Team Slashdot leads SETI@Home 172
Rowag writes "Team Slashdot leads all the groups in SETI@Home data evaluation, with over 500 members and more than 6000 result packets chewed up so far. If it helps your team spirit, that's more than 2x the amount from 'Microsoft'. Those of you already signed up, let's keep those packets coming! For those that missed it before, if you've got clock cycles to spare, check it out!
" I hear there is is still a split and a redundant
Slashdot.org team- I suggest we just make this one official
so we can get more of a lead...
Re:RC5?? (Score:1)
nugget is my hero!
Silly, silly, silly. (Score:1)
>more testing before starting the project.
A completely unfair assessment. You're assuming, like a lot of posts I've seen on this topic, that the SETI@HOME project is intended to a) provide amusement and b) give Joe Random Hacker a lottery slot at immortality. WRONG.
The purpose of the project is to analyze the data, perhaps to get lucky and find evidence of intelligent life. So far, the project seems to be fulfilling the scientific requirements just fine. The clients aren't fscking up people's machines; if they fail, the worst outcome seems to be that a person doesn't get credit for the packet they let their spare CPU cycles analyze. And, dear dear, some packets are getting analyzed by more than one person! (Last I heard, before acceptance, most scientific experiments are repeated numerous times by different people. Oh, the unfair drudgery.)
Meanwhile, they are fixing reported problems, probably in the order of priority: scientific requirements first, team ranking silliness last.
If I may be permitted an opinion here: BIG WHOOP.
Get a grip, people!
Huge, expensive satellites? (Score:1)
The bottom line is, again, that SETI is privately funded and it has been for quite some time. The funding for SETI was taken away in 1993 by an amendment written by Nevada Senator Richard Byran. (And at that time, SETI funding was less than one tenth of one percent of NASA's budget!) Complaining about SETI is like complaining about Jerry Seinfeld owning dozens of Porsches. They've got the money, it's not yours, and they can do what they want with it.
Here we go again .. (Score:1)
#1.) The probability of intelligent life "evolving" (let alone more than once within the range of minimal detectable signal strength of the SETI satellites) is statistically absurd.
Elaborate. People often point out that in any advanced society, "radio will be a short-lived phenomenon", and then demonstrate that we are rapidly moving towards digital communications. This is true. These same people conclude, then, that looking for alien EM signals is a waste of time. These same people neglect to mention, however, that even if all of our communications were digital, the Earth would still be very radio-noisy; the Ballistic Missile Early Warning System (BMEWS) is detectable for well beyond a thousand light-years. Unfortunately, it doesn't appear that we can go without BMEWS just yet.
#2.) If God had created intelligent life elsewhere and there was any chance of we humans finding it, don't you think he'd have let us know?
Sigh. Let us know how? Through the Bible? This is the same book that states that the value of pi is three (see I Kings 7:23), that the entire universe is between six and eight thousand years old, and that the Earth itself is the center of the universe and does not move (witness Joshua commanding the Sun to "stand still.")
The Bible may be many things, but a science book it is not; Biblical literalists who would have people ignore science by sticking their fingers in their ears and loudly shouting "is not!!" are completely missing the boat. If you honestly believe in a God that will send you to hell for using the brains, curiosity, and common sense that you were given, well
#3.) Even if there was ETI, who says it would broadcast its existance via EM radiation?
See above. Who says that it wouldn't?
My advice:
Okay, here's some of my own:
Stop complaining. SETI's efforts are not using any of your resources, time, or tax dollars. You have absolutely no right to whine about what other people decide to do with the idle CPU cycles on their own machines. You do have the right to believe that SETI and its purpose are silly, and you can express that belief by choosing not to participate in SETI@Home.
Beyond that, why do you care? If you're right, then how has SETI@Home negatively affected you? Does it "chap your ass" (as Palmer Joss put it in Contact) that people are participating in an effort that you have some deep-seeded religious objections to?
If so, please ignore it.
Re:Team MacAddict (Score:1)
They can increase the amount of data available to process by getting a second recorder.
Team Microsoft (Score:1)
Re:Damn waste of bandwidth! (Score:1)
If you contest that their client is poorly coded, then say so and why. Otherwise, you are wasting just as much bandwidth ;-)
Re:Team MacAddict (Score:1)
____________________________________________
WebTV (Score:1)
is cheating to capture the medium size company
lead with WebTV, but that's just uninformed opinion
I am suprised! (Score:1)
Number one and ten! Hum, the numbers look good to me! Add both of those totals, and I highly doubt M$ can touch "this".
