Ask HN: Which Berkeley Courses Should I Archive?
Tomorrow UC Berkeley is removing all of their lecture videos from Youtube. Thousands of hours of content will be lost to the public. (This has already been discussed at length on HN.)
I'm in the process of archiving some of the most important Computer Science courses, mainly for my own benefit, but I intend to make them publically available. (This is a throwaway account b/c I don't want to run afoul of any legal issues.)
What I have so far:
- CS61 Series (61A, 61B, and 61C)
- CS162 Operating Systems (Kubiatowicz)
- CS164 Programming Languages & Compilers (Hillfinger)
- CS186 Intro to Database Systems (Hellerstein)
154 comments
[ 2.5 ms ] story [ 189 ms ] thread[edit: link to Archive Team project-specific page removed to reduce excessive load; replaced with Archive.is link below]
https://archive.is/D1Ail
You are free to help seed the torrents of course containing all of the content.
https://archive.org/details/@schule04?and%5b%5d=subject%3A%2...
(If you go onto one of the course pages above, there's a download option to grab a torrent.)
This appears to be the Berkley page that links to all the available courses: http://webcast.berkeley.edu/series#c,s
I've checked the various Archive.org links posted so far, and only see a small portion of the content. For example only the 2008 and 2010 versions of CS61A & B appear to be archived.
Unfortunately the site seems to be overloaded.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-XXv-cvA_iDD4nnsfVIq...
Unfortunately this content appears to be throwing HTTP 500 server errors while downloading according to the verbose output.
If anyone has that content I'd be interested to know what worked for you.
If it still refuses to work for anyone else, I have like 80KB/s upload (ADSL2+ FTL) but I'm fine with uploading it.
EDIT - HERE YOU GO: The highest quality video (format code 136) is WORKING, but the highest quality (189k) audio (format code 251) is what's failing. So fall back to the next highest quality (132k; format code 140). So '-f 136+140'. I've __successfully__ downloaded with these settings.
"""Most of the Youtube videos on the channel right now are NOT on archive.org. I have asked multiple times in the comments and even inboxed the guy who made the original thread about whether archive.org actually had everything and just hadn't uploaded it yet, and got no responses. If anyone knows that these have in fact been downloaded already, please let us know. But just look at archive.org, there's just a PORTION of what's available on Youtube right now. """
https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/5z2499/many_of...
"Edit: Everything has been accounted for and is in the process of downloading, thank you to everyone who helped, especially lawpetex who backed up the full amount of all the Youtube and iTunes content!"
Thanks anyway
>"Edit: Everything has been accounted for and is in the process of downloading, thank you to everyone who helped,"
I wish I had known about this issue earlier, I would have liked to have helped.
I operate independently as a digital archivist, providing support when possible. I will keep my own copy in cold storage as long as I'm alive, outside of the US jurisdiction but accessible globally.
The reason they're being removed is ADA subtitle compliance and the cost/effort associated with that (cheaper to purge/remove access rather than comply). Is UC Berkeley going to pursue people attempting to preserve knowledge without their consent? That's up to them. They would, of course, be unsuccessful.
Since you can't beat regulation, the real course of action here should not be to archive the videos where nearly nobody will find them, but rather to elicit donations to produce the subtitles. Also, if the content is so extensive, it should probably find a home on a dedicated site other than YouTube which may one day also disappear. It is such a shame to have educational resources essentially become part of the deep web - your average user can find this content on YouTube, but has very little chance of ever discovering it in an archive.
If Berkeley has not already postponed to the maximum extent possible, I would happily donate to the cause. I fear it's likely too late due to a deadline to comply.
I intend to engage someone at Youtube/Google to use their internal automated subtitling system and open source/release the captions along with the existing content [1]. (Why UC Berkley didn't use this, I'm unaware)
In the event the above is not possible, I'll roll my own when time permits (voice recognition with distributed human verification).
> I fear it's likely too late due to a deadline to comply.
Agreed. Hence, archival.
[1] https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6373554?hl=en
- CS161 Security (Wagner preferably)
- CS189 Machine Learning (Shewchuk)
- CS170 Efficient Algorithms and Intractable Problems
Not a comprehensive list, just my favorites.
[1] https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/blob/master/README.md#how-...
