Minutes of the SIPB Meeting of 11/28/2005 The meeting was called to order at 7:30pm by jbarnold. In attendance were Voting members: tabbott arolfe rayhe jhawk golem kchen yoz jbarnold | wdaher janetryu Associate members: jtu deberg astronut lockhart | aerynne Prospectives: aseering mshaw natan rram presbrey austein tilia | yuhsin Guests: Treasurer's Report: '() Chairman's Report: jbarnold: we have a membership meeting today. jbarnold: I am a student representative to the council on educational technology. jbarnold: It's time for adam seering and michael shaw to stand. jbarnold: I have a sprained ankle so I'll be sitting. [jbarnold tells a story about getting up for a fire alarm at night and injuring himself] jbarnold: Questions. jtu: How do I decrease the font in a Latex table? mshaw: I would google for latex and font and table and hopefully it'll be a hit. wdaher: If you were to typeset the thing you got at church, what font would you use? mshaw: Whatever latex has standard. Some variant of times, I have no idea. aseering: Something generic, or I might come up with something interesting. arolfe: Name three machine names in the machine room and what services they run. mshaw: Scripts? jbarnold: Machine names please, not the service names. mshaw: Is one of them called scripts then? jhawk: Yes. [jbarnold says something about A-record names] aseering: What about scripts-2? tabbott: It's actually scripts2, without the dash. jbarnold: People complained about the names scripts1 and scripts2 being not original so they're "kitchen-sink" and "sliced-bread". arolfe: Name three, not name three correct. jbarnold: Does anyone know anything running in the machine room? mshaw: Stuff? arolfe: It's actually dandelion-patch. arolfe: What other services does SIPB run? mshaw: SIPB used to run the RT service. aseering: Does this including running on a computer services or general serivces? arolfe: Running on a server type services. aseering: LAMP. mshaw: web.mit.edu [arguments about web not being a SIPB service] aseering: SQL. jbarnold: There are more SIPB services. tabbott: There's the software in lockers that SIPB maintains. jbarnold: There's the SIPB AFS cell, a service provided to SIPB members is multics. These are internal services. aseering: At one point, we were talking about services that run on servers somewhere. mshaw: If you just define SIPB services as things that run on computers you're being much too narrow. I'm partial to IAP but there's those staplers over there. The fact that people can walk in and complain about computers is a valuble service. deberg: As Athena decreases in relevance, what will SIPB find themselves doing when you're my age and people who are now 5 are at MIT. mshaw: SIPB can make sure Athena does not decrease in prominence. Even if I don't completely understand it, I'm an Athena user. SIPB will always be here as an advocacy group. As Linux becomes more mainstream, SIPB will help orient incoming students. aseering: I agree more or less with that. There's still a bunch of people not using laptops. A good thing that will have to happen is making Athena services run better on laptops on or general machines (in particular Macs and Windows machines). An interesting statistic is to know how many machines are running athena versus personal machines that are not running athena. mshaw: People without much computer clue should be able to run these services without obtaining computer clue. SIPB could make things more accessible. jhawk: For Michael: Tell us about your IAP Sucker experience especially with respect to dates and deadlines. mshaw: I've definitely screwed up as sucker. jhawk: I didn't mean just for you. mshaw: I started things too late, set deadlines too late. I started in October when I should have started in August. With all the classes and the information that has to be kept on each of them, we need something better for administration than the current email forms. I hope to steal this from ESP actually. I noticed classes on similar dates and some dates without classes. If I could spend less time on logistical work, I could spend more time making classes more balanced. mshaw: The dates I set in the IAP guide earlier. Making a deadline five days before it actually is may be good. arolfe: Did you two coordinate your wardrobe this morning? mshaw: I have ESP. wdaher: Can both of you talk about briefly about what you've done with SIPB. aseering: I've done some work, written a script that can read RSS feeds and done things so they can be displayed on the user page. I've been working with scripts to try to migrate our automated install system to Fedora Core. mshaw: I started hanging out about a year and a half ago when jtu told me it was a fun place to be. Sherri dragged me into teaching an IAP class last year. Sometime in July or August I got dragged into running IAP, I'm still not sure how I got volunteered. jhawk: Describe your relationship with XML. Both of you. mshaw: XML and I, we're really close friends. I really don't know much about XML, except that there's real XML and Microsoft XML and one of these is good. jbarnold: You hear wrong. Neither