New Seti@Home Client to be Open to Other Projects 236
An anonymous reader writes "Seti@home is preparing to make a major change to their client and backend. The new system "boinc"
will be a general purpose client and accept work units from other projects (selected by the user).
This will open-up Seti@Home's millions strong user base to academic projects that cannot afford supercomputers. As boinc is an open source framework other distributed projects (think!, folding@home etc) will also be able to use it giving boinc a larger installed base than Seti@Home."
Authentification (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Authentification (Score:2)
What projects you process data packets for seems to be user selected. So, user choice is the authentication process.
I suppose there will be the SETI@home team people choosing which projects are initially offered, so that would be be the authentication initally to make sure you weren't getting shady non-academic data.
But, with that said, I don't see why we'd necessarily need to limit ourselves to academic data. I think it would be cool to use a distributed computing application for a massive render farm
Re:Authentification (Score:5, Informative)
Really all boinc does is help reduce development time for DC projects by establishing a common framework to work within. Someone could run a "Build a better Smallpox program" to build a super Bucket-O-Death (tm) and advertise it a traveling salesman NP hard app to help the girlscouts sell cookies more efficently. There are no safegaurds (AFAIK) on that type of No-NO use.
Is mankind ready for this type of supercomputer (UltraComputer? Hypercomputer?) Seti@Home already blows away all other supercomputers on the planet (I think by at least 1 order of magnitude or so I was told), now with all these different DC projects runnning under the same framework things should get interesting.
Perhaps the IETF will formalise a protocol for DC and take the next step toward a global grid processing system. Think Jabber protocol turned RFC proposal/standards track.
Re:Authentification (Score:2)
Re:Authentification (Score:2)
Where did you get this idea? I'd honestly like to know. It's very misinformed.
There are many problems for which Seti@Home distributed-style computing would be worthless. One of the major selling points of real supercomputers [psc.edu] are the interconnects between nodes. Big problems require fast interconnects [myrinet.com] so that nodes don't have to wait for data from other nodes working on other parts of the same problem. The Internet is way too slow for p
Dishonesty in SETI? (Score:2)
What, dishonest? You mean like running out of data to process, but lying to all your users and feeding them the same data over and over, while their systems burn energy by the megawatts, running useless calculations?
Re:Dishonesty in SETI? (Score:2)
Re:Dishonesty in SETI? (Score:2)
For those of you haven't heard this idiocy before, shortly after the project began, a bug in the server code caused the same 100 workunits to be sent to everyone many times over. Of course the bug arose on a weekend, while I was in Chicago for a conference, and David Anderson was on vacation
Re:Authentification (Score:2)
suggested use (Score:3, Funny)
Re:suggested use (Score:3, Funny)
Re:suggested use (Score:2)
Let calculate Pi! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Let calculate Pi! (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Let calculate Pi! (Score:3, Funny)
Oh Gawd, head hurting, can't go on... Rosebud...
Re:Let calculate Pi! (Score:4, Funny)
If by "find a repeat" you mean "find a sequence of digits that repeats itself ad infinitum", or if you mean "a non-negligible sequence of digits that repeats itself at least once", then I'm afraid you'll be out of luck no matter how many times the age of the universe you want to spend looking, since pi is irrational.
The perspicacious will have noticed the sleight of hand covered by the use of "non-negligible". I leave the selection of a more exact phrase as an exercise for the reader (who clearly has plenty of time on his hands, since he's reading slashdot...).
Re:Let calculate Pi! (Score:2, Funny)
3.141
>Repeat found. The number "1" has been repeated.
Re:Let calculate Pi! (Score:2)
The perspicacious will have noticed the sleight of hand covered by the use of "non-negligible". I leave the selection of a more exact phrase as an exercise for the reader (who clearly has plen
non-terminating, non-repeating numbers (Score:2)
Here's a sequence that is also infinitely long and is non-repeating: 1221112222111112222221111111...
It does not contain the Linux source code "number."
Re:Let calculate Pi! (Score:2)
Actually, it's not.
I am slightly puzzled by the fact that my post is modded funny. True, it is written in a semi-humourous vein, but actually it was quite serious. And there is a quite precise mathematical definition for what I slipped in as "non-negligible"; I just couldn't be bothered to go to the trouble of extending the post by a silly amount (and trying to do it in ASCII) just to make the posting mathematically sound,
Re:Let calculate Pi! (Score:2)
I'm guessing, though, that stating the position of pi to start at would take a similar amount of data to the original book/song/movie, so it wouldn't be that great a form of compression. Neat to ponder, though!
