Minutes of the SIPB Meeting of 2021-07-12


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

In attendance were

        Student keyholders: asahteck, bds, jeffery, cjq, jnwagner, emmabat, and huydai

        Associate keyholders: kenta

        Members: agrebe, eeshan

        Guests: '()

Administrivia:

        asahteck: *slams desk* Welcome to the SIPB meeting!
        
        asahteck: In more general SIPB things, if you have been keeping up in the Mattermost, you know that I've been in progress of getting together a design of the SIPB plush. I present to you Grumpie Fuzzball. If people like them, in the future, we can do a big order of these. This particular design will be coming up with me to campus and SIPB office
        
        huydai: Aww, it's so cute. I love the annoyed expression
        
        huydai: Also, as an update on the Summer Mentorship Summit program, last week we got 2 submission from students who would like to get help with getting more involved with SIPB, though unfortunately we didn't have anyone sign up to be mentor. Would anyone here like to volunteer to help out?
        
        asahteck: Is it maybe time to coordinate some kind of a project fair or presentation? We could have the students pick a team that they are interested in and have the project leads reach out to them. 
        
        huydai: Honestly that's not a bad idea since both students mentioned that they would like to join a project but don't know where to get started / who to reach out to. 
        
        asahteck: Yeah, like we could always use more Hardware Maintainers since a lot of our current active maintainers are alumni and need people to be able to pass on knowledge. Honestly I'm really looking forward to that once we get back on campus.
        
        huydai: Same here. I really want to see the SIPB server/machine-room.
        
        asahteck: I also desire to see the Froyo-Machine again. One day my love.
        
        asahteck: But yeah, I think we should try to match people according to interest and also to projects where people are most needed. 
        
Project Reports:
        
        asahteck: Minecraft is getting a display at the MIT Museum soon. We are filiming stuff for the new exhibit, and they are always looking for SIPB artifacts and other SIPB history of computing things  to add to their gallery. If you are interested in helping add to the SIPB / history of computing things, hit me up and I connect you to Debbie Douglas who are always looking for excited students to be hooked onto e-mail chains.
        
        asahteck: Anything else for project reports? Going once, going twice, sold to "Other!"

Other:

        huydai: There was a vulnerability that came out this month from Microsoft relating to the Print Spooler service named PrintNightmare. The vulnerability appearently affects all versions of Windows, though the exploit seems to be more applicable to Windows Servers. An attacker could theoretically use this weakness to get arbitary code execution with system privileges. Microsoft has put out a patch for this, though the update was really rushed and so it ended up bricking services with a lot of printers, and they are still trying to cover all versions of Windows for this.
        
        asahteck: Apparently MIT is relaxing their mask mandates, except for where masks are mandated by Massachussetts Law by Juy 20th. Yay for reopening life, and also hoping that things will be better. I've also heard that housings are a mess, having seen things on the Dormchat chat. 
        
        emmabat: Poor Dormcon. 
        
        asahteck: Rip to everyone on the waitlist. I'm also looking foward to meet more people soon. I've met like 4 people this summer outside of my household and SIPB
        
        emmabat: Also, GPUs are, at least for the time being, at least back to near normal market prices if anyone was planning, like me, to build a computer.
        
        asahteck: Is it because China put that ban thing on Bitcoin / cryptocurrency?
        
        emmabat: I also think it's because cryptocurrency hasn't been doing as well due to the influx of used mining rigs. I think graphic cards are by no means cheap, but they've re-normalized to actual market prices. I was just looking on the internet and noticed that this was the case.
        
        huydai: So you say the prices have gone down, but is there actual stock of GPUs / can you actually get GPUs at that price?
        
        emmabat: Oh yeah, I bought a 2060 on Saturday for like $600. Now I think they ship from Hong Kong so it might take the end of the month to arrive.
        
        huydai: That's still a lot better than getting a 1660 Super for like $600
        
        emmabat: Right, not cheap! but market price. I think there were some 3070s that were in stock but they are very expensive still.

Other Other:

        emmabat: Despite all attempts of the weather, on the contrary, MIT did not flood and is still standing.
        
        asahteck: That's very good. I mean at one point MIT was under water and it did not exist and was a bog.


The meeting was adjourned at 19:40.

        Minutes taken and submitted by huydai.