Looks like the validators have been turned back on.

Thanks guys.

{EDIT] And then back off again [/EDIT]

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Calm Chaos Forum...Join Calm Chaos Now

Sounds like they need a professional grant writer. Most government grants are applied for via professional grant writers who truly understand the process and have a good track record of receiving grants for their clients.

Also sounds like UC should find a University more willing to take the handcuffs off of the project so it has the opportunity to thrive. Contact the University of Wisconsin.

Let me guess, UC has a rule on contacting other Universities too... not to mention the staff has no desire to cut their own jobs.

Can we as a community petition Sun to donate more server hardware to enhance the program?

In my humble opinion this would be a BAD idea. SUN have gone above and beyond numerous times for the Project. The new server is just another example of this. Harassing the good sponsors for even more is not good practice.

One way you CAN help (other than by donating to the Project directly) is by directing business to the sponsors. For example, if you have any say in server purchasing at your place of work, try to swing purchases in SUN's direction, and let SUN know that one of the reasons you purchased from them instead of the competition was because of their support of SETI. That way, the sponsors have more incentive to keep donating.

Just my $0.02...

Regards,
Ozz.

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Concerning the funding dilemna:
Isn't there a funding scheme called the 1% club? I remember years ago, when I was an Arts administrator, reading about this (US only at the time), whereby companies who donated got said percentage cut off their corporate tax bill (or something like that): from what I read, a lot of you work for medium- large enterprises; have you ever considered approaching your CEO's for support?
What about Gates/ Jobs? After all, they power a lot of the machines we own...

Aim for the stars- you might land on the moon...

In the meantime, all I have to spare are CPU cycles...
keep up the good work, folks;

Oh, and S@H USERS WORLDWIDE!!!!
Chill out, ET will still be out there when the bottlenecks are eased
8-p

Sounds like they need a professional grant writer. Most government grants are applied for via professional grant writers who truly understand the process and have a good track record of receiving grants for their clients.

Something tells me that the Seti@home team is taking advantage of the most professional resources that they currently have available to them in this respect.
That said, and if it would be productive, would it be possible for Seti@home to ask experts with this experience to volunteer their time to assist with this? It is likely something that could be done remotely so that it would not further burden the Seti@home budget or UC with travel (again, if possible). I do realize that this also may be against university "rules". One other idea to consider is what if an ideal person just "showed up" out of the blue to volunteer his or her time and expertise? Surely this would be OK. After all, there are a lot of people out there who know people who know people...
Just an idea.

Also sounds like UC should find a University more willing to take the handcuffs off of the project so it has the opportunity to thrive. Contact the University of Wisconsin.

Let me guess, UC has a rule on contacting other Universities too... not to mention the staff has no desire to cut their own jobs.

Let me make sure I understand. Are you suggesting that Seti@home (you said "UC") try to move to a different university where funding will be more accessible?
As scary as that sounds, it doesn't seem too unrealistic. There are problems that even I can see with it though. First, Seti@home has been located at UC for many, many years. That in itself may be a tough bond to break. Second, the scientists on the project (engineers, astronomers, technicians, etc. - yes I realize help is currently very limited) are in school at UCB. What are they to do? Relocate and move their acedemic careers to another university? Finally, I would "hope" that UC would have some level of allegience to the project. If there was serious talk about moving to another university there could be an awful lot of publicity about it - maybe not front-page in most newspapers, but enough to start a murmur. If that happened, UCB (and it's President) would be the source of potentially a great amount of negative publicity. When the publicity comes from the fact that a supposed cutting-edge university is strangling one of their longest, and most public projects, the outcome cound be quite significant. Such things are conducive to letters in granite, buildings named after you and legacies in general.

Alas, I forgot the one main point I was going to put out there. In many years of working on projects, both personal and professional, both with a small group or a project involving several different organizations or companies, one *critical* thing I learned was something called "collaboration". It seems like this should be a "no brainer", especially in scientific projects, but good collaboration is something that can be difficult to achieve, involves work on all sides and a solid desire on both sides to make happen. It is very easy to let ego's get in the way and they can crush a project. A number of times, I have seen an awesome project manager or team lead change the landscape of the project enough so as to give a good balance on the team and help them to see the advantages of working together.
That is not to say I have seen collaboration succeed every time - it hasn't - but it is truly a great feeling when it does and when you see how much more you can do with disparate or close teams, than you could have done yourself.
Let's see... If I remember correctly it took more than 9,000 people - all collaborating in one respect or another - to build, launch and retrieve Apollo 13. That IS collaboration at it's finest.

Sorry to get off topic.

Remember - Everyone has something to contribute. We just have to be willing to keep our minds open and pay attention.

This is all just my opinion. Please consider it and do with it what you will.