Re:Let calculate Pi! (Score:3, Funny)
#define PI 3
Re:Let calculate Pi! (Score:2)
(these people [u-tokyo.ac.jp] actually did the calculation, but don't have much to look at on their site)
Re:Let calculate Pi! (Score:2)
Re:Let calculate Pi! (Score:2)
Re:Solved it! (Score:2)
I think theres better distributed computing causes (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I think theres better distributed computing cau (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:I think theres better distributed computing cau (Score:2)
Run SETI to get it all installed on those home boxes and then run folding or similar to get real work done.
Re:I think theres better distributed computing cau (Score:2)
For example, while SETI is cool, I'm currently running ZetaGrid. For a while I was running folding, but they don't seem to be working on the screen saver as promised. Given my interests, I most want to donate my time to something related to evolution. I have tried Evolution@home, and while it does work in WINE, it's not automated enough for general use. So I'll be glad to have more choice, and to not
Re:I think theres better distributed computing cau (Score:2)
SeventeenOrBust (Score:2)
looking for numbers
Re:I think theres better distributed computing cau (Score:2, Informative)
Click here for an overview of active distributed computing projects [aspenleaf.com]. Also have a look at the lists at the bottom of the page: these are projects you donate some of your own time to, instead of spare CPU cycles (from Distributed Proofreaders [pgdp.net] to The Hunger Site [thehungersite.com]).
Further info on distributed computing: Bottomquark has reviewed [bottomquark.com] a number of projects.
Are you serious? (Score:2, Informative)
Or am I just missing the sarcasm?
Re:Are you serious? (Score:2)
Re:Are you serious? (Score:2)
1) Stanford is not public, though it receives large amounts of public money for various research activities (like its particle accelerators or its entire biomedical sciences program).
2) Yes, public universities do sometimes end up in corporate partnerships. I've heard of several cases- I think one of the UC schools has a deal with a large pharma company.
Re:Are you serious? (Score:2)
Folding is not tampering with genetics (Score:2)
Folding@Home seeks to understand the process of protein folding and look for a cure in places where proteins fold incorrectly.
Click Here For More Info [stanford.edu]
Re:I think theres better distributed computing cau (Score:2)
Simple Title (Score:2)
Do aliens run SETI@home, also?
Can I run it on my palm pilot?
Re:Simple Title (Score:2)
Probably. I think they are skewing the results so that we get a big "no, we don't exist".
Yes. If you use your palm pilot for shimming the corner of your computer, technically it would be running ON your palm pilot.
Re:Simple Title (Score:2)
No, they run STI@home. I also run a simple version of STI@home in daily conversations.
There is only one minor problem... (Score:2)
This client could have hundreds of millions of people boinking all over the world.
Imagine... the population explosion.
This could be the world's biggest cluster....
This is not the first time this mistake has been made.
I remember when FoxPro for windows was first released
with buttons that deppressed and bounced back up(Oh Wow).
Their (Fox Software (not yet M$)). Caught onto this
boinking the buttons theme. When they did their first
demo
Re:There is only one minor problem... (Score:3, Funny)
--------
The fake Gzip Christ isn't not user number ~0xA6CA7
Re:There is only one minor problem... (Score:2)
Re:There is only one minor problem... (Score:2)
Re:There is only one minor problem... (Score:2)
Time == money (Score:3, Insightful)
Is the cost of power that you use while you are running these programs tax-deductible?
Doing something out of the goodness of your heart is awfully sweet. Getting the government to lower your taxes because of it is sweeter.
Re:Time == money (Score:2)
Re:Time == money (Score:2)
Intelligent life? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Intelligent life? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Intelligent life? (Score:2)
Re:Intelligent life? (Score:2)
Google client makes system slow? (Score:2)
Re:Google client makes system slow? (Score:2)
What do you mean, even Mozilla? From m-w [m-w.com]:
Main Entry: slowasallhell
Pronounciation: sla:h'heall
Function: adverb
Etymology: English, spoofed from Japanese.
Date: 21st century
1 : Mozilla
License review, not Free Software or OpenSource (Score:3, Informative)
2.1. The Initial Developer Grant.
Subject to the restrictions on commercial use set forth below, the Initial Developer hereby grants You a world-wide, Royalty-free, non-exclusive license, subject to third party intellectual property claims:
(a) to use, reproduce, modify, display, perform, sublicense and distribute the Original Code (or portions thereof) with or without Modifications, or as part of a Larger Work, provided, however, that You are not permitted under said license to create, sell, or distribute commercial products based on the Source Code;
So, without permission to sell it or to sell derived works, it's not Free Software, or OpenSource.
