Minutes of the SIPB Meeting of 2022-05-09


The meeting was called to order at 19:30 by jmvidal.

In attendance were

        Student keyholders: bds, cela, jmvidal, huydai, mitimmy, ashay

        Associate keyholders: kenta

        Members: toomas, markchil, ryang2

        Guests: aayushg

Administrivia:

        cela: I sent out an email on Saturday on an open letter about the gender identity initiative at MIT, specifically how IS&T is failing transgender and non-binary individuals with the way MIT's technology systems handle gender and names. Someone has written an open letter about these concerns. I've sent out an e-mailing ahead of time for people to take a look at the letter. I would like to raise a motion for SIPB to sign this letter.
       
        mitimmy: Seconded
       
        gshay: Motion to white ballot
       
        cela: Anybody online would like to say anything? No?
       
        cela: Motion to white ballot?
       
        jmvidal: Seconded. Motion passes.
       
        cela: Justice, can you fill out the form on behalf of SIPB?
       
        huydai: ASA has their re-recognition process for clubs this Spring, and one of the requirement is for at least five people to sign a form
       

Project Reports:

        cela: HWOPS continues. We managed to clear away a lot of the old racks and tables and a bunch of cables running under the floor that weren't connected to anything. We're making a lot of good progress cleaning up the SMR... and nothing we know about has broken. Yet. One of the things we've found is a Pikachu, I believe it belongs to Gary Zacheiss. If you know Gary or are Gary, please help us return this Pikachu to the sender.
       
        huydai: Do we want to set a sunset policy on this attempt?
       
        cela: If it's not claimed it will stay in the office forever. The office has plenty of space.
       
        bds: please don't say such things                
       
       cela: The office is clearly more suited to store such things. Look at all of our stuffed animals
       
        kenta *in chat*: The idea of Pikachu summoning lightning and frying an entire rack is hilarious.  "Pikachu, stay the **** out of the machine room!"
       
        markchil: Project database continues. This past week we figured out how to eliminate dependency on Moira for our basic permissions checking. We're expecting the next couple of weeks will be light with people taking exams and whatnot but it's moving along.
       
        gshay: Courseroad continues! It wasn't continuing for a bit. Pratyush is a prefrosh who is doing the home migration on Fireroad so now Courseroad is now displaying the new Course 6 numbers
       
        ryang: Hyadades continues. We've done some more research last week, and this week we'll be meeting to come up with a formal draft.

Other:

        cela: The last day of classes is sooner than you think.
       
        huydai:
           
         cela: Speak for yourself I have a thesis to finish.
         

Other Other:
   
         cela: There are things happening in politics.
         
         mitimmy: You want to be more elaborate?
       
         cela: They are planning to overturn Roe vs. Wade.
         
         huydai: The Supreme Court has a draft already but it's not finalized
         
         cela: Yeah...
         
         bds: Perhaps "Other" is not a great name.
         
         cela: Maybe we could amend our constitution to change "Other Other"
         
         bds: You have the power Justice, you can change this
         
         markchil: Wednesday is the 25th anniversary of Deep Blue beating Kasparov. Everyone go lose at chess.
         
         toomas: To a computer or just to people in general
         
         markchil: Whatever suits your fancy. I'm going to lose to both
         
         huydai: As someone who follows chess, it's actually crazy how much chess engines has developed. I remember
             
         bds: You can play against Deep Blue's zoomer child AlphaGo.
         
         kenta: As a point of information, neither Deep Blue or AlphaGo is available to play anymore. Deep Blue was disassembled and Google has archived AlphaGo. There are certainly stronger programs available, but the original are not available anymore.


The meeting was adjourned at 19:51.

        Minutes taken and submitted by huydai.