Minutes of the SIPB Meeting of 2023-12-11 The meeting was called to order at 19:30 by colclark. In attendance were Student keyholders: alwinfy, amigdal, colclark, huydai, jmvidal, psvenk, rgabriel Associate keyholders: almonds, bbaren, kenta, markchil, toomas Members: aabreu, alianisl, arjunjb, innaavo, nmorgan, ryang2, turino14 Guests: aatufa, scj643, suufi Administrivia: colclark: Welcome to the final SIPB meeting of the semester (but not final, because SIPB never ends) colclark: [explains what SIPB is for new people] colclark: Want to talk about someone's hairline? Go for it! Want to talk about the state of the world? No, pleasse don't do that here. colclark: Today is special because we'll have keyholder elections. colclark, alwinfy: [explain meaning of keyholder, FTGOS] alwinfy: Motion to allocate an additional $30 for snacks for this week (on top of the $100 standing allocation). psvenk: Seconded colclark: Motion to white ballot almonds: Seconded [passes by white ballot] colclark: Yes, there will be a SIPB meeting on Christmas Day. psvenk: You will not have a secretary for Christmas Day. I'm sorry. suufi: Project idea: MIT Open Grades. At Harvard, they have a way of keeping track of syllabi for courses across years; at MIT, the only way to find information about a course in a past semester, apart from the course catalog, is to talk to someone about it. Course evals also suck — I don't know what 5.6/7 means — so my platform would be allowing students to leave open reviews about classes, not necessarily having to finish the class (if you drop the class because it was that bad, your opinion also matters). Also, sometimes you don't know the grade cutoffs for a class, so looking at past data points and making a grade distribution can be helpful. Most of the code has already been written; the only thing left is to add a reporting system for academic dishonesty. It doesn't require a lot of backend things. almonds: Is it anonymous reviews? suufi: Yes, it's anonymous, but you can de-anonymize the person if someone is, say, giving the answers to the final. But we can make the de-anonymization process more involved. colclark: Have you talked to profs/administrators about this? suufi: I have not, but I think they won't like us publicizing past grade distributions. They should be more fine with syllabi though. almonds: Asking profs for their input, and adding disclaimers like, "grade cutoff distributions can change year after year depending on needs", might help. suufi: Yes, we can have that; I agree that it's important. toomas: Would there be a way to authenticate that the student actually took the class? suufi: Not really, unless we have to require that they upload a transcript or something, which people won't accept. On the other hand, if someone leaves reviews on 100 classes, we can ask that individual if they really took all those classes. suufi: Also, I'm on the former Committee on Race and Diversity, which is now CBAC (?). A lot of courses are not very supportive to people from certain backgrounds, so we have a way for people to self-identify as coming from certain backgrounds. almonds: Is it still anonymous, though? suufi: Yes; it would be in aggregate: "international students have had bad experiences in this class." We can also have people self-identify with having, e.g., math olympiad experience, so that people know what sort of students are responding. colclark: How would you incentivize students to give data? suufi: I've thought of various ideas, including raffles, but I don't know. alwinfy, ryang2: I think the incentive is just sharing. ryang2: Even the official MIT course evals don't get that many people. rgabriel: They usually send it out right when people are the busiest. suufi: A feature I want to implement is that if there's nothing there for a class, you can send out an alert to people who signed up as having taken that class before. almonds: Are the new members on Mattermost? scj643: I am. suufi: I'll see what Mattermost is. almonds: There's a link on the front page with the link to join. You can make your own channel there for the Open Grades project, and I think that'd be perfect to continue discussion. scj643: I was going to propose a SIPB Hashicorp vault for storing secrets (API keys, etc.). colclark: IS&T does offer LastPass, though. scj643: This has API access, and you can store database credentials and such. colclark: Sure, make a channel on Mattermost for it, and you can host it on XVM or something. scj643: It needs its own separate system. Project Reports: jmvidal: HWOPS continues. psvenk: Hydrant and CourseRoad continue. colclark: AFS continues. ryang2: Hyades continues. almonds: LLMs