## N.B. These minutes are DRAFT until this note is removed. ### ### The minutes on Etherpad are provided for your convenience and are ### NOT official. The official copy resides in /afs/sipb/admin/minutes. ### Contributions are welcome! Please fill out your username by ### clicking on the user icon in the top right corner. Minutes of the SIPB Meeting of 2017-02-27 The meeting was called to order at 19:30 by mcyoung. In attendance were Voting members: emmabat, alvareza, mcyoung, dukhovni, nchinda2, bpchen, slz, privinas, ikdc, dzaefn Associate members: foner, bbaren, achernya, asuhl, cesium, ternus | quentin Prospectives: ignacioe, aathalye, specter, jkearl, ermain, aleksejs, cela, ahkim, baian, yczeng, robertch, vontell, npfoss, kkacquah, ngreco Guests: '() Administrivia: mcyoung: Today I met with the undergraduate dean of education, Denny Freeman. He's interested in hearing how SIPB can contribute a student perspective on student services. The registrar's redoing their website, other services, he wants us to have an active role on these sorts of things. achernya: There used to be a similar thing, it's very important we have a representative. mcyoung: Yes, there'll be a committee. Everyone believes this is a good thing for us. He says there's a number of people who come to him for resources, I said he should forward them to me. I also met with Anne Hunter last week, she'd like...not a brochure, but somethingg giving concrete examples of what SIPB does to those who visit her office. Business card thing, maybe, something to give a stack of to Anne Hunter to distribute to undergraduates. dzaefn: 2 nights ago Victor and I went through that cabinet and organized it into boxes, and within the boxes bags, of individual components, with the exception of weird / ancient stuff which is labelled accordingly. Also, somone decided to put an actual physical piece of rope in there as a cable. achernya: There used to be string in the monolith. dzaefn: Now when someone comes looking for a cable, it won't take until their event is over to find it. mcyoung: For context, this happened with me and HMMT. dzaefn: Also, Victor performed this interpretive dance with a pair of scissors. foner: Victor Scissorhands? achernya: What is he interpreting? bbaren: Question: do we have any mini display port to HDMI cables, for Mac users to connect to a projector? slz: They'd be in the drawers in the cubbies down below. mcyoung: It is in a place where things are found. achernya: If this is a perpetual Cluedumps problem, I'd recommend Cluedump-givers keep a pair on their person at all times. achernya: I allocate $50 for Cluedump specific cables. mcyoung: Seconded dzaefn: White ballot mcyoung: The motion passes slz: I wondered if anyone would want a spare monitor for laptop land. *discussion of current dead monitors in office, and merits of 2k* slz: How much is the monitor? $400? achernya: No, that'd be 4k. On Amazon, currently $330 slz: I move to allocate $350 for a monitor for laptop land. mcyoung: Seconded dukhovni: White ballot mcyoung: The motion passes dukhovni: I move to nominate cela for membership cela: I accept mcyoung: Speak to me after the meeting slz: I move to nominate Anish for membership dukhovni: seconded aathalye: I accept mcyoung: Talk to me after the meeting ngreco: I'd like to purchase some software for the Vive -- some of it's essential, some of it is games / software for the Vive. $44 essential, $69 non-essential. There's a lot of free content, but there's stuff like Build-brush, where you can draw in 2- or 3-d. There's also something allowing you to control the desktop from the Vive, which is very useful. The free software is really crappy. Others are just games and demos. Total about $110. foner: Allocate $120 just in case. ngreco: Yeah, $150 is a good idea. *several secondings* mcyoung: The allocation passes. Project Reports: cela: I've been working on afs through script, there's a working prototype now, if someone wants to help me get this on a server / check code for obvious security flaws that'd be nice. achernya: I can help out. *gives some advice, followed by asterisks.* And a double dagger, just for you Miguel. ignacio: I suspended all the cabling for Door Pi and strain-relieved everything so you can move your legs under the table without taking DoorPi down. foner: Why are the cables there -- nevermind. ternus: I went to the most recent meetup of Tech Solidarity, the recent email thread seemed like we were OK with sponsoring them like we did the ACLU, but I wanted to get a gut check from the room on that first. They're dedicated to working on technical solutions to assist political organizations, given recent events. Most recently they had the neveragain.tech pledge, signing a resistance against creating a database of Muslims. There's ways we as implementers and designers can support the causes we care about. There's an email thread on SIPB office, I won't rehash all that here. They may need a room to host things in, other stuff. Generally, does anyone object to this? Or want to be further involved? dukhovni: I'd like to help more. mcyoung: I've been not involved, I don't have a strong opinion, but I'll bring up some concerns mentioned, like exactly what this has to do with computing. I'd like to see those concerns addressed. ternus: I'm not the best person to make this argument, but our projects shouldn't be neutral in the world. When we create and work on systems, the better they are the more they affect the world. We should consider the effect of the work that we do. I've seen a continual focus on the social implications of the technical work that we do. We've done this