Minutes of the SIPB Meeting of 6.23.03 The meeting was called to order at 7:31 by golem. In attendance were Voting members: rax tibbetts golem merolish jtu sly aletta keithw | kchen ike Associate members: ocschwar alex_c srz jhawk | lnemzer Prospectives: glasser Guests: baniszew Treasurer's Report: tibbetts: THe treasurer is having Harry Potter read to him. We have $320 left and since marc isn't here I don't think we are spending it. golem: I thought the year ended. tibbetts: THe last day for turning stuff in is tomorrow. Marc made some noise but did not buy anything. There is always next year. We don't know our budget yet, those people panic until July. golem: Let us know in July. tibbetts: I presume we will get some money. Chairman's Report: golem: We have an election, but we tend to put it at the end, except for the thing that will go after it. golem: Assume the position. Questions? We can go right onto voting? sly: What have you done that makes you worthy of membership? glasser: Helped SHerri with IAP organization, and did the summer mailing stuff for orientation. I am in the office a reasonable amount, I'm on zephyr too much and try to be useful. I just resumed working on a mail forwarding service for SIPB. I am a little stuck but should get it done pretty soon once I succeed in installing OpenAFS on Debian, which is "fun." keithw: What goals do you have for SIPB? glasser: I think SIPB can do a lot of things and it is good that there have been a lot of new things going on. Scanners and other things. I think SIPB should be figuring out new things, but the need for helping users will not go away. jhawk: David, astound us with your knowledge of SIPB's services. golem: That's not a question. jhawk: That's true. glasser: SIPB has a lot of services, everything from usenet as I am possibly the only user of due to my UROP - senator-bedfellow and bloom-beacon are the servers. There is SIPB DNS running on thornhump and www off of dandelion-patch - it's a webserver that does things web doesn't - we have staplers - there are a bunch of others that I don't recall. We have lnitp in the window. ike: I heard you installed software in outland? glasser: Yeah, nothing too major yet. SOmething that will read Microsoft crap and a crossword progam. merolish: You notice the human torch walk into the cluster. What do you do? glasser: Ask for his autograph but then also run into the back and get the save in case of fire box. I turn off the lights, lock the door, and --- jhawk: You do all this right afterward? Hang on, there was a right answer. sly: I think it was sufficient. jhawk: Pull the fire alarm! sly: A bunch of users come in and say their web things don't work anbymore. Who do you contact? If you know tell us, if not explain how you would find out. glasser: I would probably have noticed. Otherwise I try to make sure it is not their problem and is reproduicble, and if so... you can email network? You zephyr but it is not technically supported. Am I missing something? sly: Let's say you didn't know what to do. glasser: I would look at who-fixes-what. I tend to google but it is /afs/athena/system or something. jhawk: In the info locker, and on the wall. In the event of catastrophic failure, page 3-8400. tibbetts: Can you demonstrate removing the save in case of fire box for Keith? golem: He got it! lnemzer: Could you suggest a stupid decoration from the office that would distract us from the realweasel as well as that distracted us from the gong? glasser: I really think that the art of interior decorating comes from adding things into teh esthetic of the surroundings, and we should jsut find something random and hang it on the wall. tibbetts: What are your feeling about the use of negative space in interior decorating and how does that relate to your feelings about jhawk's need to remove his belongings from the office even when the office is not full? glasser: I think the SIPB office has as much negative space as it needs. 1% RDA or something. keithw: How can SIPB help people in its advocacy role? glasser: I guess the question is people are doing their own thing and things seem to be working fun. Um, that's a tough one. I think it would be gyood if there were some precedent of if there are serious computing problems SIPB could be going to the peopleinc charge, but I don't think that problem has been coming up much. I don't know. jhawk: Were you affected by the po11 outage? How did you feel about it? DO you think that SIPB could or should have a role with respect to lobbying or getting better visibility or trying to get the network group to com,municate? tibbetts: That's a leading question. jhawk: I'ms orry. glasser: That was a pretty rigged comment. I felt like network tried to communicate despite their reputation. Iffelt like they were workingon it. If SIPB members came up witha constructive plan of ways to avoid that, it would be ghreat to go to IS and say "here is an idea" but it could be like doing their job for them. I think SIPB should advocate but not point fingers of blame. alex_c: How would you doublespace a document using less? glasser: :! ? :%s/$/^P or something? golem: You failed the less part. jhawk: v in less takes you to vi. golem: A user comes in with a question and you are the only person in the office who can answer it. What is the question and what is the answer? glasser: It might be an obscure perl or python language thing. "That's