Minutes of the SIPB Meeting of 01/20/2003


The meeting was called to order at 19:30:00 by golem.

In attendance were 
	Voting members: nim, golem, rax, alex_c | keithw
	Associate members: hartmans, jhawk | brlewis
	Prospectives: fustflum, harrisct | eirl
	Guests: 

Treasurer's Report:
	nim: Uh, we have a lot of money. I estimate that we should
		spend about $15k-$17k
	rax: In what time frame?
	nim: Before the end of the FY (June 2003).

Chairman's Report:
	'()

Office Report:
	keithw: I propose to allocate up to $1700 for the purpose of
		purchasing HDTV equipment previously discussed.
	<nim seconds>
	rax: So, the emails that went back and forth didn't actually
		elucidate to me what you intend to do with this
		equipment. What do you intend to do?
	keithw: The goal is to get the software and drivers in a place
		where we could actually watch HDTV under Linux; no one
		is doing that now. Once that is done, we can record
		HDTV programs, share HDTV programs, send them around
		the Internet, and whatnot. The goal is to get HDTV
		support under Linux.
	rax: So the goal is to pirate HDTV?
	keithw: Negative. SIPB respects and follows the law. I
		certainly will not be violating the law.
	hartmans: It's legit to want to watch TV on your Linux laptop.
	<brlewis enters>
	hartmans: People would like to be able to stick a DVD in their
		linux box, and tune in...with the right hardware. 
	keithw: It's basically impossible to buy a TV for under $10k
		to watch upper-end HDTV the right way. If we control
		the software, we can watch it the right way.
	<nim white-ballots; rax objects>
	rax: Will people actually implement this, or will we lame?
	keithw: I have promised to implement it.
	hartmans: I believe keithw has a fairly high chance of succeeding.
	golem: More discussion? Take as long as you want, I missed my
		deadline.
	<eirl enters>
	<5-0-2 motion passes>
	[keithw allocation: $1700 for HDTV stuff]


Office Cleaning Report:
	rax: The office actually looks pretty clean.

MIT Computing Report:
	'()

Computer Services:
	hartmans: All of our read-write data seems to be on our server
		that has RAID. This is good.
	golem: ...unless the raid controller goes down.
	hartmans: That is true.

SIPB Backup Report:
	'()

Publications Report:
	nim: tibbetts didn't get iLaTeX.
	<keithw enters>
		
Orientation Report:
	'()

IAP Report:
	nim: It's IAP and stuff.
	golem: I'm working on my thesis.

	brlewis: The BRL course: I'm going to be changing the focus
		from last year. It has been more of a tutorial where
		people do stuff themselves. I thought it would be more
		fun to do "web-development-while-you-watch," so I want
		to get people to send in things that they'd like to
		see done, to give an idea of what can be accomplished
		in two hours. I was hoping there's be some people here
		who are interested.
	keithw: I don't even know what BRL is...
	brlewis: I sent email to alien...
	keithw: Send it to sipb-office.

CokeComm Report:
	'()

Other:
	jhawk: I'd like the SIPB to think about spending ~$800 on an
		ITU standards CD. I'll make a more detailed proposal
		in the future.
	keithw: Have we tried the libraries?
	jhawk: Yes and no. Firming that up would be a prereq to the proposal.
	<eowyn enters.>

Other Other:
	'()

The meeting was adjourned at 19:36:53.


	Minutes taken and submitted by jhawk.