Minutes of the SIPB Meeting of 01/23/2006 The meeting was called to order at 7:30 PM by jbarnold. In attendance were Voting members: tabbott kchen yoz jbarnold jhawk kenta arolfe | aseering Associate members: deberg jtu awozniak astronut | ocschwar xela Prospectives: presbrey jwalden cporter tilia | k_lai austein Guests: Treasurer's Report: '() Chairman's Report: jbarnold: I move to nominate presbrey for membership. He's done a bunch of stuff for scripts, setting up the SQL service and doing much of the work on the IAP class and the new auto-installers. He set up the tor exit node (at golem's suggestion, so golem gets the blame for our recent network security email), and has responded to many emails to scripts@mit.edu. [Vote: 8-0-0 presbrey is nominated] Office Report: jhawk: Our pencil sharpener broke and ejected some metal. I'm not sure whether we want a $30 or $50 one, but I move to allocate $50 to get a new one. cporter: Second. White ballot. arolfe: objection, $50 is too much for a pencil sharpener. xela: I suggest someone figure out what kind broke after 15 years, and buy that kind. [Vote: 7-1-3 motion passes]. jhawk: Someone came in and was asking about PowerPoint. I wanted to refer them to Edward Tufte's essay about powerpoint. It costs $7 to get a copy of the essay. It's an essay that talks about how PowerPoint is bad, and how it encourages a certain type of thinking that leads to bad presentations. I think it'd be nice to get some copies of it. I move $30 for two copies of Cognitive Style of PowerPoint and the poster. jtu: I move to amend it to be only one copy -- we only need one. Also, there's been argument over posters in the office, so I'd like that removed. jhawk: Amendment is hostile. xela: I move to amend the motion to change it to be for one copy of the book, rather than two and a poster. jhawk: I think for $7 it's worth having something people can take away with them on loan to read. someone: That's going against our book policy. jbarnold: Let's divide the question. First, we vote on whether we're buying at least one copy of the book. [Vote: Many-0-0 buying one copy of the book]. jhawk: I object procedurally. jbarnold: All in favor of buying an additional copy of the book [Vote: 4-6-2 motion fails, not buying additional copies] deberg: I move to get one of the posters. [someone seconds]. tabbott: What does it look like? jhawk: It's got the cover of the book -- some amusing bullets on an image. deberg: This is a famous guy; this guy is a famous expert on the topic, and we should get it. [Vote: 6-0-6 motion passes to buy the poster] deberg: I'm not making a motion this week, but I think SIPB should get an Intel-based Mac. deberg: It'll be an iMAC, and it comes with one of the new mice. deberg: It's a new architecture for a popular operating system. Basically everyone who has a Mac will. [Straw poll: many-0-few] kenta: One of quiche's CPUs overheats frequently when asked to do work. I move to allocate $50 to repair the heating problem. ocschwar: Second jbarnold: white ballot [$50 for quiche cooling passes white ballot]. kenta: If anyone else wants to get around to fixing this before I do, let me know, since it may be a while before I deal with this. jbarnold: The HP scanner in the office is quite broken. Should we get rid of it? jhawk: It's on the Mac; we should have one that's not painful to use. jbarnold: I'm not sure we need another scanner. deberg: Using the Opus scanner is a pain in the ass. It must be easier to do so with a Mac. I don't know what scanner to recommend, but we should get one for the Mac. jbarnold: Fine, we'll leave the DP scanner there, as a reminder that we should get a new one. Office Cleaning Report: woz: Remember to clean out the fridge. MIT Computing Report: yoz: The class of 2005 was deactivated. kenta: Relatedly, a whole bunch of users came into the office the day before asking about getting their data off Athena. jbarnold: Was there some W20 net suckage? jtu: Yes. Computer Services: jhawk: Sportcast will be broadcasting the integration bee from 54-100 tomorrow. arolfe: bloom-beacon lost another disk. jbarnold: Last week, we moved to allocate $150 to advertise in the East Side calendar. Later, it occured to me that we should allocate it from the auction fund rather than from the IS&T budget. I no longer feel as strongly about this issue. [argument over whether jbarnold has made a motion]. cporter: I move to change the source of the funds for the East Side calendar to come from the auction fund rather than the office budget. kenta: second kchen: Why should we do this? jbarnold: Well, this is publicity, but it could be perceived that SIPB is advertising in a member's project, as SIPB advertising in a porn calendar. woz: The current advertising list is Campus Crusade for Cthulu, Fenway House, SIPB, HTGAMIT, EC, and the following are considering it: the Assassins Guild, MITSFS, LSC, Ishinru Karate, and Rugby. jbarnold: I originally had some concerns about this, but no longer so strongly have them, but thought I should mention this. kenta: Has SIPB had problems in this area in the past. cporter: How much money is in the auxiliary fund? arolfe: More than $150. jhawk: It's the place to put the money we get from auctions. deberg: We have $1000 from auctions??? jtu: If you have enough $0.25 monitors... jbarnold: Clearly we should build this fund up into a SIPB endowment. kenta: I think this should come from the IS&T funds. jtu: Black ballot [motion fails by black ballot]. woz: I have a draft layout here to look at. woz: What should we put in the ads? Should we be pushing scripts, sportcast, meetings? jtu: SIPB wants the january banner among the banners. woz: I assume you also want the "Girls in the Cluster" image? deberg: Can this discussion happen later? jbarnold: yes. Contact woz with ideas for advertising later. jbarnold: We had a scripts.mit.edu class recently; we will also perhaps have a web.mit.edu spotlight. jbarnold: We want to have SSL with and without certs on scripts. jbarnold: Thus, I move to allocate a second IP address to scripts in order to handle this. kenta: Having recently purchased a Windows machine, I want more Windows software in AFS. I move to allocate up to $30 to buy Windows XP Professional, since pismere isn't very good for this. cporter: Would you be putting Windows binaries in AFS? This seems illegal. kenta: Well, I'd be putting Windows software, like Firefox. Apparently, Windows changes its state with each install, and thus I'd like to have each install done with a fresh Windows installation, in general. deberg: For $30? White ballot. kenta: Doesn't MIT have the campus deal? jtu: No. kenta: Shit. Well, jtu: You're probably better off just getting a student to download it for free. jbarnold: If you want to expend effort, SIPB can probably get it for free if we ask for it the right way. kenta: I withdraw my motion until it's better informed. Publications Report: '() Orientation Report: '() IAP Report: jtu: If you're teaching a class, please find out how your students found out about the class, so that we know what never to do again next year. yoz: If you're teaching a class, please remember to show up at the class. jhawk: Early. jtu: I feel greatly disillusioned. It seems like most people find out about IAP classes through web/iap. CokeComm Report: '() Other: deberg: I'm hiring someone as a rails developer. If you or someone you know is interested in that, let me know. jtu: There's an opening in my group at Akamai right now, if you want a job. jbarnold: Someone from Y-combinator has asked me to announce that Y-combinator has opened applications for its Summer Founders Program, in which you found a company and receive some money and advice from Y-combinator. Other Other: xela: There used to be 3 handicapped parking spots on Mass Ave; now there are 0. This is annoying. jhawk: There's in-progress roadwork, including repainting, so this may be a temporary problem. jhawk: The LSC Sci-Fi marathon is this weekend. You should all come. The meeting was adjourned at 8:02 PM. Minutes taken and submitted by tabbott.