not a list, that's a comma operator." I know about writing interactive fiction agmes, which is MIT relevant. golem: You speak Zcode? glasser: I do. I wrote a disassembler or a wrapper for one. merolish: You are alone in the office and someone has a weird arcane question about windows. You don't know what to do. What would be the things you could do? glasser: Assuming it is not a student with a personal computer, I might ask on zephyr also I might play around with it. There is helpdesk for students. Also, I could just try google. ike: Pick someone in the office, ask them a question they don't know the answer to, and then answer it. glasser: Keith, name a major programming language for interactive fiction games. keithw: Zcode? glasser: No, that's a virtual machine. Inform, Tads, Hugo, Alan. jhawk: Do you think you have been sufficiently challenged or are you up for more? glasser: Give me your best. aletta: I was going to move that beth ask the question? banizsew: What? keithw: It is 9 pm on a thursday and a freshman announces that she is a tech reporter and has to ask the SIPB's opinion on something. She wants a quote form SIPB. glasser: I would be at concert choir. I would probably say that I can't speak on the record for all of SIPB, bu t as a SIPB member, Akamai blah blah blah and I can always email jhawk to complain. golem: The Tech has a fantastic facility for misquoting people - keithw: Wait a second! golem: It is often optimal to pass off such requests to the EC. glasser: I was misquoted by the Tech during CPW. keithw: A recommended practice is to ask to see your quotes written down. tibbetts: In SIPB's advocacy role, do you see a way to fix this epidemic of misquoting on the part of the Tech? glasser: We do have this colunm. Can we make fun of the Tech in it? They don't really edit it. golem: Ask the SIPB Ombudsman! glasser: I probably would. whoever that is. glasser: If SIPB members are quoted out of context, we can write letters. we are not more special than anyone else. jhawk: What do you think are the most serious challenges facing the SIPB both today and tomorrow and what are the ways to address those concerns? How are we fucking up and how can we not? glasser: There's "SIPB is scary" and how can we work with users when they are moving away from athena and the student cetner. The TEch column engaging students not in this building are good. Other things actively encouraging people - publicize the phone number - if people realize that if it's late at night they can call SIPB for help with their laptop. There's more than just helping users. A lot of the things SIPB does are great to some degree and we have done a lot of things. Keeping things working - take Usenet - it's not like a say to day thing we think about a lot. Keeping things working but also coming up with new things - I like what Keith is doing with HDTV, I should see more of it. jhawk: You have cited in a positive fashion the recent large expenditures put through with significant oppostion. What is your feeling on individuals buying big expensive toys with SIPB money? glasser: As far as I can tell the photo stuff has been used by more than just a couple of people. At the moment the HDTV thing is basically only used by Keith but the idea is it creates things anyon in the world can use. If it's to work on SIPB projects it is worhtwhile. If we have this money it seems reasonable. alex_c: The generic hardware for the HDTBV thing has been useful for more than just Keith. ike: Say you are in here working on some personal stuff, and a user comes in and you can't deal with the quesiton? glasser: I've already answered this twice. It depends on the time, if it is during the day there is OLC which you can reach downstairs or by calling them and there is helpdesk and there are RCCs though I am an RCC. golem: How can the SIPB and yourself improve my DDR experience? glassert: We could install iDDR on one of the machines And you can be helping users and DDR. keiothw: You can get chicks to gawk at your sexy sweaty body. keithw: I move stan ask the question. ike: I was going to say you mentioned SIPB being scary? glasser: I'll be nice to people. lnemzer: But Beth? keithw: I move they both do it in unison. szr: Why do you want to become a SIPB member? glasser: I think SIBP is a good group and it is important to be helpful. I can be more helpful as a uiser. A couple of weeks ago I was trying to help some user fix her laptop and I can;'t burn CDs without being a member. It is helpful for other people for me to have root. I think I wouldbe a good part of SIPB. I survived as a prospective but I could do better. <13-0-1, glasser is now a member> rax: Motion to adjourn. <5-5-4 wait? we fucked up.> jhawk: I was wondering if people had opinions on this holepunch. It doesn't work very well and we should get rid of it. We could pretend we returned it and get another one. I recommend the next level up with power. I got no response to mail. golem: it's a lot more expensive. What's wrong? jhawk: It is ineffective and unsightly. golem: If you want to look up a better hole punch by all means. sly: Why si it not valid? We get money back. jhawk: I don't think it works that way. sly: Certainly in general with thigns I have returned purchased in a former fiscal year it goes into the next year. jhawk: Maybe we'll do that. golem: FIscal christmas will never be the same. keithw: Move to adjourn. <7-5-3, meeting adjourned.