before, with the SFS, ACLU, and EFF and this is not so different in that it's about the way technology has the ability to effect social change in the world. foner: I'm certainly for that goal. slz: You mention Tech Solidarity in addition to offering assistance to progressive organizations, to what degree...? ternus: It's still very ad hoc right now, the meetup was the first contact I had with them. There's New Day Syria, which takes things and ships them to Syrians overseas. It's hard to coordinate this kind of effort, the simplest crud app can be hard for them to make even if we'd consider it very simple. CAIR describes a terrible app for connecting detainees to lawyers, and representation makes a huge difference here. They just need a technical bridge to connect them. There's 4 or 5 organizations like this, Tech Solidarity is working with. I think the biggest need is getting a room somewhere for hosting 50 - 100 people. The support we give at the ACLU cluedump... dukhovni: Or providing funds for snacks... robertch: All the CPW events are on Friday and Saturday each day, if you went to the tour training last week you can help with machine room tours, it goes from about 11 - 1. We have a hackathon and a computing trivia bee. Just need people there, people to talk to and explain what SIPB's about, especially for the hackathon. We'll email about support and help. If you're able to come to these starting around 3:00, April 6 -8. yczeng: 14 people showed up to the tour achernya gave, so members can continue to give it. We documented the tour, alvareza emailed out a Google doc for everyone to contribute to, it'll be sent to sipb-office for further review or adding stories. If anyone here is interested in giving tours in the future, let us know, we'll be signing people up for it. mcyoung: I'd like to note, it'd be a good idea to have at least one rehearsal section. We should figure out when that's happening in advance. yczeng: We'll email out. Lucy Yang has agreed to design swag for CPW. slz: Do you two have access to the Google calendar? I'd add you then, so we can have CPW events on our calendar. achernya: A couple weeks ago scripts had a 5 minute outage that was my fault, I was installing TLS certificates, and failed to add a single equal sign, and the version Apache configures its openSSL with is not lenient and failed. Needs more sanity checking. mcyoung: Members of the board, this is crap software. achernya: OpenSSL is indeed crap software. mcyoung: Prospectives, if you're interested in maintaining the service which maintains....to many things, PLEASE speak to achernya. foner: Still looking for people interesting in giving a Cluedump. Talk to me, we'll find you a room, I will buy munchies. Prior Cluedumps: how certain programming languages work, LaTex, how Uber treats its drivers, the Allen telescope array, using security and crypto...find all of it at cluedumps.mit.edu which is a Wiki. All I need from you is a subject and a brief abstract. ignacioe: I've gotten Cortana up and running, still working on the bad stick of RAM, but the Vive is up and running. If you want to try it out it's here. dukhovni: LibrePlanet is sooner than you think! I believe it's still free for MIT students, and SIPB members who aren't students. mcyoung: I finally turned Max into a proper office head once more! There's instructions for how to turn it on without exploding! I'll probably plug it in for Internet. foner: Don't power cycle quickly! *assorted tips on how to not die whilst using old equipment* slz: Maybe also put a warning on the power switch? mcyoung: It's behind it. bbaren: How about a warning right after it turns on? achernya: Connect it to DoorPi slz: We need a script running a wall message every five minutes! *more discussion about old equipment and who was ordering a switch* mcyoung: I'm looking to appoint an Office Czar. The Office Czar, for those who don't know what that is, will organize all the things....can you pronounce it in Russian? achernya: Office Czar. mcyoung: Office in Russian? achernya: I can do fake Russian foner: In Soviet Russia....state observes you! dzaefn: I thinK I have practically become this. mcyoung: But I want this to be an official position. Let me know if you're interested bbaren: For the seventh time, I move that the board replace the bundle of cables through the center of laptop land with a single cable, and a switch, and also a bunch of cables. Is there a second? slz: Aye aye (second) achernya: There may be some issues, we've got horrible switches currently. It'd be fine for desktop heads, but maybe not laptop land. foner: So will or will they not work? mcyoung: Yes! quenten: They'll three-quarters work slz: I move to proceed to other. ikdc: seconded ignacioe: as you know this space is too small for the Vive. mcyoung: Have we considered sawing bird-desk in half? dzaefn: It's not referred to as bird desk anymore ignacioe: we have length we need width ikdc: Why was the sofa moved here in the first place? slz: To make room for the Vive of course. ignacioe: What about here? bbaren: That gets in the way of the whiteboard. slz: Can we discuss office interior design after the meeting? Other: cela: SHA1 collision found by Google. So anyway please move away from SHA1 if you haven't already dukhovni: CloudFlare is screwed! bbaren: I still think it'd be cool if prospectives did a password-changing day at SIPB mcyoung: A bunch of people screamed at me last night because at my dorm people don't understand things and passwords. slz: Anyway, if a prospective would like to do this and let IST know, feel free Ray Hua: i, i: directory.io dukhovni: It's a website that will give