<B><P>Oh, for Heaven's sake, stop whining, people!</B> If you can't stand the problems SETI has been having recently, fine, but they're doing the best they can. A few of you have had legitimate questions, but most of you, especially the more recent Classic users, are just whining. <B>Cut them some slack</B>. Points to remember before you rant:</P>
<P>1) <B>This distributed processing stuff is VERY new territory</B>, and with BOINC the people at Berkeley are trying to make it better to participate on ALL levels, including those who create these projects like Oxford and UWM. We are blazing new territory here. It's like were accompanying Lewis and Clark, and you are whining about not having roads and restaurants along the way.</P>
<P>2) <B>BOINC is going through an evolutionary process same as any other software</B>. Even as much as people complain about it, most people wouldn't be able to even RUN a computer if it weren't for Microsoft Windows. Most of you just pulled your PC out of the box, turned it on, and answered a few questions. Windows automates a tremendous amount of things that us old-timers had to hammer our way through with a great deal of difficulty. Most of you don't remember the tremendous difficulties we had with MS-DOS and Windows 3.1. You never had to constantly tweak the config.sys, autoexec.bat, and system.ini files to get anything to run. <B>Right now, BOINC is the same way as Windows 3.1 used to be, so if you're looking for a quick fix to make BOINC run as smoothly as your operating system did right out of the box, you're in for a lot of heartbreak. Software is INVARIABLY far from ideal in the beginning</B>.</P>
<P>3) <B>Try to remember these people have FAR fewer resources than commercial software developers</B>. I'd bet World of Warcraft spent more in a WEEK in development costs than has been spent on all of SETI classic and BOINC combined, yet even Blizzard stumbled on their launch due to technical bugs and higher than anticipated demands. Berkeley is doing as well as they can with what they have.</P>
<P>4) <B>Berkeley doesn't owe us ANYTHING</B> but maybe an occasional posted "thanks" for participating. We are not paying them and they aren't paying us. They don't demand anything of us. Stop acting like SETI@HOME is a service they owe us. Personally, I feel lucky to participate in things like this, and if the current problems have caused me a little inconvenience fiddling with the software to cut down on the network access, so be it.</P>

I agree!
Can't be said better!
Up to the top again with this!

---

Gruesse vom Saenger

For questions about Boinc look in the BOINC-Wiki

I 100% agree and if I can respectfully add some more....

5. Take time to read the other threads and the excellent documentation from Paul D. Buck

6. Listen to what other people are saying. Trust me, they don't have it in for you.

7. Respect the context of the boards : Science for Science discussion; Number Crunching for performance, software, hardware, bugs etc; Cafe for hanging out and having fun

8. Ask sensible questions, engage your brain before touching the keyboard.

9. If you don't like it, remember nobody is forcing you to participate. Constructive suggestions are welcome, destructive attacks on Seti, Boinc and others are do not help move us forward.

10. Remember, nobody died. Your computers have not been destroyed or corrupted. The science results will filter through in due course and everybody has been in the same boat.

11. Over the next few days there will be many WU with no immediate granted credit as some users will have given up. Please don't rant about it. Your credit is effectively in in the bank. It will be granted after a quorum is achieved.

On another thread....sit back, relax and have a beer.

Richard

P.S. I'm not clever enough to add formating like Murasaki, so I guess that will give people more reason to complain...

---

---

Aloha, Uli

> P.S. I'm not clever enough to add formating like Murasaki, so I guess that
> will give people more reason to complain...

I cheated on the formatting. I typed it into Microsoft Word, converted it to HTML in the menus, went to the menus and selected "View Source", then cut and pasted the source text with the formatting marks. I knew it'd be a long rant, and people would me more likely to read if the key points were in bold. ;)

>
good advice murasaki...a little patience is needed around here...this is all going to work itself out before too long.

---

PROUD TO BE TFFE!

