Minutes of the SIPB Meeting of 02/2/98 The meeting was called to order at 19:30 by kretch. In attendance were Voting members: kretch elliot aurora fubob tlai sit annmarie jfmurphy harrisj jered hartmans jdaniel jmorzins amu katyking | svalente Associate members: eichin marc mcmullan xiphmont jmmikkel jemorris jweiss danw jhawk mhpower kcr | yandros srz Non-voting members: Prospectives: lgdean "Martyn Peck" yak rfrankel gisele | marleigh Guests: Treasurer's Report: kretch: Hi treasurer. sit: Hi kretch. Chairman's Report: elliot: Officer and EC elections will be next monday. Office Report: jweiss: We've bought some chairs over the past year or two. Some of these are in good shape, and some are not. Do we want to replace the bad chairs, or should we just keep on using them since we just got them? marc: Is there any warranty on them? jweiss: I don't know. I'll look into it. kretch: I think replacing broken chairs is fine. We need to think about whether we should replace them with the same kind or something new. jweiss: We might be able to swipe some old E40 chairs. jered: Are those the ones with bucket seats? jweiss: No. They're the ones with metal arm covered in plastic. The ones in E40 are brown. I don't like them, maybe others do. kretch: Want to bring it up on sipb-discussion? jweiss: I can do that. jweiss: Someone suggested that we get ergonomic keyboards to plug into machines as people need them. jered: One problem is that there are lots of different keyboards and different opinions on which are good. Also, there's the PC / SGI compatibility problem. [Post-meeting comment from pshuang@alum.mit.edu: Indy's and O2's have PS/2 style connectors and work with most (but not quite all) PC keyboards and mice. Many people at SGI use standard PC ergonomic keyboards; you just have to check to make sure that you pick one that does work. man pckeyboard(7) gives some specific details. Note on the O2, there's a tiny bit of code added that allows the system to not care if you've plugged the keyboard into the mouse port and vice versa. A minor but nice touch.] kcr: With very few exceptions, all the new machines in the office are Suns or take PC keyboards. We can get a frob to use a PC keyboard on a Sun. eichin: Another problem is the connectors aren't designed for repeated insertion and removal. elliot: You can buy connector protectors to sit on the end of cables and machine connectors. yak: We could just replace the keyboard on a machine. [Many objections.] hartmans: We could get professional advice on what keyboards are good for what. marc: That differs on person by person basis, even among people with the same symptoms and biological problem. hartmans: It would at least eliminate the bad ones. jered: Low-priced keyboards probably wont help. We want a high-end one. marc: Is there anyone in the office right now who would want one? yak: I'd use it, but only if it's permanently installed. rfrankel: The keyboard I have (Kinesis) only takes a slight amount of relearning. marc: If you know how to touch-type... eichin: I tried to learn to use one of those, and gave up after a month, even though I know how to touch type. sit: What's up with the rug? kretch: I was told we had an installer, and then that we didn't. jhawk: I'm confused. In November, Rose said "Here's a list of people, call one of them." kretch: We called a number of them in January. She continued on her own and said she found one. Then she said we didn't have one. jhawk: I think you should have taken a more active role in this. marc: I think jhawk should volunteer to do the work if he's going to complain about what's being done. kretch: Once we get an installer, only takes a few days to get them to come in. Mostly it takes a lot of work on our part - people should think about a good time. danw: Are the offers for places to move stuff to valid during term? kretch: Probably. jhawk: What about painting? kretch: Painting would take another day. The other option is to sneak in and paint ourselves. Er, paint _the_walls_ ourselves. jered: Why do they need to be painted? kretch: People suggested they're ugly. It also may help with dust. jhawk: If we don't paint them, we might want to wash them. jweiss: Mail was sent to sipb-discussion about gene-simmons last week, but no one replied. Does anyone have any opinions? elliot: Does anyone want it in E40? It would be nice to be able to give something to them, since they give lots of things to us. jweiss: I haven't checked yet. kcr: What model is it? yandros: PowerMac 7100. hartmans: I don't think having property office make it go away is a good idea. kretch: Selecting a group also seems like a bad idea. jweiss: I also want to have a straw poll on whether it should go away versus whether it should stay. [Poll results were, Go Away: many, Stay: 1, Apathy: many.] marc: Can someone confirm the shelves were ordered? elliot: I sent mail to Jane asking her to order them. marc: Did you get a response back? elliot: No. kretch: She's alive - I saw her today. svalente: We should find a place for the rack, and prepare for the possibility that someone may suggest getting rid of the couch. Office Cleaning Report: '() MIT Computing Report: sit: brlewis is leaving. jweiss: There's an 8.1.16 patch release this evening. Computer Services: jhawk: I haven't finished dealing with the new AFS server. I'll try to do it soon. SIPB Backup Report: kretch: The AFS tape is in the drive - I should start it. jhawk: Does anyone know the status of the problems with the current Exabyte drive? My impression is that the current problem is that it says it wants to be cleaned, but wont take the tape. I think it needs to be replaced, or have surgery, and that foley is dealing. hartmans: It's going to cost money to fix. We should think about if we want to continue with this technology. jered: It's new, so it's still under warranty. Publications Report: sit: We're out of iLinux-Athena. Move to allocate $50 to make copies. [Seconded. White ballotted.] sit: I'll deal. R/O Report: '() IAP Report: eichin: The Pilot course went well - we filled 3-133. CokeComm Report: jhawk: We have no coke. jweiss: I appreciate people loading fridge, but 2 flats of Diet Coke seems to be a little excessive. Other: jdaniel: I fixed a colour allocation bug in 6.001 scheme that caused things to break if there weren't enough colormap entries. marc: I have wireless networking in my house now. aurora: I'm being exiled to N42 this week. Other Other: harmans: Texas is cool, but I'm back now. The money really is safer under your mattress. Perl is a cool language for financial software. fubob: Two SIPB members were spotted at the Usenix Security Symposium. The National beer of Texas isn't really that good. hartmans: You actually tasted that?! jhawk: I moved offices last week. My new one is at least as much of a mess as my old one. jered: I have an unexpectedly flattering interview in Christian Science Monitor. There's a copy floating around the office or at: http://www.csmonitor.com/durable/1998/01/27/feat/learning.1.html hartmans: There _are_ cool people who work for the US government. For the FDIC, even! The meeting was adjourned at 19:53. Minutes taken and submitted by elliot.