Minutes of the SIPB Meeting of 11/14/2005 The meeting was called to order at 7:30 PM by jbarnold. In attendance were Voting members: jbarnold tabbott yoz kchen janetryu jhawk | arolfe Associate members: deberg ocschwar jtu astronut srz | jweiss Prospectives: tilia cporter presbrey jwalden aseering | mshaw Guests: Treasurer's Report: arolfe: We got most of the books from Quantum. There are a few more on the way; anything that hasn't been replaced is not likely to be replaced. Chairman's Report: jbarnold: tomorrow, there is an iSTAB athena meeting, where they will discuss whither athena. If you have any thoughts on this, give them to me or jonas, or any other iStab people. There is no expected immediate product, the purpose is more to get student input on the matter. jbarnold: There was mail to iStab from Greg anderson asking for podcasts from the student community. The relevant URL is http://web.mit.edu/ist/podcasts/, so that you can distribute podcasts to the MIT community using the official IS&T system. jbarnold: I move that aseering be nominated for membership jtu: I'd second, but I'm not allowed to jbarnold: He's been a regular project hours participant, has responded to email to sipb@mit.edu, has written a script for stuff and done stuff for scripts, and has had great attendance. arolfe: second mshaw: does he have better attendance than me? I'm not a member jbarnold: I meant other than mshaw, who has perfect attendance and is in the process of becoming a member. mshaw: Who are you? jbarnold: I was jtu after jtu was jtu. jbarnold: vote: [8-0-0] aseering is nominated. jbarnold: Unlike last week, when I had to do this over email, I should ask whether you accept the nomination. jbarnold: I have here the principles of the board written out, to explain what accepting this means. jbarnold: The Constitution claims a single consideration is uppermost among all considerations in terms of the goals of SIPB. Anyone know what it is? srz: Aiding computing at MIT. jhawk: Furthering the goals of SIPB jbarnold: These are the goals of SIPB. One is advocating for the MIT community on computer-related topics, two is to serve as an information center for those interested in technology; three is to provide computer services deemed valuable to the MIT community. jbarnold: The uppermost consideration of all in the SIPB is service to students. aseering: I accept. jhawk: Here, hold a glass pig. (and swear by it?) Office Report: cporter: What did the email about milquetoast say? jtu: Office depot supplies arrived. Minus the CD envelopes. jbarnold: stuff can no longer be used in the SIPB context to mean 'things'. jhawk: I think the opposite, that such usage highlights the poor name for the machine. jtu: I like stuff! cporter: Bill Hartnett does not object to disposing of milquetoast. cporter: I move to dispose of milquetoast at the discretion of the Office Czar in Charge of Special Operations jbarnold: The previous discussion was that the box was unmaintainable. jtu: cporter said he would buy it off SIPB for $500 two weeks ago. jhawk: Good thing we have inflation. jtu: [joking] I heard cporter offered $5000 this week. (during voting) jbarnold: nobody wants anything to do with milquetoast. [3-0-10] motion passes jbarnold: SIPB is going to whack wilquetoast. Office Cleaning Report: MIT Computing Report: jtu: fsilg networks go up-down-up-down kchen: the EC network goes up-down-up-down jbarnold: there were a bunch of winathena complaints janetryu: Last week, Alpha Phi's network went down, and IS&T went to fix it, and the IS&T person seemed to be making fun of our person. Computer Services: cporter: the old steve-dallas hard drive is mostly dead, and recovery would cost like $600. cporter: I could use some more IP addresses for it. (editor's note: IP addresses do exist) jhawk: Move to combine steve-dallas and milquetoast in the eyes of the board. [the motion dies for lack of second] cporter: I emailed wjh about milquetoast recently. jbarnold: We might have lost the scripts access logs for the first 1.5 years with the steve-dallas hard drive death. jhawk: Could the scirpts maintainers advice us about the state of scripts backups. You just told us you had data loss, please explain. jbarnold: It depends what you mean by data. jtu: Have you lost any user's data? jbarnold: