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MeetingMinutes2020

Meeting Minutes

2020

2020-12-21

• Price of bitcoin $22630 USD/BTC
• Discussed changes coming to new group chats
• Talked about the upcoming end of CentOS 8 and it's upcoming alternatives
• https://www.microstrategy.com/en/company/company-videos/microstrategy-announces-over-1b-in-total-bitcoin-purchases-in-2020
• Talked about PC power supply testers
• Discussed the issues with the various Android Mumble apps
• Talked about the energy density of gasoline vs lithium ion batteries.
• Looked at S4fe coin: https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/s4fe/
• Discussed XYO. https://xyo.network/
• Talked about Helium and this odd miner for it: https://www.calchipconnect.com/products/rak-hotspot-miner

2020-11-16

• Price of bitcoin $16750 USD/BTC
• Discussed the bitcoin cash (BSV) hard fork.
• Coinbase temporarily suspended bitcoin cash transactions until after the fork stabilized. Link to announcement on Twitter
• Website for keeping track of bitcoin forks.https://coin.dance/
• PayPal launches service to buy and sell cryptocurrencies. (bitcoin, bitcoin cash and ethereum)
• Silk road bitcoins are on the move. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/nov/04/silk-road-bitcoins-worth-1bn-change-hands-after-seven-years
• Bitcoin paper wallet worth $100 hidden in Halloween candy bucket. https://cointelegraph.com/news/i-got-bitcoin-trick-or-treaters-rewarded-with-crypto
• Looked at wooden watches on https://openbazaar.com/
• Discussed Covid-19 hospitalization rates and death rates.

2020-10-19

• Price of bitcoin $11720 USD/BTC
• Discussed circuit breakers, fuse boxes and plumbing in old houses.
• Gave a general description of the blockchain and discussed block size limitations.
• Tested our new Bitcoin node running on our new server.
• Talked about Python and ways to learn it including online courses.
• Discussed the server needs of video streaming services.
• Looked at a Linux distro that try's to be a Windows 10 clone : http://www.linuxfx.org/

2020-09-21

• Price of Bitcoin $10450 USD/BTC
• This meeting was missed. No notification was sent out about the meeting.

2020-08-17

• Price of Bitcoin $12375 USD/BTC
• Apparently John McAfee has a dear John advice colum, and he's still as crazy as ever..
• Had an interesting discussion about the Chernobyl disaster.
• Discussed radiotrophic fungus discovered at Chernobyl.
• Talked about the upcoming fork in Bitcoin Cash (BCH)
• Had a fun discussion about the Mandela effect.

2020-07-20

• Met online via Mumble on our server
• Price of Bitcoin $9179 USD/BTC (down about $500 compared to last month)
• Next meeting date set for August 17^th, 2020 (virtually via Mumble)
• Discussed that Millions of Home Wi-Fi Routers are Likely Vulnerable to Unpatched Linux Security Exploits which is a concern
• Briefly talked about the Boeing 737 Max 8
• Briefly talked about the Mikrotik router and its Linux-based RouterOS
• Mentioned a story that Millions of Home Wi-Fi Routers are Likely Vulnerable to Unpatched Linux Security Exploits
  so new firmware should be loaded, if available
• Mentioned that John McCafee promises to "eat his d!ck" if Bitcoin doesn't hit a price of $500,000 by the end of the year.
  There's a countdown page for this
• Briefly talked about Microsoft releasing Defender ATP (Advanced Threat Protection) for Linux
  (i.e. antivirus/antimalware for Linux servers)
• Briefly discussed Bottleneck for US Coronavirus Response: The Fax Machine
• Mentioned a story about Broken Heart Syndrome' Has Increased During COVID-19 Pandemic, Small Study Suggests
  i.e. heart attack symptoms caused by isolation and stresses during the COVID-19 pandemic
• Discussed people having Warning of Serious Brain Disorders in People With Mild Coronavirus Symptoms
  i.e. neurological symptoms caused by COVID-19 without much if any physical symptoms
• Discussed With Morgues Brimming, Texas and Arizona Turn to Refrigerator Trucks
  similar to what happened in New York during the worst of the first wave of the pandemic
• Mentioned a story about Why DIY Magic Mushroom Growers are Gathering in an Uncle Ben’s Rice Subreddit
  People are growing their own "magic mushrooms" for low-level self-medicating doses for PTSD, anxiety, depression
• Mentioned that California Investigating Google For Potential Antitrust Violations,
  along with 48 other states (California was the latest/last to join so far)
• Mentioned a story that Signal's New PIN Feature Worries Cybersecurity Experts;
  Signal Private Messenger is changing a few things and storing contact information at the server, protected by PIN

