Minutes of the SIPB Meeting of 01/15/2007 The meeting was called to order at 19:30 by jbarnold. In attendance were Voting members: jbarnold tilia jhawk golem kchen tabbott wdaher k_lai Associate members: hartmans jemorris dmaze dbj asedeno | mitchb Prospectives: quentin geofft ternus Guests: Treasurer's Report: jhawk: Stuff got ordered. Spend money. Everything I told people I would order got ordered. (white board fluid, batteries, etc.) Chairman's Report: jbarnold: There is going to be a town hall meeting discussing Stellar on Thursday at 12:30-1:30PM in 32-155. They are seeking student feedback on Stellar. I'm sure students have valuable feedback to give them. hartmans: They seem really interested in getting student feedback. A customer outreach person and the developers will be in attendance. They are prioritizing things to fix in the fall. They are in final QA for the spring release. jbarnold: Free lunch is provided. So even if you're not that excited about talking about Stellar, you can still go and maybe think of something to say. jhawk: The outreach coordinator is a recent hire. Special Whiteboard Report: jbarnold: ike might get us large pieces of tempered glass. It's nonporous and won't get crappy with time. Alternatively, we could order the porcelain white board. The glass would be free. Because it's tempered glass, if it shatters, it will be a big mess. tabbott: It's a bigger mess but less dangerous immediately. tabbott: How would we mount the glass? jbarnold: ike said "clips" and made it sound easy. jhawk: It's not too bad. hartmans: How about scotch tape? jhawk: I would like to note that scotch tape actually refers to a broad range of tape. jbarnold: Oh, so maybe scotch tape is a reasonable choice. MIT Computing Report: jhawk: web.mit.edu now supports redirects with large offsite downloading web.mit.edu/download/ mitchb: Multiple external connectivity problems recently? jhawk: All user home directories are now on AFS servers in W91 (as opposed to some in 37 and W20). Rumor has it that it has something to do with storage. SIPB Projects Report: quentin: The Athena DEFCON sign is being put together. The keypad and LCD work. We're in the process of getting the ethernet driver to work, but I was set back several hours by downloading an older and incompatible version of the driver. tabbott: We did some work with debathena to make things happy with etch but didn't get much done. Office Report: kchen: We have received our package labelled "CHAINSAW REMOVABLE BELT BUCKLE METAL PUNK EMO HARDCORE". mitchb: Apparently the JetDirect card in meadow was replaced. If meadow acts up, let me/kchen/jhawk know. hartmans: I have been unable to cut myself with this chainsaw. Somebody else may want to try. Office Cleaning Report: tabbott: There's this pile of electronics and stuff over there that wasn't used by Athena DEFCON. Can people put that away? Publications Report: '() CokeComm Report: '() Orientation Report: IAP Report: tilia: It's IAP. If you're teaching a class, you should go to it. If you're not teaching, you could also potentially go to it. jhawk: Where can people in the office get IAP calendars? tilia: That's an excellent question. jbarnold: You can give them one of these (colored slip of paper that says "http://stuff.mit.edu/iap") and tell them to go there. tilia: There may be some tomrorow. jhawk: Where will they be? tilia: I'm sure you'll be the first one to find out. dmaze: I am teaching the Crash Course in XSLT in 20 minutes (8 PM). quentin: nelhage's jifty class is cool. hartmans: jifty is one of the many projects that make me believe that perl is getting too scary. Other: jhawk: ike contributed an iPhone to the office last week shortly after it was announced at MacWorld. geofft: It's paper! It flies! tabbott: Google Docs seems to have 10-15 minute outages everyday as a Mystery Hunt team found out. jhawk: jbarnold got a new laptop. jbarnold: I did. jbarnold: I'm going to be in Taiwan next week. people: Send us postcards! Two postcards! One addressed to "SIPB MIT USA". jbarnold: Elections will be the first week of spring term. kchen: Is that going to be Reg Day or..? jbarnold: I haven't decided yet. tilia: I asked about getting an OLPC, but I haven't heard back from them. Other Other: hartmans: So I was happily using emacs in my operating system of choice, Debian, and then I accidentally hit the wrong keystroke and was presented with a screen that stated that while the GNU Project wanted to tell me about the GNU Project, the freeness of Debian caused them to remove the information. hartmans: Kerberos had some security advisories that nobody in this room should be worrying about. It does not have anything to do with MIT unless you're running a KDC. tabbott: I'm running it! mitchb: Me too! (jbarnold drops the gavel) tabbott: I would like to note that the Chair dropped the gavel. The meeting was adjourned at 19:45. Minutes taken and submitted by k_lai.