(this is important, because it means you can't integrate the code into existing commercial software, and it's incompatible with the GNU GPL, so you can't integrate this code into the majority of the software packages that come with a distro)
Re:License review, not Free Software or OpenSource (Score:5, Informative)
Re:License review, not Free Software or OpenSource (Score:2)
I really do not like United Devices. The last time I checked, their distributed computing services only ran on x86 machines under Windows, and they did not specify if they were compatible with AMD chips (Intel is a major contributor). No Linux, no OS X, forget it...
Just had to say it (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Just had to say it (Score:2)
For those who don't get it [amazon.com], you should be ashamed!
Re:Just had to say it (Score:2)
Is it Skynet yet? (Score:3, Funny)
Optimizations? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Optimizations? (Score:2)
Re:Optimizations? (Score:2)
A Better Way (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:A Better Way (Score:2)
Re:A Better Way (Score:2)
Support a good cause (Score:2, Interesting)
But to really make it that much better you could sign up using my name and team number and help me crush the competition and fold the most protiens. Just install Folding@Home and use Screen Name: PRIME1 & Team#: 2630
If you are already using it from Google and just running the default setting make the change today. You will feel better knowing you helped out a good cause.
You can check my team st [stanford.edu]
Re:Support a good cause (Score:2)
This is not good for SETI (Score:2, Insightful)
SETI has to fight and claw
Re:This is not good for SETI (Score:2)
Re:Support a good cause (Score:2)
I'm very curious about how and why you think these two are related. If you'd actually read the papers that have resulted from this project, you'd find that they're doing really interesting theoretical work that bears little relation to human disease. It's worthy research, but the link to curing Alzheimer's or BSE is tenuous at best - it just makes it seem more relevant.
I do agree it's a more useful appl
So basically... (Score:3, Insightful)
but the important question... (Score:2)
Re:Security of Open Source (Score:2)
If result verification is cheap, you can just do that. In some projects, cheating doesn't matter. (For example, distributed evolution environments, where cheating won't help because the organisms will still be unfit.) If it does matter, you can send out multiple units.
Palladium can help by requiring signed binaries, but even that's not foolproof - what about a dodgy processor or memory?
noooo my stats! (Score:3, Interesting)
What will happen to my workunit totals?
BOINC keeps track of your computer's work in terms of actual computation, not workunits. This is necessary because BOINC projects may have workunits of many different "sizes". Because of this change, all SETI@home/BOINC accounts will start with zero credit.
So after 4 years of building my seti@home stats I will be starting from scratch! I guess now is the time to upgrade my equipment so I can get a jump on the competition :)
A little late to the party... (Score:3, Interesting)
But didn't we all launch general purpose distributed computing frameworks about... 5-6 years ago? SETI's mastery of the press aside, I'm pretty sure we all stopped playing this game and started using the standards a year or so ago.
So that battle is long over. OGSA also known as "web services" or GRID or [10 other things] won in case you missed it. Every major company on Earth is using the standards already. Python, Perl,
BOINC is late to the party, in fact they completely missed it.
Re:A little late to the party... (Score:2)
Re:A little late to the party... (Score:2)
Back when I was running d.net (which I made a generic framework too actually) we offered SETI and dozens of other projects that framework code, but they all turned it down and wrote their own from scratch complete with old bugs.
It's all about keeping users from leaving when the next project comes along. About NOT having a menu where people
BOINC good; SETI@Home Bad (Score:4, Interesting)
However, the promotion of SETI@Home by anyone demonstrates they have not looked at the problem in detail.
There is reasonably extensive documentation on the probable intelligence of advanced civilizations (for example see papers by Dr. Anders Sandberg (here [jetpress.org]) or myself (here [aeiveos.com]). As I have pointed out at conferences and in papers the difference between an advanced civilization and the human civilization is ~10^24 Ops. The difference between a single human and and a nematode worm is ~10^15 Ops. We don't talk to worms and advanced civilizations don't talk to us!
Furthermore the entire SETI effort does not take into account the information content of an advanced civilization. By my estimates this is of the order of 10^50 bits (probably more). One cannot communicate even an extremely small fraction of that information content across interstellar space using radio waves. They simply lack the information carrying capacity. So the SETI Institute [seti.org], Drake, Tarter, Shostak, et al have sold millions of computer users (as well as Paul Allen) a "bill of goods" without having done their fundamental homework on the limits of evolution of civilizations. Why on earth would one attempt to communicate with a civilization that is fundamentally less sophisticated than a nematode worm and with whom it is impossible to exchange a significant amount of information that one has at ones disposal?