> Office Report: golem: Ike and I made a pile of stuff we want to auction. There is the O2 SGI monitor, broken keybaords, and miscellaneous devices and random pieces of metal. tibbetts: They are the uprights for that thing we use to hold documents. golem: I move to auction this at the discretion of the Office Czar in Charge of SPecial Operations, jhawk: It will have to be itemized for auction, you should itemize it now. tibbetts: This often uncludes "a bunch of broken keyboards." golem: It's all useless trust me. jhawk: I think you ought to not vote en masse. Also, don't stack keyboards like that. You should stack things more responsibly. Making the office unusable in the name of office cleanliness. sly: If you spill shit in a keybaord, you need to try to clean it, not just label it "Keys stick" and throw it in the pile. We need to be careful about tossing keybaords that we are still paying for contracts on. golem: I didn't put that in the pile because it was sticky. I put it in the pile because it was a really crappy keyboard. sly: We shouldn;t dispose of equipment we are paying for. tibbetts: Can we vote? golem: It is not as if there has been no wartning. <11-1-1, motion passes.> golem: We have 11 type 5 keyboards in the monolith. We don't need 11. ike: They might be hotline-contract things, we might have to keep them. golem: I don't see why we should have to keep them. ike: Talk to hotline. golem: No, even if we can get them replaced, why? sly: If I pull a keyboard off of a machine in the machine room, I might want it back when kI go to allocate the machine for something else. We don't store things in the machine room. golem: I didn't put them on the pile, but it seems pointless to have tstuff we will never use taking up sapce. jhawk: Pointlessness is somewhat limited if the space is not full. ike: Is the space next to pickled clear? sly: No. ike: Clear of jhawk's stuff? sly: jhawk's stuff is gone and the keyboard is there. ike: Let the minutes show this. golem: It's an ike-jhawk thing. Office Cleaning Report: merolish: I guess no one knows if this fish is working - it's not? people should clean up after themselves. ike: People keep leaving publications and trash from food around. People who generate that waste should trhow it away. golem: People have not been writing down the dates of office vacuuming recently. Write the date on the whiteboard in the back when this happens. It's useful to know when it hasn't been vacuumed in a while. sly: It has been a while since out last carpet cleaning. golem: We should get a lot of crap off of the floor first. We should look into this this summer. ike: If possible, I'd like to move for a vote on mudwrestling over the realweasel poster. golem: We were going to discuss this later. ike: The office is gradually getting cleaner. golem: We cleaned up a corkboard and threw out cardboard. There are no firehazards in the office, and never have been. sly: I was just wondering if anyone had strong feelings about the business cards on the corkboard. golem: There has been vast discussion on this point. A lot in person. ike: Send mail? I think the people who care will be online. MIT Computing Report: Computer Services: SIPB Backup Report: Publications Report: keithw: The deadline for the next SIPB column is July 5th. The Tech loves you. Please write a column. tibbetts: Do you have more ads than content? keithw: It's possible. tibbetts: Just checking. jtu: Using discuss is really dusty. golem: The rack is in need of an overhaul. Orientation Report: ocschwar: It's sooner than you think. glasser: We need a midway person in less than a week. keithw: What are the responsibilities? golem: Coordinate with ASA and wrangle people. tibbetts: You have to show up an hour before. golem: We don't bother hauling over computers like we used ot and there is wireless. glasser: Technically some random person can sign up but it should really be the right person. golem: Keith, do I hear you volunteering? tibbetts: But the Techa lways has like 37 people there. keithw: I'll see if we can publish coverage of the SIPB preparations. rax: I'll do it. golem: Move that SIPB loves rax. jtu: We also need a tours sucker. golem: Do we need it right now? jtu: It's not me. golem: Being a tours sucker is a fantastic way to learn about computers. tibbetts: Sounds like Chris wants to do it. golem: No. rax: I'll do it. IAP Report: glasser: Sooner. golem: Yeah. CokeComm Report: ocschwar: Is jenselby leaving? golem: TO Davis. Other: keithw: HDTV seems to have gone out, people should help me fix it after the meeting. We need to redeploy the antenna. keithw: People from Loudeye called me today. They promised me a new contract next Wednesday. We are going to ahve music, so if you think Lamp should buy music, please go to lamp.mit.edu/survey and fill int eh UPC codes for CDs you think we should buy and we will buy them. golem: How do we get UPC codes? keithw: bn.com. jtu: The ASA pantsless boy sucks. Other Other: ike: I gained victory over the gigantic ancient hard drive I was disassembling and have brqacelets. tibbetts: profiling code under linux fucking sucks. keithw: The Supreme Court today decided it was ok to force libraries to keep kids away from breast cancer information in order to get federal funding. srz: That is a poor characterization. The meeting was adjourned at 8:31. Minutes taken and submitted by rax.