Minnits - 4 March 2002

Mon 04 Mar 2002 Meeting Minutes

Compsoc Exec Minnits

4 March 2002

Present

Budget

Not exactly important so we didn’t discuss it much. Alexis Birkhill to meet Chris Fanning on Wednesday to fill out the forms. Alexis Birkhill to bring the list of items which are being (rather optimistically)claimed for.

Gamesoc

A few friendlies were played on Friday night against Edinburgh Gamesoc. They seemed willing to play Half-life, especially Counterstrike, and in future Starcraft, for which we should not require keys to play over the internet. Chris Smith to speak to them about playing some more games and perhaps trying to organise that more than three of them join in.

S7/BFL

Tom Cropper booked S7 for the appropriate dates in LIB2 and has received comfirmation of the booking.(I could look back through the Pad of Doom to seee exactly when this is, but I’m scared that something will jump out and eat my face, so I’ll assume you know when the dates were.)

BFL

As yet no confirmation of this booking, so Tom Cropper to chase up room bookings to get this. There was a suggestion that Gamesoc might be asked to attend if there was the space, and more generally that people’s friends could be invited along if signups were not full. This is a possibiliyty which will likely be discussed more fully closer to the event.

Gaming H: Drive

We are running out of space on this drive. This is not a huge issue at the moment, but will become so if/when we want to add stuff to the drive. The point was raised that the single player elements of the various games on the drive could be deleted. Other options considered to free up a little space were that Quake and Doom could be moved to Molotov, and that Starcraft could be zipped. If any Compsoc members wanted other stuff put on the drive, it would have to first be demonstrated that it worked.

I10

There was some short, general discussion about this, and it was essentially decided that although this was not a society event, those people from the society who were going should feel free to get together and organise themselves as to what they were doing.

Molotov

Quotas have now been fixed, hurrah for Phil Stoneman on this. PostgreSQL has similarly been dealt with, likewise hurrah for Phil. PHP to be upgraded by Phil Stoneman to deal with the security issues flagged earlier in the week. There was some dissatisfaction amongst the membership about the small size of the new (-ly enforced) quotas and there was limited to discussion about rasing the quota to 20 or 30MB. Henry Southgate to speak to Lionfish about this.

Passwords/Security

There followed a long discussion of which I understood essentially zip, but the main points were that the ATOMS (or whatever) password was apparently readable by anyone with an account on Molotov, and that root access might have been possible for those that shouldn’t have it. Henry Southgate to speak to Matt Bergin abut this. Phil Stoneman was claimed to have said that Molotov was “mind-bogglingly insecure” or words to that effect. Hence Phil Stoneman should try to deal with this, the sooner the better. It was also decided that the ATOMS password needed changing at some point, although not right away. Henry Southgate to list everything on the ATOMS password. There was a further general statement that perhaps passwords should be changed annually to prevent excessive shenanigans and make them more difficult to remember. The use of SU-tabs was raised but it was decided that on the whole these would be a bad idea. (My general cluelessness about this conversation is highlighted by the fact that I have absoutely no idea what SU-tabs are, or how to spell them. But I figure those in the know will be able to figure it out.)

Socials

It was decided in principle that there whould be a bowling social in term 3 at that there shouls also be a BBQ at the end of term 3.

Academia

Revision guides

There was a positive response from Professor Rowland Wilson that revision guides would be a good idea provided that we liased with the SSLC and the lecturer concerned. Revision guides would be good for a variety of first-year courses, particularly SML. Phil Stoneman was mooted as a good candidate for writing this, if he has any time with all the other stuff already assigned to him.

Linux User Group

There was some suggestion that this would not be directly associated with the society in order not to discourage certain people. A Coventry LUG has been discovered but has been decreed lame and will be ignored. Dave de la Motte to mail the relevant party about any hints or tips for starting such a group.

Open Source Project

NuExec to continue to think about new and ingenious ideas for next year’s OSP.

Wow! And that’s the end of my first minnits for this hopefully prosperous year. If anybody has any comments or questions, either mail me direct or the mailing list I will be sure to studiously ignore them.

Thought for the Day

Today’s greatest labour-saving device is tomorrow.