6 ms·

I find it very interesting, that there are such websites. I wonder whether it works, but I guess that if only one life is saved by a notice on a website, that

I find it very interesting, that there are such websites. I wonder whether it works, but I guess that if only one life is saved by a notice on a website, that is enough

27182818284 13y ago
At this point that most higher-ed websites not only have their emergency website, but also a whole system. A lot of universities send out text messages simultaneously.
- jason_pr 13y ago
  Yup. These messages are also sent to MIT students (and, I assume, faculty) via text message, automated phone call, and email.
weisser 13y ago
This is beamed out to sites that people are actually likely to be looking at meaning it is all inbound to that link. I saw it appear on my FB feed moments after it was posted. My Tweetdeck column for "MIT shooter" is moving nearly as rapidly as the one for #BostonMarathonExplosion and almost everyone is sharing the link to them MIT site.
- homosaur 13y ago
  You know I had never thought about that, but Twitter really is the rapid alert system nowadays. You only really need to push messages to a few select parties then boom, everyone knows. It has to be as effective or more than any other alert system we use.
fredleblanc 13y ago
My last job was doing websites for higher education, and I can tell you that it's very much a thing. It's a part of many universities' emergency protocols, sometimes paired with an alert banner on the homepage. (And that banner may or may not link to a further page of information.) While things like a gunman on campus is most certainly an emergency, these systems also serve other messages. Things like other emergencies (earthquakes, for example), snow days, we're just testing the emergency alarms today, etc. Edit because I had another thought: the whole field of emergency preparedness in higher education is rather fascinating. Most of what I found interesting I had heard second-hand from clients, but you might find it quite interesting.
- homosaur 13y ago
  Sloppy joe day
  - icpmacdo 13y ago
    Yes like he said emergencies.
homosaur 13y ago
At my old uni, you could submit a cell number to an emergency alert system and you would get texts if something like this went down. I'm guessing MIT has something similar although not sure if this system is part of it. I'm sure someone will clarify soon.
- bphogan 13y ago
  I wrote a system that did that for students. It was a ton of fun to work on. And then it didn't work because the cell phone towers couldn't handle it. So of course they scrapped my code, went with a third-party system, and had the same problem. Text messages during emergencies? Not a chance. Not when they don't even work for a simple test (hour delays!)
  - jason_pr 13y ago
    MIT's system has been alerting me with automated phone calls and text messages within minutes of emergency reports. I've been really pleased with the speed of the system.
- HarryHirsch 13y ago
  My uni has just that, and the nagging question I keep asking myself is just how much money are they spending on that service that is profoundly useless. When there is an emergency the police show up damn quick, and there is nothing to be gained for people on the other side of campus to receive a text that building X is on fire. I feel the money would be of more use elsewhere.
  - lostlogin 13y ago
    Many places face hazards that have a delay before hitting - tsunami is one I know of specifically, and gunmen wondering around would seem to be relevant here. How is this not the best sort of alert system?
    - HarryHirsch 13y ago
      > Many places face hazards that have a delay before hitting You ask yourself how people dealt with large-scale civil emergencies before cellphones became widespread. There were such things as warning sirens, and of course the police with loudspeaker vans. They are still doing that today - every time a hurricane is set to hit Miami the emergency services make the rounds of low-lying areas to get the word out to the homeless. And a gunman or shooter on campus just cannot be hid - people shout warnings, someone will alert the police, who will then cordon off the area. The costs for the messaging system are obvious, high, and altogether the thing appears more like ass-covering for the administration than something that has tangible benefits.
aaron695 13y ago
Well if you truly meant one life saved fair enough. So you'd have to deducted the people killed in making sites like these first. So a web site is possibly $40,000. A humans life in the US is probably worth around $2,000,000. So it might cost one 50th of a humans life to create a site like this. I'd guess not, but the figures are complicated, the site is used for other things for starters. I'd suspect a suicide help line would be better money spent. Don't drink and drive campaigns, healthy eating, quitting smoking help all far better returns I'd guess.
- jessriedel 13y ago
  1. Human lives are valued at between $6 and $8 million in the US. This is not what can be produced in the average human life, which is probably more like $1 million as I estimated recently here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5543848 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5543848 . Instead, it's how much it costs to save a human life on the margin, which is the applicable number here. 2. My impression from previous things I've read is that suicide lines are largely ineffective.
  - rdl 13y ago
    The figure I've seen is $2-4mm (based on payouts from life insurance by the government, etc.), but this was a few years ago, so maybe inflation. Obviously there are huge differences between humans.
    - jessriedel 13y ago
      Life insurance payouts are actually an even worse measure of value here. Life insurance payouts should be set by the liabilities left over when someone dies (i.e. children that still need to be raised). A person with no dependents doesn't need life insurance (except for funeral expenses), but that doesn't mean orders of magnitude less should be spent to save their life.
      - Mz 13y ago
        Should be but frequently are not. Life insurance is frequently based on current income rather than current liabilities, and that is before we get into known cases of fraud involving murder for the insurance money. Still I agree with you. Have a couple of upvotes. You can put a dollar value on a human life but it doesn't really cover it. Life is more than dollars and cents.