2020-06-22

• Met online via Mumble on our server
• Price of Bitcoin $9677 USD/BTC
• Discussed the list of tasks we do to run Lidmug
• Lots of discussion of server administration
• Discussed Ubuntu Snap image use
• Discussed plan of merging Bind9 zone files to put db.lists.lidmug.net -> db.lidmug.net
• Discussed the halving of Bitcoin rewards and Bitcoin mining difficulty dropping 6% as a result
• Discussed Nginx Proxy Manager for setting up Lets Encrypt certificates
• Discussed NSA warnings about Russian hackers exploiting an old Exim vulnerability
• Discussed Cell-Tower Attacks By Idiots Who Claim 5G Spreads COVID-19 Reportedly Hit US
  (previously this was happening for some time in the UK)
• Discussed PayPal and Venmo planning to get into direct cryptocurrency sales
• Examined pictures of the iceberg that sank the Titanic as well as how deep the submerged portion of an iceberg typically is
• Discussed possible licensing changes coming in Qt due to financial impacts from COVID-19
• A member mentioned "Unchromium", i.e. the Ungoogled Chromium browser which removes the dependency on Google web services

2020-05-18

• Met online via Mumble on our server
• Price of Bitcoin up to $9627 USD/BTC
• Next meeting date set for June 22^nd, 2020 (virtually via Mumble)
• Discussed migrating the Lidmug server to a new VM instance with different OS
• Discussed migration level of effort and made plans to start work
• Long discussion about server migration tasks
• Attempted shared game of Cards Against Humanity online, but found online game we used last time was taken down

2020-04-20

• Met online via Mumble on our server
• Price of Bitcoin $6895 USD/BTC on Bitfinex (up slightly from last month)
• Next meeting date set for May 18^th, 2020
• Discussed Valve's port of WINE ProtonDB
• Discussed Asthma is absent among top COVID-19 risk factors
• Discussed Regular Exercise Might Protect Against Deadly Coronavirus Complications
• Discussed Ulster County couple surprised by positive coronavirus test long after recovery
• Discussed Blood clots leave clinicians with clues about Covid-19
• Examined a document for Unicode Klingon characters
• Plan to examine Jitsi Meet for free video conferencing
• Played a game of online Cards Against Humanity at PlayingCards.io

2020-03-23

• Met online via Mumble on our server
• Price of Bitcoin down to $6578 USD/BTC on Bitfinex (up from a drop down to ~$5000 USD/BTC)
• Next meeting date set to April 20^th, 2020
• Discussed issues with central banking systems and debasing currencies
  (because of Federal Reserve plans to infuse money into the U.S. to deal with COVID-19 issues)
• Discussed One-time pads for encryption
• Discussed the Venezuela Petro a bit and the market cap of the Pedro Dollar
• Briefly looked at Bitcoin having coming in May
• Brought up the US 18-Month plan for the SARS-CoV-2 / COVID-19 outbreak -- the "shutdowns" may go on for months
• Brought up some humor for morale with "My Corona" by Chris Mann alternate link
• Discussed the various strains of SARS-CoV-2 being analyzed;
  it appears the strain affecting North America is different than elsewhere
• Brought up a story with an epidemiologist Larry Brilliant discussing SARS-CoV-2
• Numbers of people infected with SARS-CoV-2

2020-02-17

• Met at the Long Island Welcome Center on the Long Island Expressway
• Price of Bitcoin up to $9,717 USD/BTC on Bitfinex
• Next meeting date set to March 23^rd, 2020
• Several discussions about healthcare issues
  (e.g. regulatory burdens, costs, nurses acting like doctors the majority of the time)
• Discussed Bitcoin Gold Hit By 51 Percent Attacks, $72,000 In Cryptocurrency Double-Spent
• Bitcoin Cash debating funding method of developers IFP 12.5% of block rewards to developers
  (actually had reasonable discussion about the issue and it was shot down)
• Discussed Craig Wright Doesn't Have Keys To $8 Billion of Bitcoin
• One member played AI Dungeon 2 during the meeting and gave the group periodic updates on what happened
• Briefly discussed US DOJ Calls Bitcoin Mixing 'a Crime' in Arrest of Software Developer
• Briefly discussed apps for showing cell towers, AIMSICD and OpenSignal

2020-01-13

• Met at the Long Island Welcome Center on the Long Island Expressway
• Price of Bitcoin up to $8,366 USD/BTC on Bitfinex
• Next meeting date set to February 17^th, 2020
• Discussed the lawsuit for $5 Billion in Bitcoin claiming that a courier will be delivering part of the key
  required to access the Bitcoin
• Discussed the end of support for Python 2 which happened January 1^st, 2020
• Discussed some functional differences between SELinux and AppArmor
• Discussed personal stories about several filesystems: UFS, XFS, ZFS, BTRFS
• Discussed how How a Whale Crashed Bitcoin To Sub-$7,000 Overnight last month
• Discussed the warrant canary canarytail proposed standard which uses the latest Bitcoin hash as proof of freshness
• Mentioned the story Lawyers Want Quadriga CX Crypto Exchange Exec who Died Owing $190m Exhumed and Autopsied