Re:rc5? (Score:1)
Re:No source code? [Conspiracy idea..] (Score:1)
So far, the only rumor that links Seti@home with numbers stations is your posting here. There hasn't been anything in the recent past on sci.astro. Care to provide any more details? (Other than random paranoia, that is.)
...phil
First place! (Score:1)
I'm running seti@home on 35 UltraSparcs, an Enterprise 3500, and a few Pentium II's. I'm afraid to find out about svinto's configuration!
Jason.
CPU Cycles for Charity (Score:1)
I can just see it now - 50% of all clock cycles wordwide will be running a distributed client for the computer owners' favorite charities.
Mark Edwards
-----------------------------------
Proof of sanity forged upon request
Things may not be as they appear (Score:2)
Indeed, there are far more people participating than there is data to be processed. The site has already announced that they are re-sending data from a two or three day period to be processed again.
This is an interesting project, and I was involved early on with the Linux client. I don't believe that the organizers had any idea of how explosive the participation was going to be. I suppose that some people may perceive that as a bad thing (from a planning point of view), but I'm encouraged by it...besides, the Windows-based application has a cool looking screen saver!
Re:Now THIS (SETI) is a waste of CPU cycles.. (Score:1)
Burning bushes are more likely to get the attention of the fire brigade.
A booming voice from the sky? ("But a booming voice from the sky is exactly what you've found, Doctor Arroway!" - from the film Contact)
Maybe he'd seed people with the inspiration of old-time explorers, driving them with a passion to listen, to search, to share that passion with others. And that is exactly what you're seeing: Carl Sagan's "Contact" (film & book). SETI@Home. The SETI League. Home-made SETI kits. A drive to share and explore, that is almost unrivalled.
My advice:
1. Don't kill SETI@Home. Kill the tamagotchi server, instead.
2. Shut off the X-Files, unless it's first or second-season episode re-runs. Those were the best. Put in a Sapphire & Steel video, instead.
3. Dip your motherboard in liquid helium, seriously overclock it, and run RC5 as an extra process.
Re:Interesting (Score:1)
"The value of a man resides in what he gives,
and not in what he is capable of receiving."
Re:Now THIS (SETI) is a waste of CPU cycles.. (Score:1)
Astronomers are finding more and more planets, all close to us. I would say the chances of there being life out there to be very good. Should I remind you that there are billions of stars out in our own galaxy alone?
Whose to say that there hasn't been signals traveling for hundreds or thousands of years and haven't yet reached us? The possibilities are endless.
X-Files is on soon.. don't want to miss it.
This is not a "collaborative computing" project. (Score:1)
Repeat, this is not a collaborative computing project. This is a scientific project that uses collaborative computing.
The point is to analyze the data, not "let as many people help as want".
Re:Things may not be as they appear (Score:1)
Re:Count me in. (Score:1)
CPU keeps my room warm now...
Sorry that you feel that way (Score:1)
Sabotaging a closed-source project like SETI or distributed.net will NOT prove your point. If you truly wish to show that distributed computing can be done in an open source manner, then the only course of action before you is to do just that.
The logical flaw in your argument is that you appear to be implying that if source were available then there would be no motivation for sabotage. This simply isn't true. There will always be malicious people intent on destruction.
For every person skilled enough to hack the binary, there are many more who would love to sabotage a project but cannot because they lack the sufficient skills to do so without source.
By raising the bar for sabotage, you restrict the set of people capable of sabotage to a group who (I would hope) are less likely to feel so motivated.
Nobody is arguing that closed-source is perfect security. If that's the point you wish to prove, then don't bother. We all know that already.
If your argument is that since some people can sabotage the project, we should just give up and allow everyone that opportunity, then I'm afraid I must disagree with that analysis.
If your argument is that it's possible to trust the work done by an open source client, then you're half-way there. All you have to do now is show us all how.