> <B><P>Oh, for Heaven's sake, stop whining, people!</B> If you can't stand the
> problems SETI has been having recently, fine, but they're doing the best they
> can. A few of you have had legitimate questions, but most of you, especially
> the more recent Classic users, are just whining. <B>Cut them some slack</B>.
> Points to remember before you rant:</P>
> <P>1) <B>This distributed processing stuff is VERY new territory</B>, and with
> BOINC the people at Berkeley are trying to make it better to participate on
> ALL levels, including those who create these projects like Oxford and UWM. We
> are blazing new territory here. It's like were accompanying Lewis and Clark,
> and you are whining about not having roads and restaurants along the way.</P>
> <P>2) <B>BOINC is going through an evolutionary process same as any other
> software</B>. Even as much as people complain about it, most people wouldn't
> be able to even RUN a computer if it weren't for Microsoft Windows. Most of
> you just pulled your PC out of the box, turned it on, and answered a few
> questions. Windows automates a tremendous amount of things that us old-timers
> had to hammer our way through with a great deal of difficulty. Most of you
> don't remember the tremendous difficulties we had with MS-DOS and Windows 3.1.
> You never had to constantly tweak the config.sys, autoexec.bat, and system.ini
> files to get anything to run. <B>Right now, BOINC is the same way as Windows
> 3.1 used to be, so if you're looking for a quick fix to make BOINC run as
> smoothly as your operating system did right out of the box, you're in for a
> lot of heartbreak. Software is INVARIABLY far from ideal in the
> beginning</B>.</P>
> <P>3) <B>Try to remember these people have FAR fewer resources than commercial
> software developers</B>. I'd bet World of Warcraft spent more in a WEEK in
> development costs than has been spent on all of SETI classic and BOINC
> combined, yet even Blizzard stumbled on their launch due to technical bugs and
> higher than anticipated demands. Berkeley is doing as well as they can with
> what they have.</P>
> <P>4) <B>Berkeley doesn't owe us ANYTHING</B> but maybe an occasional posted
> "thanks" for participating. We are not paying them and they aren't paying us.
> They don't demand anything of us. Stop acting like SETI@HOME is a service they
> owe us. Personally, I feel lucky to participate in things like this, and if
> the current problems have caused me a little inconvenience fiddling with the
> software to cut down on the network access, so be it.</P>
>

> ... cut meaningless repeat ...
>

?

---

Aloha, Uli

While I agree with everything you've said, you should also realize that SETI is asking/forcing users to switch from a system that basically never went down to one that is down for days at a time, usually without any explaination what so ever.

These folks aren't just coming to complain, they are leaving SETI and instead of reasoning with them, most of the replies consists of "stop your whining" which is almost as counter productive as "Why don't you just quit" and "no one forced you to be here".

Seems to me it would be better to not respond at all than to rub salt in someone wounds.



.

---

<a href="http://www.brainsmashr.com"><img src="http://www.brainsmashr.com/signature.gif"><img src="http://brainsmashr.com/boinc/counter_big.php?id=305369&amp;project=seti&amp;ctx=white&amp;cva=red&amp;cbo=white&amp;cbg=black&amp;linethickness=2"></a>

> ...
> Seems to me it would be better to not respond at all than to rub salt in
> someone wounds.
>

Congrats, the first post with a real meaning (+1)
[edit] ...and not only newbie bashing, as seems to be the new sport here :/ [/edit]

---

Aloha, Uli

> While I agree with everything you've said, you should also realize that SETI
> is asking/forcing users to switch from a system that basically never went down
> to one that is down for days at a time, usually without any
> explaination what so ever.

Have you been paying attention to the Classic side of SETI over the past several days? They have been down for the same period and reason as the BOINC side of the project.

Were you watching when the electrical took out both projects last month?

Have you checked out the technical notes on the Classic site, that haven't been updated since May of last year? (oops, can't check it out now, they've redirected it to the SETI-BOINC tech notes). See the tech notes on this side, with the details of what's happening when there have been problems? An explanation may be delayed, while the problem is being worked, but personally I'd rather have Matt and the rest trying to get the project back on-line than going into detail of why it isn't, and then catch us up on the gory details after the fact.

Check out the news archive. Outages, a mandatory upgrade in the software, reports of bugs and workarounds. "Never went down" is a high exaggeration.

We're on the cutting edge of distributed computing here, as well as looking outward for SETI. It's going to be bumpy. That's the nature of the cutting edge.

I've been reading the posts: it seems to me many of them are coming just to complain. Others want the clock turned back, never mind the better science that can be done with the new format. I'm here for the science: SETI gets the bulk of my spare CPU cycles. If they don't need them, if they can't use them for good science, I've got the other projects also doing good science who can use them. That's the whole purpose here.