[2] https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/blob/master/README.md#inst...
https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/
Previous long HN discussions of the project:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8647943 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11452765
[0]: https://rg3.github.io/youtube-dl/
You can get playlists here: https://www.youtube.com/user/UCBerkeley/playlists
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUl4u3cNGP63gFHB6xb-k...
Why does YCombinator hate the Deaf, the blind, and those with perceptual problems?
It is disgusting that a group of people that considers themselves to be "progressive" and "enlightened" want to work around discrimination law like this.
https://archive.org/details/@schule04?and%5b%5d=subject%3A%2...
http://academictorrents.com/collection/video-lectures
Hope more courses are added before they are taken down from YouTube and iTunes.
https://archive.org/details/@schule04?and%5b%5d=subject%3A%2...
Should contain the full backup.
I truly wish I had gotten to take 61A with him - and before it switched away from Scheme. I don't think the current incarnation is a worthy successor of the SICP based one.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLP941GogrXs32AiRNeQKT...
CS 70 should make the list but the lecture notes are enough.
Strongly prefer Kubi for OS or pretty much anything.
http://www-inst.cs.berkeley.edu/~cs161/sp16/
The slides are really excellent. You will miss the opportunity of Weaver frothing at the mouth and using expletives willy nilly. Popa is clearly smart but needs to turn her mic up.
This is a great course. Unless Kubi is teaching 162, anyone should sub 161 for 162. And suffer. Berkeley has a murderers row of good security people. Song, Weaver, Wagner, Popa, .... If Song teaches 261 again, I'm gonna sit in.
I sat in on 161 since I live in the area. Some of it is a repeat of 70 material. I just think it's a great course.
I'd been a reader for 61C (another great course) and I'd suggested adding a stack smashing lab. This was before Wagner created 161 and they were ummm hesitant to teach undergrads the dark arts.
http://rll.berkeley.edu/deeprlcourse/
https://bcourses.berkeley.edu/courses/1453965/pages/cs294-12...
of course, it can't hurt to run youtube-dl on it...
- Sociology 150A (Robb Willer) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edfKMAePWfE
- Geography C110 (Richard Walker) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYR5PdPZ_w0&list=PL4rxxS6x1H...
- Physics 10: Physics for Future Presidents (Richard Muller) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ysbZ_j2xi0
There's also an audio course on Buddhist Psychology by Eleanor Rosch, if you're interested. Now seems to be available only on iTunes.
https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodca...
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13768856
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13815764
TLDR: The videos were removed because of a lawsuit relating to the lack of captions, making them inaccessible to the deaf.
It wasn't a lawsuit. It wasn't just people with hearing impairment (although they were the complainants) - the content was inaccessible to people with visual impairment and manual disability too.
They're very easy to use and well documented.
If you thought the judgment against Berkeley was justified-- that they couldn't give away these videos for free without e.g. subtitles -- are you equally against this effort? Because it accomplishes the exact same thing: the availability of some useful education videos that are unusable by (some) people with disabilities.
If you're not, how do you reconcile that? Your position seems to be something bizarre like:
A) "Yeah, Berkeley should release free, deaf-unusable videos, but gosh darnit, they better well do it through back channels, because we need to respect the disabled."
B) "It's great to release the videos, as long as someone other than Berkeley endorses and/or hosts them, because we need to respect the disabled."
I just don't see a way to reconcile them, and yet I get the impression that some posters here do hold both views (the judgment was justified, and this effort should not be halted/is good).
Edit: Here are the discussions I am referring to, courtesy of BenElgar:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13768856
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13815764
The issue is that this is not an option. Any institution that gets federal money is required to comply with ADA rules. They either need to make it more accessible or take it down.
If my interpretation of the ruling/law is wrong, please correct me.
Simply repeating back that "we need to accommodate the disabled" is not responding to anyone, and does not account for the points raised by the other side on those discussions.
Note that you have yet to answer even the challenge I presented in this thread: are you opposed to the private hosting of these videos? If not,then you're saying, "allow Berkeley to post them, as long as they back channel it".
I am in two separate threads. My question was in this thread, where I was downvoted with no response. I cannot engage with arguments that are not put forth.
>It's clear that one can both agree with "you can't always be 100% utilitarian", and that accommodation is good, and still think this particular application of it is not an optimal resolution.
Something I have not disputed.
