Minutes of the SIPB Meeting of 01/30/2006 The meeting was called to order at 7:30 PM by jbarnold. In attendance were Voting members: tabbott jbarnold glasser kchen golem aseering mshaw jhawk Associate members: jtu deberg ike asedeno astronut Prospectives: jwalden cporter jdseale presbrey nelhage | tilia Guests: Treasurer's Report: '() Chairman's Report: jbarnold: We're going to move the election to the end of the meeting, waiting on quorum. jtu: When is the State of the SIPB address? jbarnold: Next week. Elections are in two weeks. tabbott: Do we have quorum? [At the end of the meeting] jbarnold: Yes. jbarnold: presbrey, it is now time for you to rise. presbrey: I'm joe, I'm a course 6 junior, spent the last semester working for a startup in kendall. I've been with scripts for a while, starting when it moved to the machine room, and including implementations of sql.mit.edu, the new auto-installers, and the switch from debian to fedora. presbrey: There are 130 people who are not you guys signed up for it. presbrey: I've gone some plans for a new service, using the scripts that rayhe wrote, that lets people upload files through their browser into AFS, with something people don't have to install in their lockers. jbarnold: rayhe wrote about 1000 lines to add to this thing he found off the internet to do that, and this is picking up that project. presbrey: What's your favorite office head? presbrey: deathtongue, since it has two monitors. deberg: If we put the second monitor on another machine... presbrey: I'd move. glasser: [noting presbrey's linux tshirt]. He doesn't appear to entirely be a windows user. someone: What's your UID? presbrey: 6784? jhawk: 62865. presbrey: I'm sorry. ike: What's your opinion on an office head having 3 monitors. presbrey: I don't think I could handle 3; the concentration would be problematic. jtu: If you're alone in the office, will you notice when someone steals the stapler where you're sitting. [jtu and glasser act out a sneaky such event] presbrey: I'd probably still notice. jtu: They're pretty sneaky sometimes. mshaw: Name all the members in the room, by real name. presbrey: , and . jtu: [referring to astronut] I'll give you a hint, her boyfriend's name is Eric. presbrey: jtu is Jennifer something. cporter: What's your opinion on tor. presbrey: I think it's pretty cool, and it's under a lot of attack because a lot of people use it. I think it has the potential to be really useful for various activities. cporter: What would you say to the authors of tor when they show up on Thursday? presbrey: I want them to take the flak for using it, not me. golem: But they want you to take the flak. ike: Do you think the office is clean enough right now? presbrey: Yes. cporter: What year did jhawk get here? presbrey: In the 90s. Early 90s? 1994. jtu: What grade were you in when jhawk was a freshman? presbrey: I though he was a freshman now. mshaw: On CokeComm in the back, who has the most cans, and how many? presbrey: Does jhawk? jbarnold: He's in second. tabbott: Actually, that's only true because jhawk charges his sodas as candy -- otherwise he would have passed jis long ago. jbarnold: Hint: he's someone much cruftier than jhawk, but is still around MIT. presbrey: jis. glasser: How would you double-space a file in mysql? presbrey: I'm confused. nelhage: Does that question make sense? presbrey: I don't think mysql will do that for you; you can ask for it as a text blob and use your favorite programming language to double-space it. ike: Name one of the traditional questions that people normally ask, and answer it. jtu: What are some of the traditional questions that you think you know the answer to, but you think some member doesn't know the answer to, and ask them? presbrey: Well, there's the one about why the other person being membered should be a member, but that doesn't work right now. golem: You could ask a member why they should continue to be a member. presbrey: What's the state of MIT computing, and how could SIPB improve. tabbott: That's hard in terms of them not knowing the answer, and your knowing it. presbrey: I don't think deberg knows the state of MIT computing. I ask Deberg. deberg: I was struck that ESP has to run its own webserver. presbrey: What's ESP? mshaw: Why can't we use scripts? nelhage: Scripts didn't have group support. Apparently, it does now. Is it a hack? jbarnold: Yes and no. It's not that bad, but all of scripts is one big bundle of twine. jhawk: What's the difference between Other and Other Other? presbrey: I think Other is other things related to MIT, and Other Other is non-MIT. jhawk: Other is for things that are relating to SIPB or its members, Other Other is anything else of relevance. someone: We discussed this at the meeting a few weeks ago! cporter: Who was jbarnold before jbarnold was jbarnold? presbrey: jtu, ctl. jtu: Spell ctl's last name. presbrey: With the hyphen, I don't know. Laas is the last part. mshaw: Who was tabbott before paigep was tabbott? presbrey: I don't know. jhawk: A CP walks into the office, and wants help locating a student, like when they last logged in, etc. What do you do and