Minutes of the SIPB Meeting of 2024-11-18 The meeting was called to order at 19:33 by innaavo. In attendance were Student keyholders: alwinfy, innaavo, turino14, rgabriel, amigdal, nmorgan, arjunjb, psvenk, jmvidal, colclark Associate keyholders: scj643, bbaren, almonds, kenta Members: dsisson, dtemkin, ilyag, tarang, johnm2, ajzd, kevinhw, dtemkin, andiliu, skylarh Guests: '() Administrivia: dtemkin: My phone is dead alwinfy: We (rgabriel) did some looking into money matters, and we discovered and recovered access to a grant for SIPB LAMP (~15k), which is a pretty nice chunk of change that we can use for arbitrary SIPB things. innaavo: If you're interested in discussing SIPB admin stuff/money matters, come to the office next Monday the 25th at 18:30. alwinfy: We have quorum for the keyholdership election! kenta [in chat]: I recommend noting on the record that you have recovered access to the LAMP [cost object] (actually microsoft iCampus grant, IIRC), as that was (and still is) a nice chunk of change officially granted to SIPB. nmorgan: I'd like to request $5,000 for a testing server for Project Ark scj643, andiliu: Seconded innaavo: We discussed this last week. Does anyone have any new thoughts? Is this something we're ready to discuss? [motion passes 12-0-5] innaavo: I'm excited to see how this turns out! Keep us updated! Project Reports: nmorgan: Project Ark continues; we had a meeting last Saturday, went over some local UI designs. We've started honing in on some good JSON structures for the output that we want. dtemkin: CourseRoad continues! We're migrating to Vue 3. On a related note, I'm learning Vue 3! guoj1112: Hydrant continues. I have made substantial progress in refactoring the backend but there is a mysterious ? in the backend that prevents me from looking at the front end at this time. I created a github issue about it. andiliu: DormSoup continues. We had a random developer from Japan fix one of our issues marked 'good first issues' - clearly they just searched the tag. I sent a dormspam, got a "you're on DormSoup!" email, saw it on dormspam, and couldn't find the button to rename it; I filed an issue, and they just kind of showed up and fixed it. ilyag: I've heard of people doing this for green squares. rgabriel: If you really care about green squares, just make a commit per change! nmorgan: Contributions to lots of different projects matter a lot more than commits sometimes. rgabriel: I don't know what incentives people are working under but I'm glad it's working for DormSoup. skylarh: Eventful continues! Frontend is working, calendar part is awaiting stylization and integration with the server-side. turino14: HWOPS continues. We finally ordered the adapters we allocated for two weeks ago. We also organized the machine room. Other: alwinfy: I think we're all hosed... It's been quiet today. psvenk: Keyholder elections are sooner than you think! Other Other: alwinfy: I think we should put together a social thing this November? Like, we had the dinner october, maybe a hackathon? psvenk: I support this, but Thanksgiving is also sooner than you think, so people may be away. innaavo: Yeah, maybe first week of December, when everyone's coming back? dtemkin: Finals are sooner than you think! psvenk: Don't say that.... innaavo: Week of 9th to 13th, maybe? That might be a good study break kind of thing. innaavo: How about Tuesday, Dec. 10th, at about 7pm? [various]: [various agreement] rgabriel: Is the audience SIPB or dormspam? innaavo: We should dormspam it! rgabriel: How should we put it on the calendar? SIPB Hack Social? psvenk: "Haxocial" with an 'x'? That was not a serious suggestion. Please do not take it as a serious suggestion. The meeting was adjourned at 19:50. Keyholder election: alwinfy: Keyholder candidate, please move to where you believe is the front of the room. alwinfy: In alphabetical order, state your name, kerb, and what you've done. psvenk: Why do you matter? What gives you worth? dtemkin: My kerb's dtemkin, because some evil person stole 'temkin'; I've helped Gabe with some projects, and worked mainly on Hydrant and CourseRoad. innaavo: Close your eyes. Imagine you're in a serene field. But you look down and you're in the SIPB office. What color is the floor? dtemkin: A reddish-brown-gray? alwinfy: Going in order, (that's you, then you, then you, then you), name one item off the ceiling. dtemkin: There's these CDs hanging on a rope, and books on the wall… psvenk: Name one book that's on the bookshelf that's behind you. almonds: "Oh, you're a SIPB member? Name every book on the bookshelf." dtemkin: (This is so unserious...) dtemkin: There's posters on the wall! alwinfy: Can