I've said it before, but I think I need to put an "I neither agree nor disagree with UCB's decision" in every comment I make in this thread. I am not defending their decision. I am, however, pointing out flaws in the criticisms of the decision. It is OK to say you do not agree with the decision. But when you give a reason that is problematic, I can highlight that.
>Simply repeating back that "we need to accommodate the disabled" is not responding to anyone,
I agree, but this is not what I said. I am pointing out what I think the law says, and how I am guessing UCB is interpreting it (it is definitely how the DOJ is interpreting it).
>Note that you have yet to answer even the challenge I presented in this thread: are you opposed to the private hosting of these videos?
Can you supply me with a reason to answer that, when I do not have an opinion on UCB's decision? Your demand from me is part of the problem you are complaining about. Making an issue binary without accepting the nuances.
1) "The law says ... ." Okay, this thread (as well as the previous discussions) wasn't speaking to the issue of whether it's a technically correct application of the law, but whether it's stupid for the law to require something like this. Hence, not adding to the discussion, at least where you added it.
2) "We should accommodate the disabled even when it fails a simple cost/benefit test." The others side already agrees with you! Hence why it's frustrating to hear you keep claiming that "golly, it just comes down to utililitarianism vs caring about the disabled; some of us have a little sympathy" -- no, those ones who disagree with you do support accommodations for the disabled, even at the cost of the greater good, just not this one, when it's impact is to make the materials less available, as it puts UCB in a "no good deed goes unpunished" situation.
I have yet to see you attempt to address that argument beyond "yep, some of us want to help the disabled". That adds nothing.
>>Note that you have yet to answer even the challenge I presented in this thread: are you opposed to the private hosting of these videos?
>Can you supply me with a reason to answer that, when I do not have an opinion on UCB's decision?
I just gave it in the original thread. If you support forcing the accommodation requirements on materials given for free, which results in Berkeley taking the materials down, then you're saying that "it's okay to release these materials as long as you back-channel it". That does not sound like it logically follows from a coherent policy to support the disabled.
That is why I don't think your comments built onto the existing discussion.
Yes, I realize now that this did not go to court. However, you have not shown how my interpretation is incorrect.
https://news.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/2016-08...
For all the talk about these types of issues, it seems to be very rare for tech conference videos to be captioned (presumably due to cost).
You can see here, something like 800 out of 18,000 videos from tech conferences are captioned:
https://www.findlectures.com/?p=1&type1=Conference&talk_type...
To me, so long as the university provides resources to its disable students, which I assume they do given they're not involved in an even bigger lawsuit, what they provide to the public is community service. Denying billions of people across the world access to quality information because of the needs of maybe a million deaf in the US is ridiculous and a loss for the world.
While I don't take sides on the issue, I will point out that this line of reasoning can be used to justify anything against any minority.
The whole point of having this law is to negate this argument. It is (almost by definition) counterproductive to invoke this. The law is saying a particular minority has a right, and as with most/all rights, it is irrelevant how inconvenient it is.
We could keep going back and forth about this, but this is essentially the utilitarianism vs individualism debate. It hasn't been settled for centuries.
In your earlier comment, you phrased it as "Denying billions". Either it is an action, or it is not. You cannot make it an action for only one group.
>The existence of videos not optimal for the deaf (because they can certainly watch them and benefit from google's increasingly effective auto captions) isn't discrimination.
I truly appreciate you saying it, but do realize that this is your opinion. Ultimately, we will not know unless this goes to court (which I think UCB decided not to do).
>To compare that with with legitimate historical oppressions against minorities is short sighted.
Two problems with your statement:
1. "Legitimate" is used, when the very essence of the debate is whether it is legitimate or not.
2. "short sighted" is not an argument.
>This isn't utilitarian "good of the many at the expense of the few"
This is part of the debate. If public money is being used for this, then it is at the expense of everyone (including the few). The interpretation of the ADA rules is that for such uses, everyone should have fair access, for some definition of "fair". If UCB was private, and did not take public money, this would not be a debate.
Posting the videos online is just a larger version of leaving the classroom door open.
Your argument can be made, but as I said elsewhere, we can only know if this is tested in court.
The counterargument to what you are saying is that leaving the door open is not done in order to benefit others in the hallway, whereas explicitly putting the videos on a web site is an active action. UCB would have trouble claiming that they're putting the videos up there, but not to benefit anyone.
