Minutes of the SIPB Meeting of 2009-02-02 The meeting was called to order at 19:30 by price. In attendance were Voting members: ctl, price, jhamrick, quentin, mitchb, broder, neboat, xavid, biyeun, geofft | y_z Associate members: asedeno Prospectives: incematt, fawkes, afarrell, ccpost, iannucci Guests: Officer Reports: price: We'll have a membership election for fawkes at the end of the meeting. price: Stand up and we'll ask some questions for a while. First, you should introduce yourself. fawkes: Hi, my name is Donald Guy, username fawkes, UID 70999, volume ID 537864184. I came to SIPB around Cluedumps time, and ended up punting an SAA class and lost $85 dollars, but this was better. I taught an IAP Ruby class, updated the ruby-lang locker, wrote "AFS and You" (updated AFS documentation, the first in like 14 years that SIPB's done), have done some work on sipb-www, and a little with scripts. I'm trying to get more involved there. geofft: So you know Ruby. Which project needs to use Ruby? fawkes: Probably scripts because users want it. I discovered that you can install gems on a per-user basis. geofft: Which projects should be using Rails? fawkes: I'm not as familiar with it. It has a fairly specific use case, like database-backed apps. mitchb: Okay, showoff, what's your backup volume ID? fawkes: 537864186. mitchb: That's correct. jhamrick: Ask someone a question you know the answer to that they don't. fawkes: I was going to ask about the difference between Ruby lambdas and ruby procs, but I've mentioned the answer to multiple people in the office recently. [after some encouragement to ask anyway] xavid, both are object of class proc... what's the difference? xavid: One creates a new scope and the other doesn't? fawkes: A Ruby proc is an objectified version of a Ruby block. A lambda is similar, but has a shallow return (it only returns up one stack frame). geofft: Name all the office heads, and identify their OSes. broder: With version numbers. fawkes: Yaz is Athena 9, portnoy is a Sun Athena 9, kid is Debathena, oliver is Athena 9 Linux, coleco-sidewinder is OSX Leopard with MacAthena, mega-man is Debathena, bobbi-harlow is Tiger maybe, opus is Linux Athena 9, deathtongue is WinAthena, bart-savagewood is Sun Athena 9, zygorthian-space-raiders is Athena 9 Linux. broder: Very close, though opus and zsr are Debathena machines. mitchb: Name as many servers as were damaged on Sunday as you can. fawkes: rosebud, better-mousetrap, bees-knees, old-faithful, maybe rack-forward, maybe not rack-backward, I don't know most of XVM's hostnames. Not vinegar-pot. geofft: What's the creepiest question you can think of jesstess having asked recently? asedeno: And answer it. fawkes: "Does anyone want to do Facebook trivia?" (I said no, because I had a project to do and it was in building 34, which is far away.) price: You've been learning about and working in Scheme intensely for the last month. What lessons should we take from Scheme? fawkes: I learned less than I could have because it has a lot of overlap with Ruby. But it's good at making you think recursively, understanding tail recursion, etc. It's good in terms of thinking of procedures as data as opposed to separating procedures from data. [Mentions 'leveled systems'] price: What's a leveled system? fawkes: Are you working with scheme or in scheme? You can query parts of the system. One of the memorable quotes from the class is "If you reach your hand into the black box you'll eventually pull out a bloody stump." If you've established abstractions, things may always work, etc. xavid: If a fire broke out in the office, what would you do? fawkes: If the breakers behind door are easy to get to, you might as well shut them off to avoid creating more hazards. On the other hand, MIT policy is not to fight fires. There's an extinguisher behind the whiteboard, though. Probably it'd be good to call 100 and say "the SIPB office is on fire." jhamrick: A user comes in and says "I don't have an Athena account, can I use one of your computers?" What do you do? fawkes: Determine whether they're a student or someone off the street. There are some machines in the office like bobbi-harlow that you can use without a login. jhamrick: And if all the Macs are in use? mitchb: Laugh. fawkes: Maybe someone in the office would have a laptop they'd let them use, or something. Though some people have bits on things, so you'd have to be really careful. price: Many people protect access to things they have bits on with root instances, but it's often their laptops that are considered their secure machines, so those may be the worst machines for someone else to use. jhamrick: We have a guest account. You should use your judgment, and can let them use that. This happened to me earlier today. fawkes: If they're going to be around MIT for an extended period, if they've got a legit reason for being here, they might want to find a sponsor and get an account. geofft: What SIPB service has the fewest users? fawkes: Is news still running? mitchb: That has lots of users, just none of them are here. Where by "here" I mean MIT, not just SIPB. geofft: There's a single correct answer to this. That you don't know of it could be a result of the fact that it has so few users. sipb-isilon has one user: the NSA. price: SIPB possesses a storage cluster in W91 with 3 units that collectively export up to 18TB of storage, and can do this over NFS. One is running an AFS server. geofft: They can also do CIFS and HTTP. broder: And SFTP. price: What would you use this space for? fawkes: There's a trend of computing going towards cloud processing. In an effort to make computing better, a lot of space is going to want to fall to client services. price: So what are these services? fawkes: Scripts could grow, maybe VMs that want large, really slow hard drives. If SIPB entered the world of video editing, I guess space might be at a premium. broder: A user walks into the office. What service are you most afraid of them asking about? fawkes: I'm not really afraid of any of them, but I might have to pass some of them on to other people, like if they ask about XVM. mitchb: [to broder] You wanted him to say "discuss," but he named your service instead. Ha! fawkes: Well, I don't know anything about discuss either. mitchb: Sigh. XVM still got named first. geofft: What food product is in the machine room? fawkes: Applesauce. jhamrick: Explain the significance of the applesauce. fawkes: I read last week's minutes. [several people laughing] price: Okay, so those are incorporated by reference. asedeno: The office is now a smouldering pile of ashes. Where's the Save in Case of Fire box? fawkes: In that cabinet. asedeno: That's unfortunate. Why didn't you take it with you? fawkes: I guess I forgot. I have ruined SIPB. I apologize and beg forgivness. mitchb: He was too busy shutting off breakers, getting the fire extinguisher, deciding not to fight the fire, and calling the police, and forgot to do the one thing he was supposed to. fawkes: It might be okay. It's hard to set a whole cabinet on fire. And, I mean, it survived well into the future through a war with LSC. [others express confusion] fawkes: ... in hypotethical play land [points at board] price: He's referring to a play written by wdaher entitled "Yes, You May Use Our Staplers" [reads the first few lines] geofft: What's your favorite editor? fawkes: I've gone back and forth, but am currently leaning towards vi. I can use emacs semi-competently, and have used TextMate. geofft: How do you doublespace in TextMate? fawkes: Hit enter twice. jesstess: SIPB is starting either a gender-neutral boy band or a rap group. geofft has to be in it. Who else is in the group and what non-traditional instruments do they play? fawkes: I'd like to change my previous answer and say that I am now answering the most creepy jesstess question. I think we'd have geofft on turntables, jhawk on the jawharp (this is going to be an eclectic band), jhamrick would be piping things to sipbmp3. asedeno: So, playing the pipe? mitchb: Socket to me? [collective groan] fawkes: I hear price can sing. That's probably about enough. jhamrick: Don't boy bands sing and not play instruments? fawkes: It's New Age. jesstess: Can you think of a cluedump topic we don't currently have that you want? fawkes: Maybe a legacy services talk, about things before some of our time, like Usenet. I remember the first time I was in the office, there was a conversation about gopher. mitchb: Ha, ha. I've just added you to sipb-gopher. price: One thing SIPB hasn't done in a while, but has in the last few years, was to rearrange some of the larger stuff in the office. If we had such a party in the next six months, what would be the most important thing you'd want to change? fawkes: I like the office how it is... it's the only way I've ever known it. That whole quadrant [back by the office rack] could be cleared out a little bit. I'm sort of conflicted, because more of Laptop Land would be nice in general, but I like the office heads too. Some options might open up if the loft discussed in last week's meeting existed. geofft: Can you name any RFCs with number? What's your favorite? fawkes: The Hyptertext Coffee one. I also like IP Over Carrier Pigeon (and the improved IP Over Carrier Pigeon in Airplanes). The ones I use are mostly about HTTP. I don't know the numbers. I generally go to the RFC editor. mitchb: You've just mentioned airplanes. This sort of topic comes up quite a bit here. As you may know, we have that piece of shit machine (cutter-john) that if you make the mistake of doing something intensive like typing on the keyboard, has its engines rev up as we taxi down the runway. This is sort of important to me because I spend a lot of time here, but I really hate and worry about flying, and our track record isn't so great. Just today we've caught fire and been a smouldering crater, and in the not-too-distant past SIPB has even experienced the horrible event of a water landing. I know where the snack cart is back there, but the one thing I've never heard here is the standard safety talk. fawkes: Uh. Welcome aboard the SIPB Office. I'm glad you're flying with us today, and invite you to use our services like food, and our various sources of entertainment. Maybe you can even be productive while doing some of these things. Our flights have a great safety record over time, but in the event of an emergency, there are several exits, the most useful of which is the door. There are also windows which in case of emergency you could maybe break and get out onto the ledge, but remember that the cabin is pressurized, so breaking the windows could be a bad plan. In the event of a water landing, please turn off all portable electronic devices and in fact all non-portable electronic devices too. Your friends may be usable as floatation devices, but this is maybe not be the best idea. In the event of fire, a drawer will open containing records to save. If there are