you name what they say? dtemkin: There's the purple SIPB one? psvenk: That one's on the door, not the wall! dtemkin: A door is basically a wall. colclark: According to CAC, the door is not a wall. You can't poster on doors. petey [in chat]: How do I use the system to passionately filibuster against dtemkin? dtemkin: Hi petey... petey [in chat]: (this is a joke but please let dtemkin think this is real) petey [in chat]: Sound died but I g2g but as absentee associate key holder I vote for dtemkin to be a feudal lord or whatever alwinfy: You can open your eyes now, but stay standing. innaavo: What do you do if the FBI shows up at the office and you're the only one there? dtemkin: Do you know if they have a warrant? innaavo: You don't know; they just show up. What do you say? dtemkin: "I don't associate with the police." alwinfy: The correct answer is that you let them in. Don't let them do what they want. bbaren: There's a crucial part of the question that's missing, because when they show up at the door they're accompanied by MIT police. dtemkin: Yeah that's a little bit different. bbaren: So they threw us out of the office, so we congregated at the windows, and the officers stood around and talked, and the suits wandered around and looked at all the furniture; eventually one of the suits was looking under one of the table and gestured to get everyone over. Everyone came over, went under the table, and snooped for a couple minutes; they come up with an evidence bag holding a Raspi. bbaren: So all the people in the office were like, "That yours?" "No, that yours?" "Wasn't that what that guy this morning was sitting?" "Yeah I think so! I thought you knew him?" "No, I thought *you* knew him?" bbaren: Turns out, if you're some rando and you come into the office and look like you know what you're doing, everyone will assume you're cruft. In this case, it was Aaron Swartz and the Raspi was downloading JSTor, and that's why the FBI showed up. colclark: Was Swartz an inside job? bbaren: He was never a SIPB member, so you can decide for yourself the answer to that question. scj643: What year was this? bbaren: This was '11, plus or minus? innaavo: What's your favorite color? dtemkin: Yeah! I can give you a hexcode if you want. psvenk: I want the hexcode! dtemkin: I'll give it to you later. psvenk: (You're such a nerd.) innaavo: There's a Save In Case Of Fire box in the office. Do you know where it is? psvenk: You just gonna stand around? There's a fire!! dtemkin: [searching around; finds the drawer] alwinfy: Tell us what's inside! [redacted] innaavo: December watch party? alwinfy: There's a manila folder! What does it say? dtemkin: NOT TO BE OPENED UNTIL DOOMSDAY - WHEN ALL CRYPTOGRAPHY HAS BEEN BROKEN alwinfy: Any guesses on what's inside? dtemkin: It's squareish? alwinfy: One-time pads! innaavo: And the frisbees are there so you have something to do while the Stud burns down. innaavo: In an alternating fashion with the other keyholder nominees, name projects in order. dtemkin [in order]: Hydrant, CourseRoad, XVM, Scripts, Mattermost, Discord, CertAssist, PetRock, LLMs, (did I already say XVM?), OpenGrades, Eventful, HWOps, Docs, Matrix, Moiraverse, Ark, Hyades, Projects DB, Doorpi, Jitsi, DormSoup/DormDigest alwinfy: I think you may have beat out the last cycle already. johnm2: Keep going, you'll get all of 'em! alwinfy: Say we've come into possession of an aircraft carrier. What will you do with it? dtemkin: Where? alwinfy: Say parked in the Boston harbor. dtemkin: In the water??? alwinfy: Aircraft carriers are boats!! dtemkin: When I was a kid I went camping on an aircraft carrier! I threw up on it. That was fun! alwinfy: What's your final answer? dtemkin: Throw up on the aircraft carrier. innaavo: Would you rather fight 100 Raspi-sized servers, or one server-sized Raspi? dtemkin: I'd rather fight the server-sized Raspi, 'cuz the RAM wouldn't scale, and it'd just die. Like it'd come at me and just freeze. almonds: Like how an elephant-sized mouse would just explode? dtemkin: Exactly! dtemkin: I had an old computer with 256KB of RAM. It was cute. innaavo: What does SIPB stand for? Wrong answers only. dtemkin: Shush, I'm thinking. I got this. I got this. I'm thinking about a Phineas and Ferb joke for some reason. dtemkin: Servers in Platypus, Brian innaavo: Got another? dtemkin: Let's not. jmvidal: What do you think is the most integrated thing in this office? dtemkin: I think the couch is the most integrated into the space. jmvidal: This was inspired by the "most integrated" thing. psvenk: What's the mascot's name? dtemkin: Cerberus? Fuzzball.ps, that you have to convert into an EPS, then a PNG? psvenk: Right