Put another way, using your analogy, no one would complain if the professor decided to close the door. If people outside were listening, they have no say on the professor's decision.
I think the real issue here is the fact that Berkeley was giving away the videos for free. If they were charging for those videos, they could incorporate the cost of ACA compliance into the price of the video. As it stands though, the state has the right to force work without providing any compensation. ACA compliance then becomes a form of servitude. (being a public university, UC Berkeley does get some state revenue, but it is only 14-25% of the total [1][2] and much of it comes in the form of contracts & grants which can only be used for the specific project they are awarded for). To me that is the real issue here, a simple matter of being compensated for one's work. I think they shouldn't be held to the same standards as someone selling a product, but that doesn't seem to be the lay of the land. I guess this is why we can't have nice things (for free).
[1] http://ucop.edu/operating-budget/_files/rbudget/2016-17budge... (page 47) [2] http://cfo.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/2013-14%20UC%20B... (Page 1)
The correct solution should be an exemption for public access/domain materials, which OTHERS can provide additional materials for as they desire, from being compliant.
There is a difference in contributing to the common good, and discriminating against differently-abled CUSTOMERS.
This is a great example of where a different group, such as a charity or some group benefiting from it (maybe students who produce and release to P.D. transcripts for extra credit) could continue the effort of making the content a more vibrant part of the knowledge of our species.
Yes, as I said: The old individualism vs utilitarianism debate.
My point in highlighting that this is a centuries old debate is that:
1. There will be no clear obvious answer.
2. Hence a topic like this will usually garner a very lively discussion, with (mostly) no outcome.
My personal feeling on this -- if the videos were created as part of their primary mission, then they would be required to add accessibility. But it seems that these videos were a side effect of their primary mission, which is providing education to enrolled people. In that case, appropriate accommodations were most likely made in those specific classes, where needed.
Even Berkeley said that all videos created must be accessible. They required people to sign off on that accessibility.
https://news.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/2016-08...
> Prior to July 1, 2015, UC Berkeley also allowed faculty and instructors to design, develop and publish courses through a self-service model, which did not include support from BRCOE. Beginning July 1, 2015, UC Berkeley advised the Department that all faculty using the selfservice model will be asked to sign off on a list of accessibility resource reviews prior to publishing the course. The sign-off statements include:
There's a list of statements saying things like "I have reviewed and implemented edX’s “Guidelines for Creating Accessible Content.”2"
The subtitle requirement doesn't apply to members of the general public. It applies to large institutions which know better, and have the resources to comply.
If Berkeley is embarrassed, some other university takes the time to subtitle its video content in the future to avoid a similar mess, and the public gets to keep the Berkeley videos, that's the best possible outcome short of Berkeley captioning its videos and continuing to host them.
The point isn't "if people with disabilities can't have it, no one can." That's just an unfortunate cost of enforcement. The point is to apply some mild coercion to make more of the world accessible to people with disabilities, and if this debacle has that effect, it's working as intended.
That adds substantial costs, and the end result, without additional funding, is no one gets it.
Thanks for nothing.
What do you mean "without additional funding"?
All federal grants to universities are by definition "additional funding".
And they only have to comply because they are getting this "additional funding". The university is deciding not to allocate this "additional funding" for this purpose, which is being construed as a violation.
1) If you don't have any vision-impaired people in your course, would you continue to 'downgrade' the curriculum to a vision-impaired level?
2) The funding that they get applies to curriculum, but I do sort of wonder whether this isn't an addition to that.
To point 1: The nuance here is that if I have to describe drawings that I present, even where the audience is fully sighted, it seems like it brings down the quality of education for those in the room. Of course non-sighted persons should be accommodated when they are present, though that adds the additional wrinkle of students perhaps trying to game the system so that they're not in an accommodating classroom, as they'd have more time for lecture, questions, etc.
If we accept that you can hold a class appropriate to sighted persons, but not acceptable to sighted persons when there are only sighted persons in attendance, then what is the meaningful distinction between publishing a recording of that class on your website versus just publishing it on YouTube as "Professor X talks about such and such @UCB"? The latter seems like it would be clearly allowed, while the former seems like it is clearly forbidden, which just reminds us that rules are complicated.