Re:Here it is (Score:2)
Interesting (Score:1)
Re:Here it is (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Re:Do you think without source that can't be done? (Score:1)
Re:Create a standard for I-net distributed computi (Score:1)
Of course, the evil spin is this, some country like China mandates or offers prizes to people who run the generic client on their PC. Then whom ever's PC is responsible for the solution (What ever it is) gets a billion Dong (Or whatever it is). Then China does not need to get super computers from the US. In 10 years, %5 or %10 of the population (A HUGH amount) will have PC's and they can tap into that big pool of spare CPU's.
Re: (Score:1)
Re:Count me in. (Score:1)
Re:ET's television signals (Score:1)
Re:Explanations - newsgroup message (Score:1)
Here is their chance to show that they can manage the project or they will fail. Who will run the client if everyone cruchs the same data blocks because they screwed up?
Do you think without source that can't be done? (Score:1)
Re:Team MacAddict (Score:1)
___________________________________________
Re:Here it is (Score:2)
I've reluctantly come to the conclusion that SETI@home's half million participants are currently being assigned the same 115 work units over and over again, all from three different sky locations collected on January 7 and 8. If anyone has seen any other work units recently -- especially from January 9 or later -- please speak up.
According to their web page, they are having problems with their "data pipeline" and that they hope to have it "fixed shortly".
Re:Here it is (Score:1)
Re:So how can I join Team Slashdot? (Score:2)
Go to their web site [berkeley.edu] and click on Groups [berkeley.edu]. Then click on clubs [berkeley.edu] and then Team Slashdot [berkeley.edu] and then Join this group [berkeley.edu].
Better yet, just click HERE [berkeley.edu]
Re:SLASHDOT MISMODERATION (Score:1)
...phil
HAHAHAHAHA (Score:1)
Re:Things may not be as they appear (Score:1)
Hey, let's reduct the MTU for all network packets to 64 bytes so computers can process them faster and more programs can bang on them!
Ever heard of overhead? Larger packets of data cut down on overhead.
I don't get the "collaboration" comment. Aren't we "collaborating" now with large packets?
wag
Re:CPU Cycles for Charity (Score:1)
Re:No source code? So what. (Score:1)
I don't buy this. Thing is that HP does not go out there and advertize that someone found exploit X or exploit Y until they have fixed it. CERT may make announcements that HP does not have a fix at this time, but I believe that HP, Sun, or any other Unix vendor knows about more exploits than CERT warns about. Just because Linux users are more "open" and admit problems right away instead of trying to keep them secret does not mean that it's less secure.
reverse solidus is right. Why do you think everyone was in an uproar over the clipper chip and it's SKIPJACK algorithm? Sure, some people were upset because of the backdoor put in there but true security people were more upset because they would not share the algorithm with the encryption community so that they could verify it's integrity. In fact, they went so far as to use a chip manufacturing process that was resistive to reverese engineering so that someone couldn't pick apart the chip and get the algorithm.
It's one thing for some people to agree with the government about key escrow but quite another for most to trust the government about the relative security of the algorithm.
What to do with 35 UltaSparcs? (Score:1)
just what would I do with that many spare boxes?
Hell... I'd Beowulf em and maybe start my AI research idea...
or... Beowulf seti?
too bad no source... wondering about a beowulf SETI@home client, could it be more efficient?
Re:Explanations - newsgroup message (Score:1)
I'm not quite sure how you test a project with 500,000 users (5x the original estimate). Even simulation won't tell you everything.
...phil
RC5?? (Score:1)
Count me in. (Score:1)
Re:Comparing platforms (Score:1)
Here's what I did:
1) Used a tool named Peek-a-Boo to make SETO@Home run och "high" CPU-usage, instead of "normal" witch seem to be standard setting for every Mac-program. I guess I put SETI@Home not to be very 'nice'.
2) I changed my monitor settings to 800x600, 16-bit
3) Made SETI@Home go to blank screen after 1 minute (shortest time available)
4) Put all SETI@Home-data on a RAM-disk. I would've put SETI@Home on the same RAM-disk if I didn't require it running from the startup-volume so it would function as a screensaver and blank the screen.
5) Started SETI@Home and quitted every other running process, inkluding the Finder, with the help of Peek-a-Boo.
With all of that i was able to lower time per package from about 28h to just about 18h.
Quite nice for a 233MHz iMac I think.. If people who run SETI@Home on their 450MHz blue/white G3s did the same I guess they would effectively cut my time/package by half, especially since those macines got double the amount of back-side cache witch seem to speeden thnigs up a bit.