No, of course, that's easy, since we don't store any user data. [editor's note: This is false, due to SQL] arolfe: If I accidentally throw away your machine, instead of bloom-beacon, how long would it take to fix it? For example, do you have the openafs module changes elsewhere? [editor's note: we have copies of the openafs modules elsewhere] jbarnold: recovery is easy in theory, in practice it's hard. jhawk: Are you telling us that you don't have backups? jbarnold: We don't have jbarnold: We used to have a debian package that would put up a scripts server by just installing it. jtu: I finished making DVD copies of "Report on a Virus". someone suggested that someone at the media lab could use their VHS recovery system to help with this; if anyone has contacts at the media lab, let me know. cporter: Is there a hard disk in the back of the office with more than 20GB in the office that we could use for steve-dallas to fit two VMs? presbrey: Last time, someone asked for user stats. The scripts SQL project has 65 signups other than me and jbarnold. tabbott: But including me. presbrey: yes. cporter: Move to allocate $150 for a new hard disk for steve-dallas. srz: second jtu: How big a drive can you get for $150 jhawk: more than 100 gigs. cporter: The old drive with all the old VMs is mostly dead. jhawk: If you vote for this motion, you will not in my eyes be considering milquetoast as the same machine as steve-dallas mshaw: how much money does SIPB have floating? arolfe: More than 10x this allocation. jbarnold: It seems like VM data sould be RAIDed at some point, or at least backed up. arolfe: I don't think we should make people that comfortable with a machine we're runniing out of the rack in the office. astronut: Instead of getting 2 big drives, can we get two smaller drives and RAID them? jbarnold: Does the new steve-dallas have the capability of accepting 2 drives? cporter: probably. jhawk: Let's close discussion. end the pain! [8-0-6] motion passes. cporter: It should be noted the current network card in steve-dallas is milquetoast's. jhawk: Damn You!!!!! jtu: I hear milquetoast has a spiffy video card. Publications Report: Orientation Report: IAP Report: jtu: If you went to LSC this weekend, you saw some really bad slides designed by myself for SIPB's IAP classes. jtu: happily, woz and rei have volunteered to help with future slides. It's not too late to help, since if they get busy, it defaults back to me! jtu: I'm also going to make a paper SIPB IAP class guide. deberg: What's the deadline? jtu: Do it before people get out for Thanksgiving. deberg: I recommend a date. jtu: Do it before November 25. cporter: SIPB should advertise on Domeview. jbarnold: Do those work? kchen: They had a web browser error on the screen at 7:20 PM. jbarnold: At some point SIPB might want to intervene and make that actually work. jbarnold: IAP is sooner than you think! jhawk: IAP 2007 is sooner than you think! CokeComm Report: jhawk: people should not throw out cans in the trash. jbarnold: I'll do my part [jbarnold recycles a can] mshaw: I was trying to buy a can yesterday, and I noticed that things were out, so I stocked the fridge some more. Did I do that right? jbarnold: There's a document "inessential refridgerator restocking" attached to the fridge. jbarnold: Restocking involves taking things from the stocking location, and putting it in the fridge. this involves opening and closing the door. What you did was 90% of the document. Other: ocschwar: Kevin Frostbite McCormick '97 died Sunday, the memorial is on Saturday. Contact me if you're interested in attending. jtu: Erica has zippy boots. deberg: Google released something called Google Analyzer today. It's free, and lets you do metrics on your ads success, for google ads or any other keyword-based thing. jhawk: In case you didn't know, SIPB does have a lunar atlas. Other Other: cporter: I'm for jbarnold for president in 2024. jbarnold: Well my dad's trying to make me become a lawyer. jhawk: MIT has delayed SAP for payroll again. They've been failing to do this for what? 8 years? ocschwar: IBM is selling a web services package for Sarbanes-Oxley Act Compliance. Their brochure does not mention any XML schemas, thankfully. The meeting was adjourned at 7:54 PM. Minutes taken and submitted by tabbott.