continues. innaavo: Cluedumps continues. From people who signed up to do cluedumps, I need at least a date and time, if not a short description. rgabriel: Should that be a range or something? innaavo: No, just pick any one day. innaavo: A weekday evening would probably be good, so that we can get pizza, etc., and more people will show up. rgabriel: I think it would be good to have a schedule of IAP cluedumps every Wednesday. innaavo: That's a good idea. If you can't do a Wednesday, maybe Tuesday or Thursday (but Mon/Fri means fewer people will show up). rgabriel: Matrix continues. Other: suufi: So does everyone work on Hydrant? psvenk: C'est moi alwinfy: psvenk works on Hydrant; I nominally work on Hydrant. [spiel about SIPB's federated structure] suufi: Harvard has classiq.red, which is similar to Hydrant; collaborating with them could be good. psvenk: Oh, this is the first time I'm hearing about this; thank you. We can discuss more post-meeting. jmvidal: HWOPS got a server request about running neural network projects. Other Other: alwinfy: The end of the meeting is sooner than you think. colclark: Course evaluations close sooner than you think. ryang2: Finals are sooner than you think. rgabriel: The Class of 2028 is sooner than you think. In fact, some of them are coming on the 16th, which is this Saturday. alwinfy: I don't like that fact very much. suufi: What's everyone's name? [everyone]: [says their name] psvenk: suufi, I knew your name because you've commented on MIT Confessions. suufi: psvenk, how do I know your name? Have you commented on MIT Confessions? psvenk: No, I don't even have a Facebook account. I have to use Tor because that's the only way for me to view Facebook without it telling me to sign in. alwinfy: I'm learning a lot about you. psvenk: That's the only thing I use Tor for! Keyholdership Election: colclark: I'm going to knock the gavel really loudly right next to the microphone. [five knocks] Was that loud? turino14: Yes colclark: Without further ado, let's get some keyholders elected. I'm going to call some names out and you'll go to the front of the room, wherever you believe that is. colclark: "Can $i go to the front of the room?" for i in [aabreu, arjunjb, innaavo, nmorgan, ryang2, turino14] aabreu: My name is Andres Abreu. I work on DormDigest. arjunjb: My name is Arjun Barrett. I work tangentially on Hydrant. innaavo: My name is Inna Voloshchuk. I work on Hyades and cluedumps. nmorgan: My name is Nathaniel Morgan. I work on Hyades. ryang2: My name is Ryan Yang. I work on Hyades. turino14: My name is Luis Turino. I work on HWOPS and Matrix. alwinfy: First question, as is tradition: all prospective questions, close your eyes. Left to right, what color is the carpet? ryang2: Red-brown-ish. nmorgan: I'd like to say red-reddish-brownish, with little speckles of black. innaavo: Red-brown-ish, with yellow and black speckles. arjunjb: Mud-colored, with some red and yellow, a little bit of green. aabreu: Brownish. turino14: Reddish-brownish. colclark: While you still have your eyes closed, I want you to name one thing hanging from the ceiling, no repeats. ryang2: 12 dollar bills in a cube. nmorgan: There is a dragon. innaavo: There is a disc alwinfy: What is the disc used for? innaavo: To hold the gavel. alwinfy: It's also a write lock for a floppy disk. arjunjb: There is something made of paper. aabreu: I know there's a computer board; I think it's a Bill Gates thing that was deployed in Africa. bbaren: Close; it's an OLPC motherboard. turino14: I believe there is also a Super Mario cube. ryang2: I believe there are links of plastic chains; I don't know what they're for. nmorgan: A red (?) microcontroller hanging. bbaren: That's a DEFCON badge. In this case, your badge had a ninja, and it could fight other ninjas if it got close. innaavo: There is a mug, possibly MIT Math. arjunjb: I'll refine my paper guess; a paper airplane. colclark: I think you're double-dipping. Does that count? bbaren: Let's move on. aabreu: I don't think I can come up with one. turino14: Isn't there a stuffed animal? It's a dragon? colclark: Yes, there is a dragon. psvenk: Someone already said that. alwinfy: There are other stuffed animals. Can you name any others? turino14: No psvenk: [list of stuffed animals] bbaren: What was identified as the "fuzzball" is not the SIPB fuzzball; it is a character from the webcomic "User Friendly" that bears a striking resemblance to the SIPB grumpy fuzzball. ryang2: I believe there is a Pop-Tart. alwinfy: It's a nyan cat, which was created to hold the gavel. bbaren: The nyan cat was given by christy when I was chair, to hold the gavel like so. [demonstrates] It was originally