say? This is a real scenario. presbrey: Am I supposed to help him? I'd probably assume the person being sought hadn't done anything bad. jhawk: After you seem fairly helpful, the CP calls his dispatcher to get the username of the person. presbrey: Assuming I've never heard of the person, I'd finger the person. jhawk: The person is hidden or not logged in. presbrey: Maybe I'd use zlocate. jhawk: That's what finger does. jhawk: I vos examined the user, to find out when they last logged in. I determined they'd changed their homedir 3 minutes ago, and didn't bring up any of the complex issues of things like fingering at all the dialups, or suggesting that there were people other than us who could provide this information. presbrey: I don't think SIPB members need to be acting as agents of the law. jhawk: I have no problem with giving out publically available information. jdseale: How does one spell vos examine? jhawk: vos examine ike: What if a user comes in and asks for help, you don't know the answer. What do you do? presbrey: if they're willing to wait, I try zephyr. I'd google for the answer if it sounded reasonable. Otherwise, I'd tell them I don't know, and have them email sipb-office@mit.edu. ike: If it's a routine thing you don't know about, you might suggest the computing helpdesk or olc. tabbott: actually, you should have them email sipb, not sipb-office. jbarnold: Though, it does depend. ike: Name as many SIPB services as you can. presbrey: scripts mysql tor lamp usenet nethack lockers, webzephyr, staplers, documentation, the office. jhawk: Did you go to the Sci Fi Marathon? cporter: Name as many office heads as you can, by location. presbrey: deathtongue, zsr. Like I said, if you put two monitors on each computer, I'd know all of them. someone: [to cporter] How many can you name? cporter: zsr, portnoy (pointing to wrong location), mariel-hemmingway, bart, deathtongue. mshaw: You named a number of SIPB services, but didn't name IAP. presbrey: I think services are things you have to maintain. jtu: IAP doesn't require maintanance? You're a sucker next year! jtu: What do you think of SIPB's membership and recruitment process, and how do you personally want to change it. Focus on recruitment. presbrey: I think a lot of people who are being members are normally brought in by a single person who is "rushing them really hard" as though it were a frat, or someone who sits in office a lot of the time. I guess ideally there would be something where ... see, I don't know if you can recruit in the traditional sense, in terms of attributes or skillsets, since they're so diverse. I think it'd be easier for prospectives to work on projects, if ... I think one of SIPB's more important roles is as a liason for MIT in terms of computing at MIT. I think it'd be good if there were a list of things that SIPB wants to bring to MIT in terms of computing. jtu: How are you planning to personally be involved in this? presbrey: I think it comes naturally if you spend a lot of time using a computer, it's easy to work with other people on projects, and easy to relate to them that "I work on a lot projects at SIPB, and you should go over there and join some". I think it's a natural thing that's hard to define. jdseale: What's your opinion on windows? presbrey: I don't think it's the devil, we don't need to suck people away from it. It's alright. I use it to open terminals to linux machines, and people should definitely know how to do that from windows. A lot of people know nothing besides SecureCRT, if that. Many don't know how to login to dialups. I think that's an important thing for people to know how to do. We can't steal them from windows, since it comes with a new computer, but we should teach them to use it in their environment. jtu: Would you teach a class next IAP on how to make a website with your windows computer and your athena account? presbrey: I'd teach it if I had time, if it seemed like something people'd be interested in. One of jbarnold and my classes had many people, and another was empty. mshaw: You said you might be interested in teaching if you had time. Do you think as a member you'll spend more time in the office? presbrey: Problem is, I spend a lot of time in the machine room. jbarnold: Also, one shouldn't login [as root] to scripts servers from office heads, due to my paranoia. jhawk: When does La Verde's go 24-hours? presbrey: When term starts. jhawk: Wrong! It started this weekend. mshaw: Close your eyes. How long is rm. presbrey: The word? mshaw: Open your eyes. presbrey: rm is ... where's that poster? Oh yeah, it's forever. jbarnold: Can you name a utility to un-rm files? presbrey: Copying from Oldfiles. tabbott: Do you know about the old Athena rm-like command that supports undoing its deletion, that perhaps may have motivated that poster? presbrey: remove? delete? tabbott: delete. This is why system:expunge has ld access on your locker. jbarnold: how does it work? nelhage: I think it does a weird rename. mshaw: C or C++? presbrey: Normally I use gcc, and it comes in a package that's called gcc-c++. I defer to the default when I code c. ike: I move