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Say Hello to the Bigger, Faster, Stronger DSAC!

September 2, 2007

It's true. Now there are not five, but SIX members of DSAC for your pizza-purveying pleasure. They can also do such things as FingerOfDoom you if your perl script gets out of hand, or let you know exactly what they think of the classes you're planning on taking.
So keep your eye on this spot for info on the next DSAC pizza party - coming soon to a Zoo near you!

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Blue-Booking Party!

January 18, 2007

DSAC Presents: Bluebook/Pizza Party!
Thursday, January 18th, 7pm
AKW, 2nd Floor Atrium

Come eat delicious free pizza and discuss what CS courses you're planning to
take! If you can't get into AKW call the open zoo phone at 2-2169.

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JZW fixed... again!

November 30, 2006

JZW was coughing up incomplete lists of people to stalk due to the fact that rusers halts if one of the hosts it's fed is down. In order to restore you to Full Creepiness Capacity, jzw has been fixed to run rusers on <i>each</i> host separately. This gets rid of the pesky incomplete results problem, but takes a bit longer to run.
It's ok though, it just means that your stalkees have a bit longer to run.

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New Palmrests Are Missing!

October 30, 2006

Come on, people, it's been less than two weeks and we're already missing about four palmrests (assuming that the Windows boxes along the back wall never had them). That's not ok. So if you see someone shadily making off with one, give them a stern look and shake a finger at them. If you're one of the culprits, please replace the pilfered palmrests - these need to last for a very long time.
Seriously, if you need one that much, you can afford to spend $10 on it: <a href="http://catalog.belkin.com/IWCatProductPage.process?Product_Id=22483">grab one here</a>.

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New Palmrests!

October 17, 2006

Hoorah! New palmrests for all! Now those of us who live in the zoo can escape carpal tunnel syndrome for a while longer!
These new palmrests are far better (and more numerous) than the old, filthy, granite-constructed ones, and can be used as pillows, heating pads, and even for their intended purpose: keeping litigious thoughts out of your mind while being injured by Yale facilities.
Please refrain from smearing food on them, throwing them out the window, or engaging in PRT (PalmRest Trafficking), as such things are generally frowned upon.

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New DSAC members!

Whenever the hell school started

Please welcome your new overlor-- er, DSAC members, Tim McDermott (SM '08), Alex Thompson (MC '08), and John Starks (SY '07). In addition, we have two returning DSACers, Jo Balme (TC '07) and Nick Piepmeier (ES '07).
Expect all sorts of fun things from them, such as pizza parties on CS323 and CS223 due dates, and the return of lo-fi gaming nights.

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Pirates!

January 27, 2006

Dear Zoo people,
It seems that we're in the midst of pirates. Not the cool, swashbuckly ones, or even the nerdy, typically Eastern European ones with cool handles like <a href="http://catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/W/warez-d00dz.html">RAZOR</a> - I'm talking about mouse-thieving scalawags.
That's right - just yesterday, somebody made off with Giraffe's mouse. Needless to say, Giraffe is hysterical. It may never fully recover. Moreover, if people keep yoinking things from the Zoo, they won't be in the Zoo anymore. And then they probably won't get replaced, since then they'd just get stolen again, right?
So if y'all don't want to be forced into life without X11 (or at least life with a lame keyboard-based mouse control scheme), please don't be the lame kind of pirate.

Oh, and Giraffe wanted me to tell you guys that it has a very sharp razor. And this time it's personal.

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Network Security Survey

January 25, 2006

NEW! There [was] a survey up regarding the possibility of a network security class in the CS department HERE. Please take the time to fill it out - if all goes well, we may have a cool new class next semester!

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Login Problems

January 16, 2006

If your zoo machine hangs on login or logout, you've probably maxed out your memory allocation. If you can login, type "quota" in the terminal to see how much memory you've used. Try emptying your Firefox cache. If you still need more space, contact dsac@zoo.cs.yale.edu. suckas.

love,
DSAC

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Blue-Booking Party

January 6, 2006

Join DSAC for a night of blue-booking, pizza, and surprises on Wednesday, 1/11/06.

love,
DSAC

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Printer fixed

November 12, 2005

Somebody put shiny paper in the printer. That's bad for the printer. Please don't put shiny paper in the printer, or the printer and DSAC will cry. Now the printer is ok, and is trying to find whoever assaulted it. It's surprisingly nimble for a printer.

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We got mice!

October 13, 2005

"Jo" "got" us new "mice"! And a "bulletin board"!
Please feel free not to spam the bulletin board.
Course descriptions, job offers, and Chinese takeout menus welcome.

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JZW Fixed

September 30, 2005

JZW works again. Now you can creepily spy on everyone ever (in the zoo).

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Zoo Kernel Upgrade

April 6, 2005

I'll be upgrading the kernel on the Zoo machines this Friday (April 8th) at 5 PM. There shouldn't be more than 10 or 15 minutes of downtime.

Thanks,
Jim

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USB Pen/Key/Stick Drives

January 31, 2005

USB memory sticks are now automounted under /media, like CDs and floppies are. A few seconds after plugging in a USB memory stick, the filesystem will show up under either /media/usb or /media/usb-storage-xxxx (where xxxx is some serial number). Whoever is logged into the console will have full access to the filesystem.

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Firefox 1.0 location

January 28, 2005

Suse has updated their version of firefox to 1.0, so 1.0 is now the default version of firefox for zoo users.
/usr/local/bin/firefox-1.0 has been removed.

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Java 1.5 Installed

January 11, 2005

Java 1.5 has been installed under /usr/local/java-1.5 (the default java remains the version distributed with Suse 9.1).

Students who want to use the newer version of java can set their PATH to:/usr/local/java-1.5/bin:$PATH

So long, and thanks for all the fish!