I find it very interesting, that there are such websites. I wonder whether it works, but I guess that if only one life is saved by a notice on a website, that is enough

27182818284 13y ago

At this point that most higher-ed websites not only have their emergency website, but also a whole system. A lot of universities send out text messages simultaneously.

jason_pr 13y ago
Yup. These messages are also sent to MIT students (and, I assume, faculty) via text message, automated phone call, and email.

weisser 13y ago

This is beamed out to sites that people are actually likely to be looking at meaning it is all inbound to that link. I saw it appear on my FB feed moments after it was posted. My Tweetdeck column for "MIT shooter" is moving nearly as rapidly as the one for #BostonMarathonExplosion and almost everyone is sharing the link to them MIT site.

homosaur 13y ago
You know I had never thought about that, but Twitter really is the rapid alert system nowadays. You only really need to push messages to a few select parties then boom, everyone knows. It has to be as effective or more than any other alert system we use.

fredleblanc 13y ago

My last job was doing websites for higher education, and I can tell you that it's very much a thing. It's a part of many universities' emergency protocols, sometimes paired with an alert banner on the homepage. (And that banner may or may not link to a further page of information.) While things like a gunman on campus is most certainly an emergency, these systems also serve other messages. Things like other emergencies (earthquakes, for example), snow days, we're just testing the emergency alarms today, etc. Edit because I had another thought: the whole field of emergency preparedness in higher education is rather fascinating. Most of what I found interesting I had heard second-hand from clients, but you might find it quite interesting.

homosaur 13y ago
Sloppy joe day
- icpmacdo 13y ago
  Yes like he said emergencies.

homosaur 13y ago

At my old uni, you could submit a cell number to an emergency alert system and you would get texts if something like this went down. I'm guessing MIT has something similar although not sure if this system is part of it. I'm sure someone will clarify soon.

bphogan 13y ago
I wrote a system that did that for students. It was a ton of fun to work on. And then it didn't work because the cell phone towers couldn't handle it. So of course they scrapped my code, went with a third-party system, and had the same problem. Text messages during emergencies? Not a chance. Not when they don't even work for a simple test (hour delays!)
- jason_pr 13y ago
  MIT's system has been alerting me with automated phone calls and text messages within minutes of emergency reports. I've been really pleased with the speed of the system.
HarryHirsch 13y ago
My uni has just that, and the nagging question I keep asking myself is just how much money are they spending on that service that is profoundly useless. When there is an emergency the police show up damn quick, and there is nothing to be gained for people on the other side of campus to receive a text that building X is on fire. I feel the money would be of more use elsewhere.
- lostlogin 13y ago
  Many places face hazards that have a delay before hitting - tsunami is one I know of specifically, and gunmen wondering around would seem to be relevant here. How is this not the best sort of alert system?
  - HarryHirsch 13y ago
    > Many places face hazards that have a delay before hitting You ask yourself how people dealt with large-scale civil emergencies before cellphones became widespread. There were such things as warning sirens, and of course the police with loudspeaker vans. They are still doing that today - every time a hurricane is set to hit Miami the emergency services make the rounds of low-lying areas to get the word out to the homeless. And a gunman or shooter on campus just cannot be hid - people shout warnings, someone will alert the police, who will then cordon off the area. The costs for the messaging system are obvious, high, and altogether the thing appears more like ass-covering for the administration than something that has tangible benefits.

aaron695 13y ago

Well if you truly meant one life saved fair enough. So you'd have to deducted the people killed in making sites like these first. So a web site is possibly $40,000. A humans life in the US is probably worth around $2,000,000. So it might cost one 50th of a humans life to create a site like this. I'd guess not, but the figures are complicated, the site is used for other things for starters. I'd suspect a suicide help line would be better money spent. Don't drink and drive campaigns, healthy eating, quitting smoking help all far better returns I'd guess.

jessriedel 13y ago
1. Human lives are valued at between $6 and $8 million in the US. This is not what can be produced in the average human life, which is probably more like $1 million as I estimated recently here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5543848 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5543848 . Instead, it's how much it costs to save a human life on the margin, which is the applicable number here. 2. My impression from previous things I've read is that suicide lines are largely ineffective.
- rdl 13y ago
  The figure I've seen is $2-4mm (based on payouts from life insurance by the government, etc.), but this was a few years ago, so maybe inflation. Obviously there are huge differences between humans.
  - jessriedel 13y ago
    Life insurance payouts are actually an even worse measure of value here. Life insurance payouts should be set by the liabilities left over when someone dies (i.e. children that still need to be raised). A person with no dependents doesn't need life insurance (except for funeral expenses), but that doesn't mean orders of magnitude less should be spent to save their life.
    - Mz 13y ago
      Should be but frequently are not. Life insurance is frequently based on current income rather than current liabilities, and that is before we get into known cases of fraud involving murder for the insurance money. Still I agree with you. Have a couple of upvotes. You can put a dollar value on a human life but it doesn't really cover it. Life is more than dollars and cents.