Hardware: iMac, rev B, 233MHz, 64MB RAM, 512 kB cache, MacOS 8.6.
- Henrik
Re:Now THIS (SETI) is a waste of CPU cycles.. (Score:1)
Dammit! Redundant work units suck! (Score:1)
Sky coordinates: 10.5 R.A., 20.2 Dec Recorded on: Thu Jan 7 23:07:30 1999 Base Frequency:
1.418886717 GHz
Sky coordinates: 10.5 R.A., 20.2 Dec Recorded on: Thu Jan 7 23:07:30 1999 Base Frequency:
1.420126951 GHz
Sky coordinates: 10.5 R.A., 20.2 Dec Recorded on: Thu Jan 7 23:07:30 1999 Base Frequency:
1.420126951 GHz
Sky coordinates: 10.5 R.A., 20.2 Dec Recorded on: Thu Jan 7 23:07:30 1999 Base Frequency:
1.420185545 GHz
Sky coordinates: 10.5 R.A., 20.2 Dec Recorded on: Thu Jan 7 23:07:30 1999 Base Frequency:
1.420439451 GHz
Sky coordinates: 10.5 R.A., 20.2 Dec Recorded on: Thu Jan 7 23:07:30 1999 Base Frequency:
1.420683592 GHz
Sky coordinates: 10.5 R.A., 20.2 Dec Recorded on: Thu Jan 7 23:07:30 1999 Base Frequency:
1.420869139 GHz
Sky coordinates: 10.5 R.A., 20.2 Dec Recorded on: Thu Jan 7 23:07:30 1999 Base Frequency:
1.420976560 GHz
Sky coordinates: 10.5 R.A., 20.2 Dec Recorded on: Thu Jan 7 23:07:30 1999 Base Frequency:
1.420976560 GHz
Sky coordinates: 10.5 R.A., 20.2 Dec Recorded on: Thu Jan 7 23:07:30 1999 Base Frequency:
1.420976560 GHz
Sky coordinates: 10.5 R.A., 20.2 Dec Recorded on: Thu Jan 7 23:07:30 1999 Base Frequency:
1.421142576 GHz
Sky coordinates: 10.5 R.A., 20.2 Dec Recorded on: Thu Jan 7 23:07:30 1999 Base Frequency:
1.421142576 GHz
Sky coordinates: 13.0 R.A., 12.7 Dec Recorded on: Fri Jan 8 00:51:05 1999 Base Frequency:
1.419101560 GHz
Sky coordinates: 13.0 R.A., 12.7 Dec Recorded on: Fri Jan 8 00:51:05 1999 Base Frequency:
1.419101560 GHz
Sky coordinates: 13.0 R.A., 12.8 Dec Recorded on: Fri Jan 8 00:49:44 1999 Base Frequency:
1.419404295 GHz
Sky coordinates: 13.1 R.A., 12.2 Dec Recorded on: Fri Jan 8 01:05:49 1999 Base Frequency:
1.419960936 GHz
____________________________________________
Re:rc5? (Score:1)
Basically, you need to pick one or the other an run with it.
...phil
Distributed Projects (Score:1)
Explanations - newsgroup message (Score:3)
Posted on sci.astro:
Greetings!
My name is Jeff Thomas. I am volunteering as a liaison between the SETI@Home Team and the community of users. I live near Berkeley. My goal is to try to improve information flow both ways. I will try to ensure that information is posted on their web pages, and here, in a more timely fashion than has been the case. (It took me some time before I discovered the blank screen, and I worked on 9 subbands in 10 32 45 RA, +20 12 35 dec...) Let me pass along what I have learned:
1. The duplicate work units problem has been fixed. It resulted from disk-space limitations (how many WU's will fit on a floppy?....), which have been dealt with. The new servers will doubtless help even more. This was not a scam or a conn job or whatever. They fixed the problem as quickly as they could. They should certainly have let people know more prominently about the problem. They have been a bit clueless about the importance of communication. My goal is to help with that.
2. Server-connection problems have been greatly reduced, and should also be helped by the new servers.
3. When a WU is at a very small percentage complete, and then jumps to 100%, it is because large amounts of Earth-based radio-frequency interference (RFI) have been detected in the work unit.