[/rant mode]

---

This may be a bit off topic, but, I am running bionc 4.25 now and am getting a lot of deffering till.... how do I get into the preferences?

---

<img border="0" src="http://boinc.mundayweb.com/one/stats.php?userID=1058&amp;prj=1&amp;trans=off" />

> ...
> We're on the cutting edge of distributed computing here, as well as looking
> outward for SETI. It's going to be bumpy. That's the nature of the cutting
> edge.
> [/rant mode]
>

More on the cutting edge of distributed waiting...

Sorry, couldn't resist... ;)

---

Aloha, Uli

Uli wrote:

> More on the cutting edge of distributed waiting...
>
> Sorry, couldn't resist... ;)

I don't think you're sorry at all! 8-)

Asuraka wrote
> This may be a bit off topic, but, I am running bionc 4.25 now and am getting
> a lot of deffering till.... how do I get into the preferences?

Everybody's getting deferred, the preferences won't change that until the backlog clears. But the place to set most of your preferences is on the website, under "Your Account", and click on "View or edit general preferences".

Lots more information on Paul D. Buck's BOINC Documentation Site (a.k.a. BOINC Owner's Manual). The information there applies not only to SETI but to the other projects using BOINC. It's one of those sites where I go looking for one piece of information, and find myself clicking through to other stuff I didn't know I wanted to know about.

---

MJK, your post is exactly what I mean.

I no longer run classic, so I am not aware of current problems, but I personally never ran out of WU's to crunch until I switched to Boinc and I seriously doubt that was a unique expirence. In fact, I jsut turned it on, and guess what.....it started crunching.

Then you go even further by posting a link which would seem to indicate that classic has not had any problems since June 2004.

Newbies being mislead by "veterans", then scolded for expressing their outrage at the numerous problems. Of course they are coming to complain, it's the treatment they receive after getting here that prompts them to leave the project all together.

I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm saying that's an extremely counter productive method for gaining crunchers. Remember, "everyone" isn't interested in participating in other projects and I suspect the number of SETI users versus the number of other project users would reflect that as well.

.

---

<a href="http://www.brainsmashr.com"><img src="http://www.brainsmashr.com/signature.gif"><img src="http://brainsmashr.com/boinc/counter_big.php?id=305369&amp;project=seti&amp;ctx=white&amp;cva=red&amp;cbo=white&amp;cbg=black&amp;linethickness=2"></a>

> I don't think you're sorry at all! 8-)
>
You're probably right... ;)

SETI@home - 2005-03-23 03:44:31 - Temporarily failed upload of 25dc04aa.4934.31137.23586.145_1_0
SETI@home - 2005-03-23 03:44:31 - Backing off 2 hours, 53 minutes, and 30 seconds on transfer of file 25dc04aa.4934.31137.23586.145_1_0
SETI@home - 2005-03-23 03:44:37 - Temporarily failed download of 29dc04aa.13138.32098.642322.52
SETI@home - 2005-03-23 03:44:37 - Backing off 1 minutes and 0 seconds on transfer of file 29dc04aa.13138.32098.642322.52
SETI@home - 2005-03-23 03:45:37 - Started download of 29dc04aa.13138.32098.642322.52
SETI@home - 2005-03-23 03:45:59 - Temporarily failed download of 29dc04aa.13138.32098.642322.52
SETI@home - 2005-03-23 03:45:59 - Backing off 1 minutes and 0 seconds on transfer of file 29dc04aa.13138.32098.642322.52
SETI@home - 2005-03-23 03:46:59 - Started download of 29dc04aa.13138.32098.642322.52
SETI@home - 2005-03-23 03:47:21 - Temporarily failed download of 29dc04aa.13138.32098.642322.52
SETI@home - 2005-03-23 03:47:21 - Backing off 1 minutes and 0 seconds on transfer of file 29dc04aa.13138.32098.642322.52
SETI@home - 2005-03-23 03:48:21 - Started download of 29dc04aa.13138.32098.642322.52
SETI@home - 2005-03-23 03:48:44 - Temporarily failed download of 29dc04aa.13138.32098.642322.52
SETI@home - 2005-03-23 03:48:44 - Backing off 1 minutes and 0 seconds on transfer of file 29dc04aa.13138.32098.642322.52
SETI@home - 2005-03-23 03:49:44 - Started download of 29dc04aa.13138.32098.642322.52
SETI@home - 2005-03-23 03:50:06 - Temporarily failed download of 29dc04aa.13138.32098.642322.52
SETI@home - 2005-03-23 03:50:06 - Backing off 1 minutes and 41 seconds on transfer of file 29dc04aa.13138.32098.642322.52
SETI@home - 2005-03-23 03:51:47 - Started download of 29dc04aa.13138.32098.642322.52
SETI@home - 2005-03-23 03:52:10 - Temporarily failed download of 29dc04aa.13138.32098.642322.52
SETI@home - 2005-03-23 03:52:10 - Backing off 2 minutes and 43 seconds on transfer of file 29dc04aa.13138.32098.642322.52
SETI@home - 2005-03-23 03:54:53 - Started download of 29dc04aa.13138.32098.642322.52
SETI@home - 2005-03-23 03:55:15 - Temporarily failed download of 29dc04aa.13138.32098.642322.52
SETI@home - 2005-03-23 03:55:15 - Backing off 8 minutes and 40 seconds on transfer of file 29dc04aa.13138.32098.642322.52