of these is good. aseering: I've worked with this and some combination with Microsoft. They're really bloated and irritating and not helpful but in the world of voodoo and C#, they can really simplify things. jhawk: You don't have a deeper feeling to share with us. aseering: It has its problems but it still has its usefulness. glasser: You've both been pretty focused in certian areas, like scripts and IAP. Do you see yourselves doing other things? aseering: I'll probably spread out, depending on interest. It'd also be nice to work on different aspects of it. mshaw: I don't have the technical background to work on different projects, but I'd certainly like to learn. I'd like to not be sucker next year if I could avoid it, but I'd certainly help out. jbarnold: Those in the meeting should think about whether they want to be sucker next year. tabbott: What IAP classes are you teaching? mshaw: I'm teaching the Crash Course in C. jhawk: How do you feel about the chair's outward-facing acitvities, like ISTAB? aseering: Having personally not been attached to these groups, it's important to keep that. It's very important, should be used carefully. mshaw: I think that it's really important for SIPB. There's an issue at MIT that a large number of administrators don't understand the needs of students properly. They think about plans of eliminating Athena clusters and whatnot. I think it's important for SIPB to be a source of student input, it's important for someone to sit on these boards and report back. aseering: I agree with that but I've heard people say around here that we're SIPB, we can talk to people about this but it may have more importance if users go out to say it, as we're SIPB and we say that. Part of SIPB's role is to convince users to advocate. deberg: There's been talk about membering people and such. There's an experimental computing community, which has a strict policy of continuing membership. (They wrote the GIMP for example, which outclasses anything we've written). mshaw: Perhaps we should make membership more of a responsibility instead of a privilege. Requiring people to work on a project is not a good idea, you're not going to come up with something like the GIMP because you're requriing people to work say 3 hours on it. aseering: I more or less agree with that. I think that having really steep membership requirements and continuing requirements isn't that great, as people are sometimes busy. deberg: A lot of groups here have requirements for manning the office. mshaw: Bad idea, that wouldn't help SIPB. We're already here many hours, and requiring a number of hours, you'll have a much different response, maybe even fewer staffed hours. jtu: So how much time are you spending on IAP? mshaw: My IAP commitment oscillates between one day and not spending a week because I've been busy. jbarnold: The phone just rang, alternate saying the numbers starting with 61. [mshaw repeatedly gives aseering hints] [they correclty produce 617-253-7788]. deberg: What's the analog number? mshaw: No one cares because digital is superior? jhawk: What are the characters of digital and analog phone lines under power failures? mshaw: Analog survives a power outage. jhawk: What happens is the analog line doesn't need a backup and the digital lines have a 10 hour battery backup somewhere in the building. tabbott: What new projects should SIPB be doing? aseering: Getting various athena things to work on desktops and personal computers. Scripts. Other interesting things are online in a list. tabbott: You mean people's Windows/Mac machines? aseering: Yes. Windows, probably Mac, maybe Linux. mshaw: I personally installed Debian on my laptop. Having SIPB install these things on at least MIT-recommended laptops would be good. The docs over there, some of them are copyrighted in the 90s, and computers have changed. Redoing documentation may be useful. tabbott: Is the installing bit a potential IAP course you could teach? mshaw: IAP is one month of the year, a few of these courses could be adapted to continue into the term. Taking a few courses out of the IAP system would be beneficial. jbarnold: I have a question for both of you. If you're a member you have a key to the office. Let's say you're in the office alone. 1) Under which conditions does SIPB officially support the idea of prospectives being in the office unattended. 2) Under which conditions does SIPB officially support the idea of loaning out books. 