4. The 97.x or 98.x percent complete is a result of the algorithm and roundin errors. When the client is done, it is 100% done.
5. Regarding lost work units, and lost credit for work units, yes this has occurred. The 1.0 client deletes its results when it thinks the server has gotten them, and there have been server crashes, so some stuff went into the bit bucket. Server and client improvements should eliminate this problem.
6. What will be fixed in the next client, due out next week, includes:
o The proxy bug (partial or full fix), to allow use of ports other than 80.
o CPU time can be incorrectly calculated on Windows. This will be fixed.
o There will be better messages.
o The "Click OK" problem will be fixed.
7. Regarding stats problems, let me first say that I hope the guys who programmed this did not write the science code! I do not understand the full story here, but the following tidbits of information might help. I know that they are working on getting this right.
o The client sends stats to the server, but it also gets them from the server.
o The server updates the stats on the web page on an hourly basis, except for the domain and team stats, which are updated daily.
8. Regarding the 99999 power spikes, these are the maximum because of a cut-off at 100000. The spikes just under 100000 are outliers as well. All for now. I hope that I can help improve the flow of information. I will be writing things up for the web pages, and sharing information with this and other groups.
-- Jeff Thomas
Re:First place! (Score:1)
i'm surprised to hear i beat 35 ultras... maybe the statistics really are broken...
Re:Team Linux! Hypocrisy? - no members (Score:1)
Re:So how can I join Team Slashdot? (Score:1)
ET's television signals (Score:1)
_________________________________________
Re:Do you think without source that can't be done? (Score:1)
You've never heard distributed.net claim that closed-source provides perfect security. To make such a claim would be foolish and incorrect.
I do think, however, that it's fair to say that until an alternative is devised, that it's a good compromise.
If the lack of an open source distributed computing effort bothers you, then I'd encourage you to research and devise a solution to these concerns. Until you have a solution, then there's little room to complain about the lack of an implementation.
Re:Things may not be as they appear (Score:1)
In other words, nothing would change, things would just become more inefficient, as was previously argued.
Re: (Score:1)
They're working on it... (Score:1)
different results? (Score:1)
Re:Do you think without source that can't be done? (Score:1)
They state this at the SETI site, and it takes about 3 seconds of any person to figure it out. They can't trust the clients and not giving out the source keeps people from screwing with the data and sending it back to them.
Now, I agree with you about the security of it. But what might help is putting the cleint on it's own account, and chrooting it. Not hard, and *IF* SETI is a trojan, it won't do anything to your machine or let people in.
Re:Interesting (Score:1)
Re:Now THIS (SETI) is a waste of CPU cycles.. (Score:1)
it. As to your first point, the amount of
electricity used to power this is minimal, as many
of the boxes running this task are operational
100% of the time anyway.
Second, the statistical chance is not 'absurd' at
all. I have watched the evolution of electronics
professionally for 30 years. If you told anyone
back then that we would have virtually instant
internetworking, you would have been told the odds
of that happening were 'absurd'. I admit the
chance is relatively small of finding an
intelligent lifeform with a limited search such as
this, but the chance exists.
As to point #2.
I don't think the researchers are relying on
a divine intervention for this.. apart from not believing in such things in the course of
scientific study, your argument has no merit.
Point #3.
Electromagnetics are unavoidable for many of the
things we do - you might be surprised just where
they show up - and the researchers believe there
is a fair chance that any race advanced enough to
have an advanced society would at least have found
out the physics of electromagnetics.
Perhaps you prefer RC5
Disclaimer : I am not part of the SETI@home research team, although I run it on a number
of clients
Re:So how can I join Team Slashdot? (Score:1)
And it looks like Team Slashdot now has over 600 members. Have we really picked up over 60 people that quickly?! It's a rally - c'mon!!!
Re:Comparing platforms (Score:1)
Re:No source code? (Score:1)
;-)
At least
while not knowing what my computer does.
Without source, I don't run algorithmic/crypt
programms
I hate both of you ;) (Score:1)
Re:Things may not be as they appear (Score:1)
aj
Re:ET's television signals (Score:1)
(I realize this is like pushing a rope, but...) You wouldn't mind providing some evidence to back up this claim, would you?