To point 2: This seems akin to saying that "Everything on the menu has to have nutritional information". Okay, everything on the menu does have nutritional information, but in addition to the menu items, I'm also offering you this amuse-bouche free of charge. It's not on the menu, and because we change it daily from ingredients that were delivered to us accidentally, we do not have the ability to generate nutritional information. Can I serve the amuse without nutritional info? It is not part of the menu, for which I receive funds, and it is extra, so the rules should suggest that I am allowed to offer it, but you're either living up to the spirit of or violating the spirit of the rule depending on how charitably you interpret the requirements.
We're playing a semantics game. I can easily change it to:
"Every thing you serve has to have nutritional information" and remove all ambiguity.
Whether we like it or not, law is largely just semantic arguments. The point (and reviewing my previous comment) is that it was something extra, for which your previous "funds have already been allocated to curriculum" comment does not apply -- I've taken the federal grants, applied them to curriculum, and then graciously tried to do something extra, but because the extra bit doesn't meet the requirements attached to the funds, I can't.
I'm not opining on whether that's wrong or right, but it is indeed curious. If we view the rules narrowly, as lawyers are taught to do, then the extra bit wouldn't be applicable. If we view them broadly, then logos and mascots might not be allowed unless accompanied by audio and braille descriptions wherever they are used.
My curiosity here derives from wondering where, since the law is being interpreted more broadly than it must be, the line is, and how this might impact future decisions by universities (or other entities that receive strings-attached funding).
These grants were not made for the purpose of subtitling videos.
When my advisor gets a half a million dollars to do research on quantum computers, do you think he gets to use half a million dollars for it?
If you do, you clearly have not been exposed to how grants are processed at universities.
The university takes a cut - I've often heard numbers in the ballpark of 50% - to fund infrastructure. See:
https://www.quora.com/What-percentages-of-research-grant-mon...
This is not a scheme - this is how universities have always dealt with grants.
It's entirely up to the university to decide where to spend this money.
So from the Federal government's perspective, they are funding them for it, and instead the university is choosing not to spend money on this.
This has been enough of an ordeal that captioning is likely to be taken more seriously in the future. The law has successfully separated Berkeley from its self-interest in the videos (prestige, etc.) It doesn't really matter that the public gets to keep them.
Anecdotal evidence I hear from UC Berkeley employees is that there just is no money to be had. The real solution is spend the money to make the videos ADA compliant. I don't know how much that would be but UC Berkeley isn't interested in spending the amount it would take, whatever it is.
The multi hundred dollar stadium renovation is now, with laser like 20/20 hindsight, considered a disaster. The football team's management has a new scandal every few months. The team's record is abysmal. The theory was that spending money to develop the football team results in greater alumni donations.
In UC Berkeley's defense, the state of California and the legislature is profoundly uninterested in funding the UC system at the levels it used to. The university has to get money from somewhere. Renovating Memorial Stadium was a part of that.
I think this is missing a trailing "... due to the budget being allocated elsewhere."
Is it though? The Pac-12 distribution per school is over $25m/yr, and despite lagging the Big-10 and SEC, it's only expected to go up. Given the efforts of the conference to launch the new network and compete with those other conferences, it's likely that there's a certain facility level expected of their member schools. If there was any chance that Cal would be dropped from the conference without the renovations, they start to seem a lot more reasonable...a 5-7% APY isn't really that bad.
Also, while fielding a competitive team might have been a nice benefit, there's at least one other significant benefit I see to retrofitting a stadium that sits directly on top of an earthquake fault line. See if you can guess what it is :)
But to your point, it does seem disingenuous to talk about money spent on a revenue-generating portion of the school when trying to justify the need to spend in ways that are revenue negative. Even considering the abysmal record and scandals, the football team brings in money to the University. If I were an AD at a University, I'd be very worried about football-related liability when former players start to experience the effects of CTE, but until those lawsuits start happening, it's natural that Universities will keep spending large amounts of money on Football.
The blanket assumption that the benefit of captioning those videos is greater than the benefit of everything else that is done with those funds is not reasonable without some really good evidence.
Not just deaf people. The video was inaccessible to a wide range of people.
If private citizens want to take the content and torrent it that's fine.
If Berkeley want to release video they should obey the nearly 30 year old law --and their own policies-- and make the content accessible, especially when they're taking both fees from students and government grants.