that deberg ask the question. presbrey: So I can get snacks out of the fridge when I'm working in the SIPB machine room. presbrey: Seriously, it sucks when I'm talking about my SIPB work, and people say, "I didn't know you were a member", and I have to bow my head in shame and say I'm not actually one yet. deberg: What's your favorite snack? presbrey: Butterfinger. I have a story -- I was going to a convenience store, and they had every other candy, except Butterfinger, and she pointed to the ... and we determined that they had no Butterfinger. jbarnold: I banish all non-members from the office so that the SIPB can enter secret conclave. SIPB Meeting enters closed session. [Vote: 9-0-1]. SIPB Meeting returns from closed session. [presbrey is membered] Office Report: mshaw: Opus's "bios not installed" error sounds bad. cporter: Oh, that's fine. jbarnold: The online office map is out of date. Office Cleaning Report: jbarnold: that pile of stuff in the back of the office is making it hard to navigate. MIT Computing Report: cporter: MIT added a phone number, 617-324-5996, to allow people to allow transfer outside calls to MIT phones. tabbott: This is my fault. mshaw: How is this different from an actual outside number? tabbott: It's harder to enter into a webform. jbarnold: Also, you don't get calls from telemarketers. Computer Services: cporter: I finally got steve-dallas up and running, I just need to configure it. That'll happen tonight. glasser: This means that I can make the sipb-svn service no longer vaporware! jtu: I don't think you need to ask, but you don't have the immediate power to do so. jbarnold: To confirm, that's going on the vmware? glasser: yes jtu: If you remember what's happening with alice-whacker, and are curious about it, the people who made tor are giving a talk on Thursday at 7:30 PM in 4-237 as part of the IAP security lecture series. jtu: alice-whacker is now running tor, which is a web anonymizer, using onion routing. jbarnold: This is particularly useful for avoiding Chinese censorship. cporter: tor lets you use any port you want, not just web. glasser: Not mail. presbrey: jbarnold and I ported all the scripts packages to fedora. It should be able to be deployed at other schools. jbarnold: We're also adding group support, so that people can use scripts with arbitrary lockers. jdseale: As part of my iStata project, I want some feedback as to how in-depth I should get. I get really fucking inessential, such as taking someone with no familiarity to a medium level of competence, but I'm not sure how much detail I should go into. jbarnold: I think that you should follow the example of the existing inessential guides. glasser: It's probably hard to err on the side of teaching too much. jbarnold: Also, you can leave drafts in the center of the office to look at. Publications Report: jbarnold: We're low on cluster cards. Who do we need to bug. jhawk: Email sendpubs. jbarnold: All you need to do is send email. [nobody volunteers] jbarnold: This is pathetic. Orientation Report: IAP Report: deberg: I hear that for IAP we got a USB pointer device. Where is it? glasser: Could this be described as a USB RF receiver? One such was left in 2-105, and I think rram has it. jbarnold: Does someone want to bug alien? jtu: If you're teaching a class, please ask your students how they learned about it. mshaw: IAP 2007 is sooner than you think. If you want to be a sucker, talk to me at some point. tabbott: I think that method of advertising is a bad idea, since the job defaults to you. CokeComm Report: tabbott: People should read iRefrigerator Restocking. Other: deberg: Some SIPB members involved in LSC did a very nice job of improving the 26-100 dialogue. Many of them are here now. jhawk: LSC improved its sound system, and you should come see it, on Reg Day, and email lsc@mit.edu with any feedback. It's also in Dolby Digital. Other Other: mshaw: In a sad recap of what's been happening in W20 recently, ESP is losing its office for 2-3 weeks, because asbestos is in the tiles. We'd like to store our webserver in the SIPB office (running) if possible. jhawk: What's its footprint? mshaw: It's one of the HPs. jhawk: I think it'd work in the office, if you're not worried about security. The machine room is a different network, so that'd be harder. jhawk: With respect to asbestos, it's only a problem if the tiles begin to crumble, which is when the asbestos gets removed. jhawk: I've been finding more and more water-damaged books than we noticed earlier, like the mathematica book. jwalden: There was a bull in Mexico City that made it into the stands. Ironically, it was named Little Bird. ike: Has anyone been working on the design competition for the addition to the student center? ike: I think this comes from Slocum Sr., and the concept is to have a place for students to build stuff, so they want to build such a "Do It Zone" ; there's an IAP competition to design it. Does anyone know anything about its status? jhawk: My understanding is that it is rampantly disorganized, with lots of red tape. The meeting was adjourned at 8:32. Minutes taken and submitted by tabbott.