...phil
Re:Seti is a joke (Score:1)
Re:Things may not be as they appear (Score:1)
I know they would probably have to make some changes on the clients, but this way more people would be able to collaborate. Besides, since the blocks would be smaller, they would be processed faster, as more people can bang on them.
Re:No source code? [Conspiracy idea..] (Score:1)
With 500,000 users presently involved, that's a lot of passwords potentially being cracked
W
-------------------
suggestion to optimize crunching performance (Score:1)
So how can I join Team Slashdot? (Score:1)
I'm running a PII-400 (soon bringing a dual 500Mhz online also) and I'd really like it if I could join in!
Could someone mail me with the details. I've already got the software, just not on the right team (or any team yet). Been running mprime (prime number searcher) also. Thanks a lot guys.
Re:Interesting (Score:1)
...phil
Re:Comparing platforms (Score:1)
IRIX clinet (Score:1)
Re:Comparing platforms (Score:1)
Switching back to OS 8.5 isn't necessary. Just command-option-escape the Finder when the SETI@home client is running as an application. When the screensaver kicks in, it doesn't launch a whole new set of processes-It just uses the preëxisting state of the application.
Battery Eating CPU-Burners For Laptops! (Score:1)
http://www.mersenne.org
for a couple of years now. All of these systems
are fine if you're running on AC power,
but CPU-burners do Really Bad Things to batteries!
I'd guess it cost my employer one or two NiMHs
before I figured this out
Running ofr short times is fine, or draining your
NiCad to the bone if you want, but NiMH memory
doesn't seem to like that kind of abuse.
I don't know how the newer Lithium batteries feel about it
(but Lithium is no longer available on credit
Also, if you're using a background-version program,
rather than a screen-saver type, remember not to
use a CPU-intensive screen-saver - pick something
that draws or moves a picture every few minutes rather than something that's constantly moving, especially if it's doing complex graphics transforms.
Re:Do you think without source that can't be done? (Score:1)
Re:Mandrake6.0 CPU optimizations!!! (Score:1)
Doh... (Score:1)
--
Re:Things may not be as they appear (Score:1)
Re:Interesting (Score:1)
Like what? I'd love to hear a suggestion for this one... We're talking single-threaded data crunching here - the only variable should be the priority of the thread.
*shrugs*
Looking down the list... (Score:1)
Everything equals four. Trust me.
Then the ever present contest between Quebec and the rest of Canada is brought to the forefront, with Canada pulling in #50 and Quebec at #58.
And The Knights Who Say Ni! are on the board at #69 (hmm...)
I'm REALLY tempted to create Team486... my current estimate is it'll take me about 1000 hours to finish the first packet (I'm 200 hours into it)
Create a standard for I-net distributed computing (Score:2)
The generic client would install and validate each plugin and handle/encrypt the data traffic to a central server.
There would be a server component to this also, handling the web interface for stats and validating/receiving completed work from the clients.
Projects that wanted access to the distributed super computer would register with someone who had setup a server and distributed generic clients already. The project team would provide a plugin written to a specific API. The plugin actually does the work, it gets new work and transmits completed work through the API.
The generic client could notify you when new projects have been registered and give you the choice to download and prioritize the new project's plugin. (this way you could contribute effectively to multiple projects concurrently)
An extension of this would be to take it commercial as a way of selling your spare CPU cycles. The maker of a generic (commercial) distributed client could sell access to all the computers that run their client. Then you would get web goodies, points, discounts, etc based on how many total CPU cycles your machine(s) had contributed.
-josh
Re:Comparing platforms (Score:1)
Re:BURN YOUR BIBLE (Score:2)
> Last time I checked, never on a conventional PC.
Actually, real OSes (e.g., Linux) issue HLT instructions when the CPU is idle, which basically shut the CPU down. Windows (9x, anyway... not sure about NT) doesn't do this, so if by "conventional PC", you mean "Windows PC", you're correct. Otherwise, reducing CPU load will reduce power consumption and waste heat (which is why there are overclocking utilities for Windows... they do the HLT thing to reduce the heat produced by the CPU).
Technical points aside, I think the original poster has failed to multiply his "calculated" odds of a planet having intelligent life by the sheer number of planets in the galaxy... I find it inconceivable that only one planet in a mindboggling big universe would have life. Whether we have any nearby neighbors radiating on a frequency we're watching strongly enough for us to detect it and for long enough for the signals to have reached us is another question, and one we can't know the answer to until we look - which is what SETI is supposed to do.
