Readers are no doubt aware of the COVID-19 pandemic and the impact it’s having on many public gatherings. Some events have been curtailed, while others have been cancelled outright. Among the events impacted is the Open Hardware Summit, which was set to kick off this Friday in New York. But all is not lost, as the decision has been made to turn it into a virtual event with with speakers delivering their talks to a live online audience.
Full refunds are available should anyone want them, but ticket holders will still receive their swag bags. The schedule for the one day event is expected to remain pretty close to the one that was already announced, and there will also be a Discord chat and #ohs2020Virtual Twitter hashtag for viewers to discuss the presentations. When it goes live, a link to watch the stream will be added to the front page of the event’s website.
With the usual schedule of hacker events stretching out across the year, it’s likely that this won’t be the only major one impacted by COVID-19. Judging by what we have heard from those event organizers among our friends, the planning required for the outbreak is causing a lot of stress on top of the usual worries inherent to the job. We’d like to ask everyone to extend their understanding to the teams behind any events that are cancelled or postponed during these exceptional times. Stay safe everyone, and enjoy the (virtual) Open Hardware Summit.
Anyone ever wonder at what point the job loss and other effects of recession outstrip the disease itself in terms of harm? Like economic effects kill people too, you know. I’m not one of those people who thinks the virus is no big deal, it’s a very big deal—but at some point we’re just killing low-wage workers who live paycheck to paycheck and can’t do months of cancelled gigs without dropping into homelessness. Working families where all adults in the household have full-time jobs can’t keep those jobs when schools shut down for extended periods of time and they can’t afford child care. Guess their lives are less valuable than the lives of old people. But the real kicker is we’ve likely failed all our chances for containment already, so both demographics are going to have lots of casualties now.
” Guess their lives are less valuable than the lives of old people.”
Uh huh. I’m sure the next pandemic will correct this oversight.
So that’s why this is the moment to force the USA’s government to finally take care of the people who live there, instead of only taking care of companies.
Keeping people healthy is neccessary for companies to run anyway.
Methinks HaD editors need to do another article on racism, sexism, and ageism in the STEM world. All of these ‘isms’ have significantly effected the economy and diminished the available talent pool . I would like to see the evidence that a value judgement has been made to favor ‘old’ people over poor people. If this is true, then we have larger problems than COVID19.
And, for what is is worth, I am a (still working) boomer/geezer. And I can still pass the USMC PFT (yes, the min reqs would be for the 30 yr category, not over 50). And how many 30 year old engineers can pass a Marine PFT?
I completely agree with everything you replied.
The containment effort isn’t to favor old people. The effort to contain the virus is distancing to reduce the spread rate so that our hospitals don’t get wiped out. If our hospitals are all full, then people will die at high rates. Health Care providers will he up getting extremely sick and possibly dying because they will get exposed to massive viral loads.
Yes, this will have a big economic effect. I hope that the financial relief packages are smart enough to help everyone, including the least wealthy along us. I also hope that the economic imbalances are better recognized and addressed by our government.
The world needs cheap and easy to build respirators to quickly create more intesive care beds. The don’t have to be built to last years.