answer is the "Grumpy Fuzzball," though it's gone through a rebrand. dtemkin: It's still a PostScript file, though. innaavo: I thought you were gonna say a name like Brian... innaavo: In alphabetical order, name a SIPB member by their kerb. dtemkin: alwinfy, [skip b], colclark, dannybd, [skip e], figgis, guoj1112, [skip h], innaavo, [skip j], kenta, [skip l], [skip m], nmorgan, [skip o], psvenk, [skip q], rgabriel, [skip s], turino14, [skip u], [skip v], [skip w], [skip x], [skip y], [skip z] alwinfy: We're going through the alphabet whether you like it or not! dtemkin: golglark... psvenk: kolklark? dtemkin: olclark, there we go. innaavo: We have a special device! It's an important tool we use. dtemkin: (I blocked out till 9pm for this?) innaavo: Any idea what this is for? dtemkin: What the fuck is that? Maybe like a shelf? rgabriel: It can be used for your favorite operating system! dtemkin: A window-cleaner? bbaren: Not horribly wrong! alwinfy: This is a Ctrl-Alt-Deleter! Would you like to demonstrate? colclark: [demonstrates] dtemkin: What the fuck. Why. psvenk: To clean the windows! dtemkin: [baleful look] bbaren: A SIPB member made it at a blacksmithing class. The cord is an old Model M-style keyboard cable; it was the style of cable used before PS/2 was a thing. dtemkin: But why? bbaren: No idea. kenta: If you only have one hand, it may be useful! We've also had computers mounted in weird places, too. innaavo: What do you do if there's a leak in the office? dtemkin: The Stud? Having leaks? Never! innaavo: There's water coming down! What do you do? dtemkin: That's scary... I'd be like. Anime gasp. That type of thing. Then I'd start pinging people, and call Facilities. innaavo: Yeah, that's a good answer. bbaren: Fun fact! You're standing under the location of the previous office flood. dtemkin: [moves a bit to the left] bbaren: It was a bit over the books; all the books were destroyed. For many years afterward, we had a memorial umbrella hanging over the location, but we removed it because the dtemkin: But the stud would never flood! Never. bbaren: The flood in question was coolant, btw, for the SMR chiller. colclark: Say you're the last one out of the office, CAC is not picking up their phone, and the door isn't locking. What do? dtemkin: I sleep in here. colclark: Good answer! dtemkin: I sprawl myself under the table. alwinfy, rgabriel: There's the couch! innaavo: What's one thing you think SIPB does well? dtemkin: We fill in the gaps a lot! I think there's a lot of things MIT doesn't do well, and we do those. I think we could work on our publicity, but that's something that's hard to do. almonds: That's been mentioned the last three times. innaavo: Pick out your favorite book from the shelf! dtemkin: [picks up The C Programming Language by Kernighan and Ritchie] alwinfy: Put your left hand on the book, right hand raised. Do you swear to answer the next question to the best of your ability? dtemkin: Depends? alwinfy: Not good enough. dtemkin: Yeah fine. alwinfy: Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Students for Democratic Society? dtemkin: No????????? alwinfy: Alright yeah bbaren: [explains the SDS thing] [more redacted talk] kenta: Where is the circuit-breaker panel in the office? dtemkin: [finds the circuit-breaker behind the door] kenta [in chat]: The old story behind that question is, if a burst chilled water pipe in the ceiling starts dumping hundreds of gallons of water into the SIPB office (this actually happened), killing the power is one way to avoid electrocution. For the future, knowing how to kill the electricity might be useful in stopping an AI gone out of control. jmvidal: What do you do when Doorpi dies? dtemkin: I guess say it in the Mattermost? Also get a new one? scj643: It actually died when the manhole explosion happened earlier this year! innaavo: Will the most interesting SIPB keyholder now ask the question? alwinfy: Why do you want to be a keyholder? dtemkin: Good question! I've been meaning to get involved for ages, and I kind of never did because I get hosed quite often, but I like coming here! It's nice/chill people. I was at a committee meeting and I mentioned SIPB and one of the faculty members started gushing and it's nice to be a part of that! alwinfy: Good answer! I just said snacks. dtemkin: Real! We're out of animal crackers. innaavo: Any questions for us? dtemkin: What happens next? psvenk: We sit in a smoke-filled room and deliberate for three hours. [deliberation happens] Voting results: dtemkin: 10 for, 0 against, 0 abstain. [applause] alwinfy: Please see me after the meeting. Minutes taken by alwinfy, psvenk, innaavo, and submitted by alwinfy.