you every bitcoin compiler private key ever created Other Other: dzaefn: I've reclaimed ground on generals.io. Generals.io has now given you an API to make bots for humans vs. bots server. slz: I have essentially agreed to pay Google a tithe of $5 a month for the rest of my life. I signed up for Google apps. dukhovni: Anyone else want to help make the glass lottery less of a mess? It's done with index cards now. They have this box of 3x5 index cards, there's a giant mess of people around the desk getting old cards... Membership Election: mcyoung: Who the hell are you? ermain: My name is Erin Main, I'm course 6, I've worked a lot on scripts. mcyoung: I open the floor for questioning. dzaefn: How do you double space in ticket queue? ermain: You just let it run for a while, and then it gives you a message about Scripts. mcyoung: What's your favorite ticket queue message? ermain: Resolve, so I don't have to look at it anymore. The standard, close your eyes what's on the ceiling? ermain: Dragon, motherboard, Intel astronaut, write-enable rings for 9-track tape, Mario game cube, a red thing over there somewhere, a shark banana, license plates, $2 bill cube. I give up. I missed a bunny, grumpy fuzzball -- bbaren: That's not the grumpy fuzzball foner: Congratulations on remembering the 9-track write tapes. mcyoung: The sketch ethernet table, soon a squirrel -- I forgot to allocate string. cesium: How do you double space in Hawaii? ermain: Look out from the top of Mauna Kea privinas: There's a fire what do you do? ermain: Grab the in-case-of-emergency box. There's also a frisbee. mcyoung: What's it for? ermain: Fun? foner: How do you cut power to things in this room? ermain: Behind the door, there's the box. achernya: Pick someone in this room, ask a question you think they cannot answer, then answer it yourself. ermain: Alex what's the mineral green sand beaches are made of? Olivine. mcyoung: Have you, anyone that you know / see on a regular basis, ever been a member of Students for a Democratic Society? ermain: What the hell is that? ikdc: That's exactly what one of their members would say. mcyoung: They were a club long, long ago whose purpose was to get elected to positions in various clubs and divert it and we were a target. It's part of why we have the contrived membership stuff. So are you a member? ermain: No. ikdc: Your response has been noted. dukhovni: The squirrel's raising its hand. Parachute Squirrel: what text editor do you use? ermain: I use Vim but I hear some people like emacs. bpchen: How many text editors can you name? ermain: Sed, notepad.exe? *people name various obscure text editors, and make an XKCD reference* dzaefn: What's your favorite programming language and why? ermain: That's hard but recently I've started using Go. Not C, C's not good. slz: Name as many CPU microchips present in this office. ermain: x86, r, amd64, power PC, Max...is that an architecture? bbaren: There are two more I can think of. achernya: This is a Compac personal workstation. The beta is derived from this. *several people realizing it's the Alpha* bbaren: It has no memory consistency, you must ensure consistency yourself. There's also the purple one in the back. It's a Spark station. ermain: I think I said Spark. slz: Very complete answer dukhovni: Give your definition of an office supply ermain: Any supply in the office? dukhovni: Is ice cream an office supply? ermain: Yes, it's a consumable. slz: Do we have ice cream? mcyoung: Behold, ice cream! bpchen: How would you sell SIPB to people? ermain: If they seemed interested, I'd explain the projects. privinas: If you could create any SIPB project you wanted what would it be? ermain: Hyades sounds like a good successor to Scripts. mcyoung: Choose your act-of-God of choice, what would you take other than the in-case-of-fire box? ermain: I don't know, the Vive? I'd pick the Vive. quenten: For each letter of the alphabet, name a SIPB member ermain: a- achernya b - bbaren c - cela d - dukhovni f - foner e - ermain g - I don't know anyone for g I think. mcyoung: glasgall quenten: H? ermain: H? I don't know that either. alvareza: Hcope ermain: I - uh, ikdc! J - jakobw dukhovni: jhawk ermain: K - k_sunter..... dzaefn: If we're skipping the rest of the alphabet, there's one letter with no SIPB members. Can you guess which one? ermain: Z? Um, Y? X? dzaefn: It's U. ternus: What will you do to ensure that a prefrosh picks a username beginning with the letter U? bpchen: A CPW event dzaefn: I suggest you have them choose the kerberos unermain and then join Zephyr. mcyoung: Any questions? I had something witty to say but I forgot. slz: What could SIPB have done to help you join sooner? ermain: As a frosh I was on Zephyr and SIPB just always seemed salty about meetings. I think...since I've been prospectivized SIPB has focused more on diversity and not being salty, so that's worked. dukhovni: Who is the spiciest memelord? bpchen: For as many people / office heads as you wished, assign them a spirit animal, Pokemon type, or alternative personality. mcyoung: And name them! cela: Name a piece of esoteric knowledge you find really interesting. ermain: I can't think of anything right now. ikdc: I move you nominate someone to ask the question. mcyoung: Angel, can you please ask ermain the question? alvareza: Why do you want to be a SIPB member? ermain: My selfish reason is that you're a lot of talented individuals and I think I can help a lot. The not-selfish reason is that SIPB contributes a lot to the community and I think I can help with that. ermain elected as member 11 - 0 - 0 The meeting was adjourned at 20:45 Minutes taken and submitted by emmabat.