children present, be sure to save the records first. The box may not fully inflate, but oxygen is flowing. Thank you for flying SIPB Airlines, wherever your destination may be. [*enthusiastic applause*] mitchb: I feel much better now. jhamrick: A user walks in and says "my screen is broken." What do you tell them? fawkes: I've seen this before with paper clips. jhamrick: They were binder clips, actually. fawkes: Okay, binder clips. First, check if it's a real hardware problem instead of X configuration. If it's a Lenovo or Dell or Apple machine, I'd direct them to IS&T because they can service those. In general, this is getting into an area where I'd feel concerned about helping too much because you're possibly going to be violating warranties and things like that. geofft: You're in a foreign country. What do you do? fawkes: Go to a gift shop, get a postcard, write a long story about being sad I'm not in the office, address it to "SIPB, MIT, USA," affix proper postage and mail it. I may arrive at the office before the postcard. mitchb: Which standard membership question don't you know the answer to? fawkes: I sort of failed at the doublespace question. mitchb: The funny part is that the same answer for the one you mentioned would have worked just as well for the other two. geofft: How do you doublespace a page constructed in scaffolding on Ruby on Rails? fawkes: I could tell you a way, but it might not be good. [does so] geofft: I move that ctl ask the question. ctl: [does so] fawkes: I'd like to be a SIPB member for a number of reasons. I consider it to be an organization with a number of great people and I'd be proud to be a member. I'd like to be able to get into the office. If I succeed at bringing back the Sigma Pi Beta shirts, I want one. price: Note that next week is a special meeting too; we'll be electing the next Executive Committee, so you should come. Members who are students should think about running for things. <12-0-0 fawkes is membered> SIPB Projects Report: xavid: IAP is now over. We had lots of classes, many with high attendance. If you have thoughts on how to improve them other than that 1-115 is too small, e-mail sipb-iap, and we'll tell next year's people. asedeno: IAP sooner than you think. broder: XVM has had multiple failures over the past few days including a forced reboot of a host. mitchb: Sunday morning was rather special for SIPB. First, broder and I had an accident with AFS and spent several hours determining that we didn't actually cause any damage. Right after this, geofft went downstairs to get breakfast, and Scripts fell over. And then as soon as he came back and fixed it, XVM promptly fell over. We were the only three people around, and concluded that basically the only service any of us maintain that we didn't break was captain-crunch. geofft: This also resulted in a lot of pages. mitchb: Oh, yeah, quentin got woken up multiple times for no real reason. price: Linerva did not fail that morning. broder: It wouldn't have woken anyone up if it did. price: We had a hackathon on Saturday. People worked on XVM, which has a dev cluster now that broder and I spent a couple nights working on. If you want to get involved, now we have a platform to make that reasonable. jhamrick: We worked on dodona at the hackathon. The newest changes are not visible yet, but will be soon. price: We have a probable date for Larry Wall coming to speak, for which we made an allocation back in November. We heard back this week. It will probably be April 1st. geofft: I've been waiting on filsys pointer, but I have a git snippets repo in AFS for stuff that really ought to be in your Public, but you want version controlled. I have commit hooks, etc. I hear for example that the fuzzball logo has gone through lots of revisions. There's a repo. You can't write directly to the working copy, but there's a hook that when you push will deal. Oh, and when you send mail for a filsys pointer to hesreq, you get a reply for printer help... so I'm waiting for my printer. price: We moved the old documentation wiki's contents into the front wiki, so sipb.mit.edu/doc will now be a tree that contains all that stuff, but it's not all converted from Trac wikitext format yet. fawkes: I copied over a rendered HTML version of "AFS and You" and cleaned it up a bit. price: If you have other docs there that you care for, you can help out with the conversion. geofft: SIPB has a Twitter account. You should subscribe to it, and if you're a service maintainer, post interesting service announcements, outage info, etc. The password is sipb0's password. Office Report: price: The table that's the extension of Laptop Land where old-opus was had a bunch of junk on it, so I cleaned it. The film scanner we never use is near the old film scanner we never use at the back of the office. price: The office is very full. We have people sitting at chairs that aren't even at desks. broder: I move to allocate $30.00 for two USB->serial adapters, one to be used with linerva to connect a serial console to debuild, and the other for office use. geofft: Friendly amendment to make it $40 for three adapters. broder: Sure. serial adapters> afarrell: Does anyone have interest in this clock? [some discussion about the messed-up analog clock and replacing it] price: We'll talk about it after the meeting. Other: fawkes: It was Reg Day. Other Other: geofft: Happy birthday! price: Thank you. The meeting was adjourned at 20:28. Minutes taken and submitted by mitchb.