Minnits - 8th December 2000

Compsoc Exec Minnits

8th December 2000

Attended

• Mike Squire
• Chris Salmon
• Phil Ross
• Jake Staines
• Chris Smith
• Ryan Cullen

Contents

• Console Soc
• ITS Inspection
• CS Ladder
• CS Remote Access
• Switch
• PC Format
• Refresher’s Fayre
• Science Ball
• Website/Books
• Java Workshop
• Events Next Term
• Meeting Times
• Publicity
• OSP
• ITS Userspace
• Next Meeting

1. Console Soc

We have now emailed the ‘Computer Console Society’ twice - once to their ‘Yahoo’ account, and once to the ITS account of the president. If we get no response from either by the time of our first meeting next term, then we will have to go to the Onion and see what we can get done /without/ their cooperation.

2. ITS Inspection

“/We all like a little munchie in the evening/” - Chris Smith
After the ITS inspection last week, a few points were raised:

• Food and Drink is banned form the rooms - we will have to remind everyone and warn that people found making amess with food and drink may be suspended from Compsoc events.
• Keeping the Door Shut - we will have to try and remember to close the door when everyone has got in. The door is a fire door, so should be kept shut, so we can all be incinerated in the event of a fire. However, it is difficult to actually get the door to shut properly, and is often propped open anyway - so we will have to settle for pushing it to when it is wide open.

3. CS Ladder

There is a lot of interest, after the successful CS Tourney a couple of weeks ago, in the running of an ongoing CS Ladder. This would, however, have several downsides:

• We would need a second dedicated server whenever two teams wished to play - one for the Ladder game, and one for the general gaming.
• We would only be able to have one ladder game going at any one time.
• We would need to find someone to undertake the running of the Ladder, arbitration of team arguments, etc.
• We would need a formal set of rules to govern the Ladder.
  Jake to mention in the next newsletter - at the beginning of next term - that we are looking for someone to run a Ladder, and if anyone is interested - and feels capable of perhaps missing a bit of gaming time to administer the Ladder, and ready to turn up regularly to Friday night CS gaming sessions - to contact the exec, with a set of rules on how they would run the ladder. The we can work out the best solution.

4. CS Remote Access

“/One of them’s got Coke and Crisps in the Keyboard and the other’s monitor’s burnt out ’cause some twat put a mousemat across the top…/” - Squire
It was suggested that it may be possible to run an internet server on CS night so that members in networked residences would be able to join in the gaming sessions from their rooms, rather than having to walk all the way to ITS, also freeing seats for people who didn’t have that option. It was decided that even if it were allowed - which it isn’t - it wouldn’t be feasible since the maximum number of players in CS is 20, and a full room already takes care of that.

5. Switch

The Switch has now (finally) been ordered. Jake to take charge of it when it arrives.

6. PC Format

Ryan is suspicious that the PC Format magazines have been collecting in the post room. Ryan to EMail Future and ask if he can change the address they are sent to.

7. Refresher’s Fayre

We are on the list to take part in ReFresher’s Fayre. Everyone to mail Chris Smith with their availablity over Tuesday, Wk 1, so he can compile a Rota. Organised Git, isn’t he…

8. Science Ball

Ryan suggests that the Science Ball team are suffering from a minor lack of communication, and this is why we still haven’t seen anything official about it. Ryan tells us that everything has now been booked for the Weekend of Week /4/, not Week 3 as previously suspected.

9. Website/Books

Ryan suggested that we could get a list of books for Computer Science courses, and of general interest, and set up links to those books on Amazon. The Possibility exists also to do second-hand book exchanges, where members can put up adverts for books they are trying to sell - under the strict understanding that they bloody well take them down again when they’ve sold them. Ryan and Phil to look at it over the Christmas Break.

10. Java Workshop

Hey - guess what? Chris, our illustrious and hard-working President, has done a grand total of sod all work whatsoever for the Java Tutorials! It has no been decided that Tuesday Evening, from 4pm till 5pm would be the best time to hold them, in one of the large meeting rooms in the north Onion. However, if we start on Week 2 and continue through to Week 4 inclusive, this gives him a scant average of only 5 weeks to get his end scripted and ready! Will he make it? Will hte Java Lessons flop spectacularly? Will anyone even notice? Stay tuned to find out - don’t forget to read Week 1 Term 2’s minnits!

11. Events Next Term

All the events for the first few weeks of next term have been sorted out, and were detailed in previous minnits.

12. Meeting Times

Next term, the best (and just about the only) time we could all make it was Thursday afternoon, from 3 till 5. /Where/ is anybody’s guess.

13. Publicity

Ryan to submit our weekly gaming events to the Publicity Machine, so that they may be chewed up, twisted, turned upon themselves time and time again, minced, tangled, mixed and sorted and with any luck, fed to people who might be interested in joining the society.

14. OSP

The CDs have at last been made and distributed. Jake to try and write up some more of the stuff and send to Dave to put on website over Christmas.

15. ITS Userspace

It came to our attention last gaming session that - presmably in a bid to gain more room for some set of TA units or something - some conniving evil Ratbastard deleted Quake. The whole thing. Luckily, Jake had a CD with an install of Quake on it, and we were able to recover reasonably well, but this raises some issues over the use of the ITS gaming filespace. It needs to be made perfectly clear to the membership that the ITS userspace is ours and ours alone to fiddle with. Only the exec are authorised to add, delete, rename, move, change or laugh at files stored in the ITS gaming userspace. If members want files there, then they can ask, and we may well accomodate them but they must not change anything of their own accord. obviously we may have to meet out some hefty punishments to miscreants wh ignore this - i.e., suspending them from gaming for six billion years - but with any luck most members understood this in the first place. Jake to write a nifty installer so that people don’t have to mess around with Winfile or anything.

16. Next Meeting

Thursday, Week 11, 3pm in the Bitchtank.