lower, but we moved things up to be closer to the ceiling so that we had more space. [discussion about SIPB 50] colclark: What would you do if the FBI showed up? innaavo: I would follow the instructions and call the chair. arjunjb: I would first freak out, then follow their instructions, and then I would call you and recognize that you would not know the answers. aabreu: I would follow the instructions and then DM huydai. turino14: I would follow the instructions. alwinfy: Those are all good answers. I think the correct answer is "you cooperate with them". There is a story behind this question, actually; it has to do with Aaron Swartz. When they showed up, the Campus Police were also there. So, it's not like a bunch of guys in suits just showed up and said, "We're from the FBI, and you have to leave now." alwinfy: There is also a "save in case of fire" box. bbaren: Please remove the box from the filing cabinet. innaavo: Should I? bbaren: Yes, please do it now. innaavo: [proceeds to open it] bbaren: Actually, don't take it out. It's a mess. What's in it? [prospective keyholers]: [list items] bbaren: Does anyone know what is inside the envelope labelled "do not open until doomsday"? ryang2: One-time pads. bbaren: Yes; it's for the case that all cryptography becomes unusable. bbaren: The frisbee is so that you would have something to do while waiting on Kresge Oval during the fire. rgabriel: Why isn't the doomsday envelope sealed? bbaren: It's open so that you can add your own one-time pad. colclark: Without looking over there, I want you guys to name SIPB projects. [in same order]: Hyades, Hydrant, Cluedumps, CourseRoad, DormDigest, HWOPS, Mastodon, Scripts, XVM, LLMs, Website (SIPB docs), Matrix, Doorpi, Office, Discord, the sign, non-functional (?) printer, Petrock, Minecraft, AFS, Mirrors, Mattermost, ___, ___ [others]: There are also Project DB, WISP, and Interstellar. alwinfy: If SIPB suddenly came to be in legal possession of an airraft carrier, what would you do with it? ryang2: Sell it and buy more servers? nmorgan: Field trip to Google data processing center. innaavo: I would also say fly it somewhere. colclark: How are you going to fly a boat? alwinfy: An aircraft carrier is a type of boat. An aircraft is an aircraft. innaavo: Ok, we'll go by sea. arjunjb: Sell it to the US military in exchange for the NSA's AES backdoor. aabreu: Find the Enigma machine. turino14: Put servers in the boat alwinfy: What does SIPB stand for? Wrong answers only. ryang2: Screaming Insects Producing Bugs nmorgan: Super Important Penguin Brewery innavo: Socially Important Performance Bots arjunjb: Simply Installing Packet Blockers aabreu: Socially Incapable People Being turino14: Some Interesting Pterodactyls from Brazil colclark: Would you rather fight 100 Pi-sized servers or 100 server-sized Pis? ryang2: In the tradition of Hyades: 100 Pis. [others]: [agree] turino14: One server-sized Pi. jmvidal: What is this? ryang2: The Control-Alt-Deleter. jmvidal: What does it do? ryang2: It Control-Alt-Deletes jmvidal: [demonstrates] alwinfy: Grand Gauntlet of Kerbs. Name a SIPB member whose kerb begins with each letter. [sequentially]: amigdal, bds, cjq, [skip], [skip], [skip], gshay, huydai, innaavo, jmvidal, kenta, lkdc, mtheng, nmorgan, [skip], psvenk, [skip], rgabriel, slz, turino14, [skip], vish2004, wmoses, xy, [skip], [skip] jmvidal: What do you do if there's a leak in the office? ryang2: Grab a bucket and call the chair. nmorgan: Bucket, maybe a mop, and call the chair. innaavo: Bucket, mop, find a janitor, call the chair. arjunjb: I would say get a bucket, but it would also be fun to test out if that toaster is actually not working or if it's only partially broken. aabreu: Get a bucket, DM huydai, maybe fill a service request. turino14: Get a pool and throw a pool party. colclark: What do you do if the door doesn't lock? [multiple]: Stay there until it's fixed. colclark: Yeah, I did this and slept in the office once. kenta: Once we had a leak that was hundreds of gallons per minute; it made quite a mess. alwinfy: The stud flood before the stud flood. alwinfy: How will you ensure that the projects that you've been working on will continue after you leave SIPB? ryang2: The goal of Hyades is to have minimal maintenance; we will codify what maintenance is needed. nmorgan: Yeah, documentation is important. Everyone hates to read and write. innaavo: I agree; documentation is important. arjunjb: For Hydrant, using technologies that won't give us lots of tech debt and making sure that the next generation knows how to work on it. aabreu: Documentation (within the code, not just a readme) and passing it down are big things. turino14: Also, try to be concise; don't just ship a mess that works. Pass on a history to future members. alwinfy: What are some things that SIPB does well and could improve on? ryang2: SIPB does well at maintaining things like Scripts and XVM. We could improve on outreach. When I was a freshman, I had no idea about SIPB; I learned about it through the Minecraft server. I believe SIPB is doing a better job recently with Cluedumps/IAP. nmorgan: I think SIPB has made a good work environment; people may feel overwhelmed at times, but it's a supportive community. Re outreach, I agree that there are a lot of people who should know about SIPB and don't know about it. innaavo: Yes, this is a good environment to hang out and work on things. There could be better resources for learning on your own about some of the things that you see here; sometimes, it's just oral knowledge passed down from person to person. arjunjb: I think SIPB does an excellent job of making sure the things it's committed to stay alive. Beyond the obvious outreach, SIPB could improve on making it so that if a project starts to die, there are more written things in place so that someone else can pick it up afterwards. aabreu: I think SIPB does an excellent job of serving the communirt. To do a better job, we need more outreach. I remember I did some research when I was applying to MIT, but the website could be improved — e.g., mention Hydrant and CourseRoad. In my opinion, onboarding could be better, with more written stuff and links to videos, etc. I had programmed before, so I could get it decently quickly, but it would be harder for people who have never programmed at all. turino14: Something that I really like is finding incredible help, and seeing people developing things. I also resonate with everything that everybody has said; I think the outreach and how new members are incorporated into SIPB can be improved. There's a difference between doing a project for a class like 6.100A or 6.101 and making something that will run on a production website, and not everyone has that knowledge. We do this to a certain extent, but we could definitely improve. alwinfy: There is a shelf of books here. Find a book that you are willing to swear on. arjunjb: I got "JavaScript: The Good Parts". colclark: That's a short book. aabreu: "Introduction to the Theory of Computation". innaavo: "Network Security". ryang2: "More Effective C++". huydai: That's called Rust. nmorgan: I have the second edition of "Programming Python". turino14: I have "The Andrew File System". alwinfy: Are you all willing to answer the following question truthfully? [all]: Yes alwinfy: Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of the Students for a Democratic Society? [all]: No alwinfy: TL;DR: they were taking over the leadership of various clubs to siphon off money; it's been 30 years, don't worry about it. alwinfy: Now, the most important question. colclark: Why do you want to be a keyholder? innaavo: I want to be able to come here to work instead of the Stud 5 study space. ryang2: I like the room. Also, food. nmorgan: Room is really cool, people are really cool, I'd like to keep the office open. arjunjb: This room has great décor, great people, and a constant supply of food, and is not always open. aabreu: Being a keyholder, I can learn a lot from people and achieve what I want to achieve in SIPB re outreach and such. turino14: The power of the key. Voting results: turino14: 7 yes, 0 abstain, 0 no nmorgan: 7 yes, 0 abstain, 0 no innaavo: 7 yes, 0 abstain, 0 no aabreu: 6 yes, 1 abstain, 0 no ryang2: 7 yes, 0 abstain, 0 no arjunjb: 6 yes, 1 abstain, 0 no alwinfy: I love that this is less a keyholder election and more an excuse for the keyholders to eat the ice cream sandwiches. colclark: If you don't have Arjun in your hand right now, I fucked up somewhere. colclark, alwinfy: Congratulations to the new keyholders. innaavo: Do you guys have elections for social chair and such? psvenk: Yes, EC elections are the second Monday of the spring semester. alwinfy: [explains EC positions] alwinfy: The vice chair is the de facto social chair; we can also add a social chair to the constitution. There is also a non-EC position called the office czar, too. alwinfy: There's a tradition that you have to fight the previous office czar to be office czar. In that case, I'm not really office czar. colclark: alwinfy, I challenge you for office czar. alwinfy: I forfeit. colclark: I withdraw my challenge. almonds: Thank you all for sticking it out for over two hours. colclark: My paycheck does not include this. The meeting was adjourned at 21:42. Minutes taken by psvenk, alwinfy and submitted by psvenk.