Minutes of the April 22, 1996 Board Meeting

Apr 27 16:38 UTC 1996

Minutes of the Meeting of the board of Cyberspace Communications
Held on Monday, April 22, 1996 in the Cafeteria of ITI, on Hubbard Road

1. The meeting was called to order at 7:37 PM

Board Members present: 
Scott Helmke (scott), President
Mark Conger (aruba), Treasurer
Steve Weiss (srw), Secretary
Valerie Mates (popcorn)
Misti Anslin (mta)
Rob Henderson (robh)
Steve Gibbard (scg)

Others present:
Rob Argy (ajax)
Corey Rydholm (laotzu)
STeve Andre' (steve)
Arnold Barr (adbarr)

2. Treasurer's Report

Mark reported income of $1893 in March, and expenses of $1775,
and indicated that so far, April has been a slow month for donations,
totaling only $195.50.

3. 501(C)(3) Committee Report

Mark reported no progress

4. Computer Rehabilitation Committee report

Also no progress. Arnold said that an ALPS printer is available from HVCN.

5. Publicity Committee Report

Misti reported no progress.

We discussed possible future approaches to local publicity by using press 
releases, taking note of how HVCN is successful in this manner.

6. Technical Committee Report

* We lost a memory board. It was the one that had failed last year, and Greg 
  had "fixed". We dropped down to 96MB from 128, and dropped the ptys from 
  64 to 48.  The board had just been restored, by using a board from "gramps",
  the old sun-3, and so we are back to 128M and ptys were restored back to 60,
  but not 64.
  
* One of our 2400 modems has stopped functioning. It has either died or need
  reprogramming. Scott wants to take a look at it, and will get a chance in a 
  week or so.
  
* There is a software problem which causes telnetd processes to accumulate.

* We had several crashes. One was caused by the OS leaking m blocks. After 
  two solid weeks of uptime the system failed because it had run out.
  We may need to reboot every week or so to avoid this problems.
  The other crashes were caused by the flaky memory, prior to our recognizing
  that fact, and removing it from service.
  
* Marcus is working on helping the MSN people understand what they need to do 
  to fix their firewall. Mail from the Microsoft Network is running afoul
  of some firewall problems at MSN.
  
* We need to install and test out Marcus's new telnetd. It has logic to 
  implement a wait queue when the max has been reached of users connecting
  over the internet. 
  
* We're still looking for new modems that can support "dumb mode". The batch 
  we bought are a newer model than we realized, and do not support it.
  The ones we want are hard to find. We're calling around still.
  
  If we cannot find them, these are our options:
  (1) buy them used
  (2) buy Motorola modems
  (3) Get phones that won't dial out. 
  
  Scott may be able to swap some modems.
  
* Installation of the two new phone lines that we ordered to extend the hunt 
  group went badly. 
  
  The installer said on Saturday that they did not have enough copper in the 
  cable. On Monday it was installed, but Ameritech added them to the hunt even
  though we weren't ready. this caused some open ringing situations until it 
  was resolved.
  
* Switching from 7-E-1 to 8-N-1 is waiting for the terminal server to be 
  usable.

* Hierarchical home directories will speed up directory searches of /home, 
  but its implementation is waiting for mdw's broken hard disk to be repaired 
  or replaced by the manufacturer. We need a note in the motd to warn users 
  that this change will be coming.

* There was a patch released for the Apache web server 1.0.3 by the Apache 
  group. We have applied it.
  
* A new pine/pico/pilot has been installed as newpine and newpico (and pilot).
  If there are no problems reported, it will replace the current one soon.

10. Newsletter Report

Misti reported that we have been getting requests for the newsletter, despite 
the fact that no one has volunteered to write stories.

11. Auction Committee

Valerie and Rob (H) reported no progress so far, but that they expected 
things to get started shortly.

12. Coop FW Policy

The board did not agree to take any action on this question.

13. The Communications Decency Act - 

Pending a decision on the validity of this legislation from the courts, and
in light  of the Government's stated lack of intention to prosecute while the 
case is being decided, there is no board business to conduct on this question.

We are following the proceedings of the court case on line.

14. New business.

* Although no formal action was taken, it was the sense of the board to 
  appreciate the following:

  (1)  Thanks for bringing the chocolate-chip cake to the board meeting.
       (I believe it was Arnold who brought the cake.)
  
  (2) Thanks to HVCN, and Arnold in particular, for involving us in the 
      Logon @ the Library night at the AADL.

  (3) Thanks to srw for giving up his birthday to be there.
  
* Robh announced that the intro conference is set up and working.

15. The meeting was adjourned, but I failed to note the exact time.
    I believe it was shortly before 9:30.
    
    Respectfully submitted,
    Steve Weiss (srw@cyberspace.org), Secretary

response 2 of 33:

Apr 28 07:14 UTC 1996

Ah, if only birthdays could be wished away so easily.
No I'm 33 now.

response 4 of 33:

Apr 28 16:46 UTC 1996

The big birthday for me was 3 years ago when I turned 30.
2F sounds so much younger.

response 6 of 33:

Apr 28 22:36 UTC 1996

SRW must be the only 33 year old in the country with a son in college!
He must have been a stud as a teenager to be such a young father! hehe

response 8 of 33:

Apr 29 02:41 UTC 1996

(You're assuming base 10, kerouac.)

response 10 of 33:

Apr 29 10:59 UTC 1996

And I'm still a teenager in that system.

response 12 of 33:

Apr 29 17:58 UTC 1996

Yeah, but how am I going to explain to non-techies that I'm
1b years old?

response 14 of 33:

Apr 29 21:34 UTC 1996

Rob is only 16?  (Depending on your font ...)

response 16 of 33:

Apr 29 22:49 UTC 1996

I like hexadecimal.  People would enter their teens at the old-system age of
16.  That's about right.  They'd stay teenage until (old-system) 32.  So Rob,
instead of having to worry about creaping up on 30, is a mere beamish boy of
B-teen.  (Pundits, don't you dare touch that one.)

response 18 of 33:

Apr 30 04:46 UTC 1996

the minutes must have been really boring this month.

response 20 of 33:

Apr 30 09:35 UTC 1996

Minutes? Geeze, I thought you were all talking in terms of years.

response 22 of 33:

Apr 30 10:14 UTC 1996

Why stop with minutes?  Go for nanoseconds!

response 24 of 33:

Apr 30 15:07 UTC 1996

and that changes every 00111100 seconds =}