In contrast Marvin Minsky (probably one of the leading AI experts in the world) and Freeman Dyson (a brilliant mathematician/physicist who should have won a Nobel Prize for his contribution to the Tomonaga/Schwinger/Feynman contribution to quantum electrodynamics were it not for the Prize limits of 3 individuals) had this worked out in 1971 at the conference between Russian and foreign scientists at the Byurakan Astrophysical Observatory. Direct quote from the proceedings edited by Sagan:
MINSKY: Since radiation at any temperature above 3 deg. K is wasteful and a squandering of natural resources, the higher the civilization, the lower the infrared radiation. We should look for extended sources of 4 deg. K radiation. There should be very few natural such sources.
DYSON: I don't quite go along with this but to some extent you are right.
Minsky obtaining a concession from Dyson is significant. It has been ignored by the "radio waves from aliens" camp. They *will not* be trying to talk to us. But we *might* be able to observe them in the IR detection region. (Unfortunately IR detection is difficult to do from ground based telescopes.)
So the bottom line -- reallocate your spare computer resources to projects like folding [stanford.edu] or in the future to Nano@Home [nanoathome.org]. SETI@Home is never going to succeed. It is based on outdated fantasies. Telescopes like the failed WIRE mission or the recently launched SIRTF *may* be able to detect alien civilizations but efforts such as SETI@Home are pointless until such time as the supporters make the case that advanced civilizations would want to waste their time communicating with sub-worm civilizations.
Robert
Re:BOINC good; SETI@Home Bad (Score:2)
but the point is not to communicate by any means(heck, of course it would take thousands of years for one way message anyways) but just prove it's existence.
proving such a thing with reasonable certainity would also prove quite a number of other things(were not alone in the universe, other systems have suitable habitat for life as well, of course, it would ruin quite number of belief systems, religions. and hopefully for once and for all turn back a bit of superstition).
howe
Re:BOINC good; SETI@Home Bad (Score:2)
Charley Lineweaver -- a card carrying astrophysicist from New Zealand has estimated that approximately 70% of the "Earths" in the galaxy are older th
"We don't talk to worms..." (Score:3, Insightful)
Atleast not on our level.
Trying to explain 10th grade algebra to a worm might be somewhat pointless. But.... we CAN indeed communicate with them at the level in which **they communicate amongst themselves.**
We can trick them into thinking it is time to reproduce (thru pheramones), lead them to food by leaving a chemical trail, ect. This is the level of communication that they are capable of. We understand it, we can replicate it (maybe not perfectly because we lack
Re:"We don't talk to worms..." (Score:2)
Alterior Motives? (Score:2, Informative)
nano@home proposal [aeiveos.com]
Re:Alterior Motives? (Score:2)
But since at the rate Nano@Home has been developing it may be several more years before there is something the average individual can use, my current interests can be considered somewhat more altruistic. I run Folding@Home on my Linux machine and regularly promote becoming involved in F@H to others.
I support the BOINC work because it may allow users to tune the allocation of their spare CPU cycles to some combination of what may best benefit humanity. For me
Advanced Civs. NOT ALWAYS Advanced (Score:2)
But consider than any signals we receive will most likely be millions/thousands of years old already, originating from a state of the sending civilization that predates the present. At one time they may have attempted in vain to communicate with extraterrestrial civilizations them
SETI not so bad. (Score:2)
There are a number of problems here.
First, ultimately you're guessing. We just don't know because extra-terrestrial life hasn't wandered by to say hello. Comparing guesses against each other is a risky activity and not pr
Re:SETI not so bad. (Score:2)
Ca-ca. I'm completely willing to allow for the fact that the Earth is infested with a nanoscale ET lifeform that we haven't bothered to look for. We could easily be under observation on a continual basis (on-world or off-world) but be completely unable to verify that. The majority of the current SETI searches depend on the fact that advanced civilizations are going to "talk" to worms. T
The germ of an Idea (Score:2)
A. Cheaper-than-free software that you actually get paid to use!
How about if someone with money to invest in a project, paid broadband users to run the project's own custom Linux distribution which would incorporate their project's client software? The client would run from a non-privileged account in user space, and the inherent features of Linux itself should provide sufficient protection for all but the most terminally stupid users. Obviously, payment to users w
Should make it easier to find aliens (Score:2)
A better idea to end global warming (Score:2)
Re:A better idea to end global warming (Score:2)
Re:Last time I run SETI@home (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Last time I run SETI@home (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Last time I run SETI@home (Score:2)
Every bit counts. We can't eliminate energy waste or pollution, but we should atleast try to minimize it.
Re:Last time I run SETI@home (Score:2)
In contrast, my car has only added 2.7 tons of CO2 to the atmosphere in more than two years. Admittedly I live fairly close to work,
Re:Finally... (Score:2)
The preferred model in BOINC is actually multiprocessed (i.e. working on two workunits simultaneously) rather than multithreaded (running multiple process threads on a single workunit) because it's easier to divide resources among projects that way.