May 2, 2004

As this year's DSAC prepares to say goodbye, we'd like to congratulate the winners of the DSAC election for next year:

• Anthony Di Franco (BR '05)
• Emmett Shear (DC '05)
• Reuben Grinberg (TC '05)
• James Clifton Terry (SM '05)
• Jamie Yoo (BR '06)

Have a great summer; we (well, one of us) will see you next year!

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Firefox 1.0 Installed

November 23, 2004

Firefox 1.0 is available at /usr/local/bin/firefox-1.0. The default firefox will remain the version that is distributed with Suse 9.1 Pro, so as to not create compatibility issues.

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Printer zoo1 Replaced

October 1, 2004

The printer in the open zoo (zoo1) has been replaced and is working well. Thanks for being patient. Problems with the printer should be reported to requests@cs.yale.edu and dsac@zoo.cs.yale.edu.

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Pizza Study Break

<img width="156" height="83" src="">

September 18, 2004

Tired of fixing that pointer error in your code? Interested in learning more about computer science? Have complaints or ideas about the Zoo? Want to take a crowbar to the printer, Office Space style? Just plain hungry? DSAC invites you to

<center><h2><font color="blue">Bad Kung Fu Movies /</font>
<font color="red">Pizza</font><font color="blue"> Study Break</font>
Sunday, 10:00 pm
Room 201, AKW</h2></center>

(AKW is the red brick building on 51 Prospect St., right past Becton Center. Call 2-2269 from the blue phone if you don't have access)

You may be wondering, "What is DSAC?" DSAC, the Computer Science <u>D</u>epartmental <u>S</u>tudent <u>A</u>dvisory Committee, serves as a liaison between students studying computer science and the CS department. Please feel free to send feedback about the department to us; we'll make sure to redirect it to the correct person. We also make sure that the Zoo (the lab on the 3rd floor of Arthur K. Watson on 51 Prospect St.) is a happy and functional place. So if there's a problem with the zoo or you have a suggestion about how to make it better, please email us (dsac@zoo.cs.yale.edu). Also feel free to say hello to any of us and share your ideas.

Who is "us"? We are: Jamie Yoo BR '05, Anthony Di Franco BR '05, Emmett Shear DC '05, Reuben Grinberg TC '05, James Clifton Terry SM '05.

So, what are some things DSAC is working on now?

<ol><li>Replacing defective chairs in the Zoo. Some of these chairs plain suck. Trying to pull an all-nighter in one of them sucks more.</li><li>Getting optical mice for the Zoo. We want to make sure that a dirty, skipping mouse doesn't induce you to throw out a Zoo animal in a fit of delusional rage at 6:00 am. PETA would hate on us for causing animal cruelty.</li><li>Augmenting the collection of books in the Zoo Library.</li><li>Setting up a GForge / CVS repository.</li></ol>

Think something is missing? Let us know! E-mail your suggestions, compliments, and complaints to dsac@zoo.cs.yale.edu

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Printer Replacement

September 17, 2004

Many of you have noticed recurrent problems with the printer (zoo1) in the open zoo. It is officially dead and will be replaced soon. For now, please print to zoo2 (in the closed zoo) or lw3 (near the offices on the third floor.

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Zoo File Server Upgrade

September 7, 2004

The Zoo file server will be going down for a BIOS and kernel upgrade at 11am on Thursday, September 9th. The upgrades should last no more than one half hour. Please make sure all of your work is saved.

These upgrades will improve reliability on the Zoo file server, so hopefully we will not suffer another major outage similar to last week's problems.

thanks,
Jim Faulkner
Zoo Systems Administrator

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New Zoo Webpage

September 2, 2004

The Zoo webpage is now running on PmWiki, a Wiki web-app written in php, to allow us to update it more easily. The old website is still available.

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DSAC photos available

June 2, 2004

In an effort to preserve DSAC history for the ages, we are maintaining a DSAC photo album and we have expanded the zoo library to include such classic titles as K&R and the Gilligan's Island DVD set.

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So long, and thanks for all the fish!

May 2, 2004

As this year's DSAC prepares to say goodbye, we'd like to congratulate the winners of the DSAC election for next year:

• Anthony Di Franco (BR '05)
• Emmett Shear (DC '05)
• Reuben Grinberg (TC '05)
• James Clifton Terry (SM '05)
• Jamie Yoo (BR '06)

Have a great summer; we (well, one of us) will see you next year!

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To declare your candidacy, please email dsac@zoo.cs.yale.edu with a candidacy statement of no longer than 50 lines. You will receive a confirmation email. Declarations of candidacy are due before midnight (i.e., 11:59) on Friday, April 23. You can find out more about DSAC here.

DSAC Elections

April 27, 2004

DSAC Elections are presently under way. Undergraduates with Zoo accounts are welcome to run the command ~/dsac/vote from any Zoo node to express their preferences for their 2004-2005 DSAC representatives. Elections close at 11:59 PM on Saturday May 1, 2004.

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DSAC Nominations

April 16, 2004

Do you get into custody disputes over your favorite zoo animal? Do you use the zoo cleaning staff as your personal alarm clock? Have you submitted to the International Obfuscated C Code Contest? Can you recite the Pledge of Allegiance in ASCII hex codes?

If so, you really should have gone to MIT.

On the other hand, if you're a friendly, social undergraduate (of any major) who has taken or is taking a computer science course numbered 223 or higher, then you should run for DSAC next year!

To declare your candidacy, please email dsac@zoo.cs.yale.edu with a candidacy statement of no longer than 50 lines. You will receive a confirmation email. Declarations of candidacy are due before midnight (i.e., 11:59) on Friday, April 23. You can find out more about DSAC here.