...
I could continue 'til tomorrow...
I'm feeling a bit snarky:
1. snarky
(adjective) describes a witty mannerism, personality, or behavior that is a combination of sarcasm and cynicism. Usually accepted as a complimentary term. Snark is sometimes mistaken for a snotty or arrogant attitude.
from: here

---

Aloha, Uli

Aargh, bring out the gallows for these lads I say.

> MJK, your post is exactly what I mean.
>
> I no longer run classic, so I am not aware of current problems, but I
> personally never ran out of WU's to crunch until I switched to Boinc
> and I seriously doubt that was a unique expirence. In fact, I jsut
> turned it on, and guess what.....it started crunching.
I ran out of work many times on Classic...if you didn't it was purerly luck on your part.

Don

---

BrainSmashR wrote:

> MJK, your post is exactly what I mean.
>
> I no longer run classic, so I am not aware of current problems, but I
> personally never ran out of WU's to crunch until I switched to Boinc
> and I seriously doubt that was a unique expirence. In fact, I jsut
> turned it on, and guess what.....it started crunching.

Guess what? If you had turned it on Saturday... it wouldn't have anything to crunch unless you were sitting on work units from when you turned it off. Old units, that would likely have been done by somebody else while you had it turned off. Is that really productive?

> Then you go even further by posting a link which would seem to indicate that
> classic has not had any problems since June 2004.

That would be because the archive goes up to June 2004. More recent reports are on the main page, and show outages in January, February and March of 2005. So much for "basically never went down". My other point (lost apparently) was that classic didn't always post reports when they were down. The tech notes didn't have the information that we're seeing here/now. So much for "usually without any explaination what so ever."

> Newbies being mislead by "veterans", then scolded for expressing their outrage
> at the numerous problems. Of course they are coming to complain, it's the
> treatment they receive after getting here that prompts them to leave the
> project all together.

The only "newbies" I've noticed being remotely close to "scolded" have been the ones who don't bother to look at the information that's on the site, in the forum, or on the many third-party sites that are often linked in these messages. The ones who are more interested in their work-unit credits than in the science they represent. The ones who think that SETI@Home owes them a continuation of the soon-to-be obsolete software, just to keep their competitions going. Yes, the competition is fun, but it's not the purpose of SETI@Home, or BOINC. It's just a side-effect that some people grab hold of and won't let go. If there's a choice between keeping these people happy by doing redundant work, and crunching with a smaller but more than adequate number for the purpose of the science, I'm for the latter.

> I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm saying that's an extremely counter productive
> method for gaining crunchers. Remember, "everyone" isn't interested in
> participating in other projects and I suspect the number of SETI users versus
> the number of other project users would reflect that as well.

If gaining crunchers were the only purpose to the project, I might agree with you. But crunchers aren't the purpose, they are a means. SETI, and science, are the purpose.

---

Uli wrote:
> You're probably right... ;)
>
> SETI@home - 2005-03-23 03:44:31 - Temporarily failed upload of
> 25dc04aa.4934.31137.23586.145_1_0

> ...
> I could continue 'til tomorrow...

I've got mine waiting to upload and download also. These, too, shall pass. During the day I managed to download three, the uploads will happen when space is available. And if SETI doesn't have work for me (or can't get it to me), Einstein can use the time. 8-)

---