Can 2 people think different identically? (Score:1)
Re:Things may not be as they appear (Score:1)
Re:Looking down the list... (Score:1)
Re:No source code? [Conspiracy idea..] (Score:1)
Of course, they could have been programming to a black box API, and been fooled too. Some other sd'ers must know others on the credits pane - speak up.
rbb
Re: (Score:1)
Some info for OS/2 users (Score:1)
If you run OS/2, there is a command-line client available via http://www.os2ss.com/seti/ [os2ss.com]. Like the Unix client, this version has no GUI and runs at a low priority so that it doesn't interfere with your regular work. It does have the option to run at regular priority.
There is also an OS/2 Warp group, available via http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/cgi-bin/cgi?cmd =team_lookup&name=OS%2F2+Warp [berkeley.edu]. We currently have 211 members and we're in 32nd place.
Of course, you don't need to be running the OS/2 client to join the group. In fact, I have one Mac, 2 OS/2 PC's, and 1 NT PC all running the client under the same name.
--
Timur Tabi
Remove "nospam_" from email address
Re:Comparing platforms (Score:1)
i686-pc-linux-gnu-gnulibc2.1: 12 hr 06 min
Why I'm considering playing with openBSD on my next box (their security features look good too)
(back on topic) By the way... at first I was wondering about this sort of thing as a benchmark...
of course some data might be more empty than other spots... but since we're all seeing the same jan 7/8 data there goes that problem... and
at first I thought the time index was "CPU time" ie the same thing you see in ps or top (and wintop)... anyways it's an interesting comparison but i'm not convinced it's a perfect benchmark...
No source code for scientific accuracy (Score:2)
Here it is (Score:2)
Date: Sat, 05 Jun 1999 11:45:44 -0400
From: Paul Cuni
500,000 users working on 115
work units?
Bob_Kanefsky
(M/California)
Jun
5 1999
2:28AM EDT
I've reluctantly come to the conclusion that SETI@home's half million
participants are currently being
assigned the same 115 work units over and over again, all from three
different sky locations collected
on January 7 and 8. If anyone has seen any other work units recently --
especially from January 9 or
later -- please speak up.
After seeing a few duplications of work units a machine at work had
already processed (same headers,
same content), I ran a test. I instructed my computer to repeatedly
start the SETI@home client and
download a work unit, but then just kill it, record the name, and start
again. The result: Out of 2500
work units, the same 115 kept showing up.
Two of the 115 work units are slices of different coordinates and have
the following names (as shown
on the fourth line of the work_unit.txt file):
name=07ja99aa.10912.26555.213914.156 [got this one 6 times out of 2500]
name=08ja99aa.16286.4081.917340.30 [got this one 4 times out of 2500]
The others are all subband slices from one location (but only 113 of them).
They all say
name=08ja99aa.12769.4418.68748.*
where * is one of these subband numbers:
0 2 3 4 5 6 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 21 22 23 24 26 27 28 29 31
32 33 35 36 37 38 39 41 43 44
45 47 50 52 54 55 56 60 61 62 64 65 66 67 70 72 74 76 78 79 80 85 86 87
88 89 90 91 92 94 95 96 97
98 99 100 102 103 104 109 110 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 122 123
124 125 127 131 132 133 134
135 138 139 140 142 143 145 148 149 150 151 152 154 158 160 161 163
The only other data unit I've seen was one I downloaded on May 27 and
then had to release the
machine that was working on it.
I hope the SETI@home project will fix this problem soon, or at least
acknowledge it and promise that
they're working on it.
P.S. Kris, you may be right about the cause, but I doubt it. Web browser
clients may be configured to
use caching proxies, but there's no reason that the SETI@home
client/server connection would be built
only anything that complicated when a direct connection is easier to do.
But not having seen the
implementation, anything is possible.
END OF MAIL
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No source code? (Score:3)
Re:No source code? So what. (Score:2)
If you are such a believer in "security through openness" then why don't you get rid of your firewall and unshadow your passwords?
Let's face it, "openness" isn't the solution to every problem. A binary-only client is a good way to prevent cheating.
I know I will get moderated out of everyone's sight for posting this message, but I'm doing it anyway. Fuck moderation.