the dormitory was domestic in question. This other events occurred two hours later.
- The first e-mail did not arrive
So, right after I posted this, VT confirmed that "some" of the doors DID have chains. So, my above post is incorrect. I still don't see how it would be possible to chain all of the avenues of escape, but that was apparently not an issue here since VT said the shootings occurred on the second floor of the building.
Do you realize how many entrances and exits this building has? I have a feeling that even if it ends up true that he chained doors (which is still just a rumor, and has not been mentioned at either of the two VT press conferences (second one is in progress)), there would have been numerous, numerous avenues of escape. Yes, it's still sad.
When what is believed to be a single, isolated shooting in a dorm happens on a 2600 acre public, open campus with hundreds of buildings, you can't assume that you're about to have the worst shooting incident (of any type) in US history.
Yet, people are already blaming Virginia Tech.
Would we close or "lock down" a city of 40000 people if there was a shooting? Because that's exactly what a campus of this size and type is (including students and faculty/staff).
No, but people are already calling for siren/PA systems in EVERY of HUNDREDS of buildings, of varying ages and constructions, centralized door locking/control and camera systems for not just outer building doors, but ALL doors.
The University reacted in a reasonable way. Yes, a shooter was "on the loose". Someone who had shot a person in a dorm, and the University immediately sent out notifications that such an event occurred; to be cautious and aware, and to report any suspicious activity to campus police. The area was "locked down", but after over two hours elapsed, there was no reason to believe that a madman was about to go on a random killing spree across campus.
This is not an elementary school. This is not a high school. This is a massive, open research campus with tens of thousands of people spreading over 2600 acres, with private, residential, and other buildings intermixed.
The only person to be blamed here is the shooter. And yes, he's dead. But Virginia Tech is not at fault.
You're right, of course, and I even raised that question in my initial post. However, I don't think Apple will do much about this in a home/hobbyist setting, and this question of whether Apple TV is really a "computer" would only be raised if a vendor tried to, for example, sell Apple TVs preloaded with Leopard (and an associated Leopard license). This question will continue to leave the business of installing Mac OS X on Apple TVs squarely in the fringe experimenter realm, and not that of the mainstream.
It doesn't need to specifically say PowerPC. It is the license agreement for the product, which, as Apple views it, is technically Mac OS X (PowerPC). The precedent with Mac OS X Server (PowerPC) and Mac OS X Server (Universal) makes this all too clear in the context of Mac OS X 10.4.x and Mac OS X Server 10.4.x.
As I've said elsewhere, the Family Pack argument isn't a bad one, and frankly, it seems reasonable to believe it within the "spirit" of things. But even that doesn't change that there is still no way to get Mac OS X (Intel) other than pirating it. In the case where you happen to have an Intel Mac, or a friend does, then you can start kind of making up reasoning for why it's "okay" - and I'll agree, much of that reasoning isn't really bad.
As to Apple's public statements, I'd say they're largely referring to the hacks to the Apple TV as-is, i.e., enabling ssh, Remote Desktop, and so on, not pirating Mac OS X (Intel) and installing it on Apple TV.
But, to your larger point, I do agree that for home/hobbyist use, Apple probably will continue to take a hands-off approach; after all, individuals running Mac OS X on an Apple TV have, in fact, purchased an Apple TV. Those who actually have family pack licenses and/or other licenses for Mac OS X can certainly consider themselves to be within the spirit of the license. (However, from a purely legal standpoint, I'd take issue that an attorney would agree that it's "perfectly legal": your license for Mac OS X 10.4.x (PowerPC) and the associated family pack only covers that product, which can be argued to be only for Mac OS X (PowerPC), which is a distinct product from Mac OS X (Intel), which, itself, is not purchasable or available separately. This is especially true since there is a parallel precedent set by the two distinct versions of Mac OS X Server.)
The landscape changes considerably with Leopard, since it will be separately purchasable, and will be Universal, and the licenses for it and that of the associated family pack that one would presume would be available definitely cover a version of the product able to run on Intel, including Apple TV. But even then, the question exists of whether Apple would strictly consider Apple TV a "computer" in the context of the license. The fact that Apple will probably ignore this in the context of home/hobbyist/experimenter use no doubt remains. But that doesn't remove the veracity of any of my statements, either. Overall, though, you're right that Apple probably will care a lot less since it's being run on their own hardware someone has purchased, even now before Leopard.
Yep, and I already spoke to that in this and other numerous posts in that thread.
But that's a minimum of $249 at education pricing for 10-client, and already over the price of a Mac mini.
Considering the very small number of people who'd legitimately want an Apple TV running Mac OS X Server - and would actually BUY it - that's another sophist stretch, if one were to make that argument.