3) Under which conditions does SIPB officially support using the staplers? mshaw: Staplers. Whenever a user is standing near where Jeff is sitting, we'll encourage them to use staplers. jbarnold: I'd add that they should use the approriate stapler for the number of sheets. aseering: Allowing SIPB prospectives in the office... they're not officially allowed. mshaw: Loaning things out.. official policy is that they don't leave the office. jbarnold: I discourage it. It's at your own discretion. tabbott: On how many distinct occassions have you been left alone in the office? aseering: None. mshaaw: None. arolfe: What SIPB service is the biggest waste of time and should we stop doing? mshaw: If I had to pick one project, I'd pick Stuff. That reasoning may change once stuff becomes useful. tabbott: Does it follow that its a waste of time to work on a project that's not working yet? mshaw: It's more like working on projects we don't think will be working. aseering: I'm tempted to say IAP, I'm tempted to say stuff, except I'm working on it. I'm tempted to say nethack just because nethack has no redeeming academic value. rayhe: Who was jbarnold before jtu was jbarnold? mshaw: Whoever's sitting next to jtu. jbarnold: There's no correct unique identifier for that individual so that's okay. jbarnold: Ask each other a question and answer it. mshaw: When was jhawk first a SIPB member? jhawk: Look in the members and prospectives file. tabbott: Ask me a technical question that I don't know the answer to? rayhe: Hint he's 6-3. [Editor's note: This statement was false]. mshaw: You're studying in a physics lab and have to measure muon decays, what's the average time between muon decay and distance [something about a cylinder]. tabbott: What's the answer? mshaw: The answer is: run a Monte Carlo simulation and find out. aseering: In Red Hat package manager, how do you create a package than can overwrite and claim its dependencies in other packages? tabbott: So how do you do it? aseering: Good question. [Editor's Note: tabbott is disappointed that he didn't require them to know the answer] glasser: A user walks in and talks about something not working but you've never heard of it, how do you continue? aseering: First i'll figure out what this service is supposed to be and what it's supposed to do. I'll ask the user, 'cause they would know because they would know. glasser: This thing they're doing for Athena that they've been doing for years and they don't know. mshaw: I'd google MIT, failing that I'd start around the office, then ask class sipb. jhawk: What's useful is to go into the cluster and look at the user's machine. glasser: There's a file on athena called who-fixes-what, in the info locker. It's also on the wall. aseering: If the user can't explain it rationally and google can't find it, what're the chances it's on the list? aerynne: What will you do to advance the goals of cokecomm in the office? mshaw: I will go down to the fourth floor and get a large cart. aseering: I'll go down to the fourth floor and get a large cart. mshaw: But I'll already get a large cart. aseering: I'll get it from you. aerynne: A rhyming couplet about SIPB. mshaw: An ode to SIPB is so horrid to me. aseering: Continuous couplet not appearing... aerynne: I'll give you a hint. Your last name rhymes with appearing. aseering: And my name is Adam Seering. rayhe: Motion for deberg to ask the question. deberg: My creativity is failing me. In alternating sentences, why do you think the other should be a SIPB member? mshaw: Stuff and Scripts are so great. aseering: And IAP is really fun. rayhe: It doesn't have to rhyme. mshaw: And he works so hard on both of them. jbarnold: It's supposed to be the conventional end to the rowdy meeting. deberg: Sorry, each of you tell us without interruption why you want to be a SIPB member. mshaw: The wrong answer is I want a lifetime Athena acount. The answer is SIPB does a lot of interesting things. I really enjoy how IAP classes work, the idea of helping to educate the community. I like the idea that soda is so cheap here. I just feel like this is a great place and want to be part of it. aseering: I don't think I could add too much to that. SIPB does some interesting things. We should take more of a role in helping to decide what SIPB will do in the future, in addition to things that SIPB does. jbarnold: Okay, we're going to move to the closed session. Members of the public are now invited to leave. [mshaw membered 10-0-0] [aseering membered 10-0-0] Office Report: jtu: I saw the rock but it went into hiding. mshaw: It's right here. arolfe: We got the last of the books from Quantum to replace those lost in the flood. Office Cleaning Report: rayhe: We're going to have a cleaning session, immediately after this meeting. MIT Computing Report: yoz: There have been lots of weird problems with the dialups, perhaps related to the AFS clients. Computer Services: jbarnold: I'll let it go because it's Thanksgiving week. jtu: I got food for project hours. Publications Report: Orientation Report: jtu: I'm working on the print guide, you have some time but not much. jhawk: Tell us more. jtu: We're making a print guide so we can distribute it. jtu: It's going to be about 3 pages, double sided. jtu: It will be a booklet, with maybe a cover. jhawk: Please don't use white paper, for the outside. mshaw: We have at last count, 27 classes for IAP, which is I believe, more than last year. Please show up for your classes. IAP Report: CokeComm Report: deberg: We have no coke. jhawk: She's getting coke as we speak. jtu: If you're around, help her bring stuff up. Soon. Other: Other Other: wdaher: I went to church and the thing they gave me looks like it could have been typed in LaTeX. The meeting was adjourned at 8:37. Minutes taken by rayhe and submitted by tabbott.