I think the really interesting case, as I'd also said in that above thread, is Apple TV + Leopard.
Um, some people actually want to run Mac OS X legally.
Sorry to, you know, actually discuss that aspect of it, and point out that for the first time, it will be a legitimate possibility with Apple TV and Leopard.
I know it's disappointing to you when people actually discuss things like this, though.
As I said to the person directly above you who responded to me (doesn't anyone read the threads anymore?), I stand corrected.
But that doesn't change the other points I raised here.
Wrong.
Mac OS X 10.4.x Family Packs are for Mac OS X 10.4.x (PowerPC), not Mac OS X 10.4.x (Intel). They are not the same product.
I spoke directly to this point in my post:
While it may get you around your own personal moral qualms (and isn't a bad argument, frankly), Mac OS X 10.4.x (Intel) and Mac OS X 10.4.x (PowerPC) are simply not the same product, and you can't juggle licenses between them. Your family pack license is for Mac OS X 10.4.x (PowerPC) only.
There already is standing precedent for this: Mac OS X Server 10.4.x (PowerPC) and Mac OS X Server 10.4.7 (Universal) are not the same product, and have different part numbers, and the license for the former does not entitle you to the latter: it is a separate product that must be repurchased.
Let me reiterate I don't think the argument is fundamentally a bad one! I'm sure that people with family packs will feel they're well within the "spirit" of things if they then pirate or otherwise obtain Mac OS X 10.4.x (Intel) for their AppleTV.
The only product I can see, right now, today, that could theoretically be purchased and run legally on AppleTV is Mac OS X Server 10.4.7 (Universal). In the future, of course, Mac OS X 10.5.x (Leopard) gets added to the mix.
So when Leopard (and presumably Leopard family packs) come out, you may have an argument.
But right now, like it or not, you have a family pack for Mac OS X 10.4.x (PowerPC), nothing more.
The latest ones for non-Apple hardware (i.e., not Apple TV)?
If so, I stand corrected.
That still doesn't change the fact that it violates the EULA, and is a system that is totally unsupported, not able to pull OS updates (that is, any update that could potentially touch/replace the hacked components) down via Software Update, etc.
If people really are that hell-bent on pirating and/or running Mac OS X on non-Apple hardware, then that's their call.
But because no mainstream company, vendor, or institution will ever rely on running a hacked OS X on non-Apple hardware, it will ALWAYS remain relegated to the small (yes, extremely small, even if it is thousands or tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of people) hacker/hobbyist/experimenter crowd. Legitimate customers and enterprises will continue to properly license and purchase Mac OS X.
And even if this did become a booming black market in, say, China, it would be no different from how any other software is pirated in those regions.
Did you just stop reading when you got to that point in my post? Not only is it correct, currently, but two lines below what you quoted, I say:
Mac OS X 10.5.x (Leopard) will be the first version of Mac OS X to have a legally purchasable standalone retail Intel version (actually, Leopard will be Universal).
And I have spoken about the fact that Leopard will be separately purchasable in the very post you replied to and others in this thread numerous times.
In fact, that's a huge chunk of what I was talking about: Leopard will be very interesting in the context of Apple TV, because it WILL be purchasable separately AND running Leopard on Apple TV, since it is an "Apple-labeled" product, doesn't appear to violate the EULA, either (as you still technically would if you purchased Leopard and ran it on non-Apple hardware, for example).
More interesting still if an installation method can be found that doesn't require disassembling Apple TV
And apparently this is now done as well:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swebzPG7p34&NR=1
Yeah, it's called "today". It is "cool".
But it's also not a "$300 Mac", since you still, you know, need Mac OS X to go along with it.
If you want to pirate it and/or don't care about the legal side of it at all, fine: this argument isn't for you.
If you actually do want to find a legal way to do it that doesn't run afoul of license agreements, and possibly laws, in some jurisdictions, then Apple TV is actually an interesting case, since the big prohibition in the Mac OS X EULA has always been that it needs to be run on an "Apple-labeled" computer. Well, Apple TV is certainly an "Apple-labeled" product in that sense.
So yeah, some people care that they can go out and get an Apple TV for $300, and then legally get Leopard for $69 as a student, and then legally install it on their Apple TV.
To some people, the fact that they have a full Mac for $370 in the Apple TV form factor - AND it would be legal - is also "cool".
Hey, that's your call.
I'm simply laying out the arguments for the people who are looking for *legal* ways to justify it.
And Leopard will present an interesting case, since:
- It will be purchasable as a standalone product
- Running Leopard on Apple TV does not appear to violate the Mac OS X license agreement on its face
- Even more interesting if Leopard runs unmodified (i.e., without a kernel hack)
- More interesting still if an installation method can be found that doesn't require disassembling Apple TV