Joe

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would it help if everybody stop asking for new work ?

Some people using SETI@Home probably don't know what the problem(s) and have gotten fed-up with the problems and quit SETI.
I would imagine that we've lost a not unsubstantial users over this (which is probably part of the reason they are banging their heads so hard *hands them a bobble of Aspirin*).
Some of the rest that are uninformed as to what is going on probably just keep trying....In the old days of dial-up and modems, they called it "war-dialing".

More people would stop than would start....

Just my idea;

later;
bdraft

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Are there any plans to locate a new reciever that could get signals from the newly discovered earth-like planet?
When you eventually find an extraterrestrial transmission, would you be agreeable to notifying seti@home users before the media?

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Sounds like they need a professional grant writer. Most government grants are applied for via professional grant writers who truly understand the process and have a good track record of receiving grants for their clients.

Something tells me that the Seti@home team is taking advantage of the most professional resources that they currently have available to them in this respect.
That said, and if it would be productive, would it be possible for Seti@home to ask experts with this experience to volunteer their time to assist with this? It is likely something that could be done remotely so that it would not further burden the Seti@home budget or UC with travel (again, if possible). I do realize that this also may be against university "rules". One other idea to consider is what if an ideal person just "showed up" out of the blue to volunteer his or her time and expertise? Surely this would be OK. After all, there are a lot of people out there who know people who know people...
Just an idea.

Also sounds like UC should find a University more willing to take the handcuffs off of the project so it has the opportunity to thrive. Contact the University of Wisconsin.

Let me guess, UC has a rule on contacting other Universities too... not to mention the staff has no desire to cut their own jobs.

Let me make sure I understand. Are you suggesting that Seti@home (you said "UC") try to move to a different university where funding will be more accessible?
As scary as that sounds, it doesn't seem too unrealistic. There are problems that even I can see with it though. First, Seti@home has been located at UC for many, many years. That in itself may be a tough bond to break. Second, the scientists on the project (engineers, astronomers, technicians, etc. - yes I realize help is currently very limited) are in school at UCB. What are they to do? Relocate and move their acedemic careers to another university? Finally, I would "hope" that UC would have some level of allegience to the project. If there was serious talk about moving to another university there could be an awful lot of publicity about it - maybe not front-page in most newspapers, but enough to start a murmur. If that happened, UCB (and it's President) would be the source of potentially a great amount of negative publicity. When the publicity comes from the fact that a supposed cutting-edge university is strangling one of their longest, and most public projects, the outcome cound be quite significant. Such things are conducive to letters in granite, buildings named after you and legacies in general.

Alas, I forgot the one main point I was going to put out there. In many years of working on projects, both personal and professional, both with a small group or a project involving several different organizations or companies, one *critical* thing I learned was something called "collaboration". It seems like this should be a "no brainer", especially in scientific projects, but good collaboration is something that can be difficult to achieve, involves work on all sides and a solid desire on both sides to make happen. It is very easy to let ego's get in the way and they can crush a project. A number of times, I have seen an awesome project manager or team lead change the landscape of the project enough so as to give a good balance on the team and help them to see the advantages of working together.
That is not to say I have seen collaboration succeed every time - it hasn't - but it is truly a great feeling when it does and when you see how much more you can do with disparate or close teams, than you could have done yourself.
Let's see... If I remember correctly it took more than 9,000 people - all collaborating in one respect or another - to build, launch and retrieve Apollo 13. That IS collaboration at it's finest.

Sorry to get off topic.

Remember - Everyone has something to contribute. We just have to be willing to keep our minds open and pay attention.

This is all just my opinion. Please consider it and do with it what you will.

Joe

And I knew one of those 9,000 people very, very well, She was My Mother. A copper plaque on the Lunar Lander(Apollo 11, Under the Steps), My Mom did touch up on It, Some places say It's stainless, Don't believe them as stainless steel is expensive and and copper doesn't corrode in a Vacuum.

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The T1 Trust, PRR T1 Class 4-4-4-4 #5550, 1 of America's First HST's

would it help if everybody stop asking for new work ?

Some people using SETI@Home probably don't know what the problem(s) and have gotten fed-up with the problems and quit SETI.

bdraft,
I think you are correct. I don't think it is fir to blame any specific outage for the loss of active users though. I am "guilty" of being one that abandoned the project. Four or five years ago I had almost our entire engineering office signed up for Seti@home. There was an "outage" then that lasted for a significant amount of time. Everyone got frustrated (including myself) and disabled SAH. Idle screen saver, while a simple thing, are a constant reminder that things don't work. When an office of intelligent engineers gives up, you can guess that a lot of other, less persistent people did as well.

Here is a suggestion for a partial solution.

That outage was back before Seti@home was placed under the Boinc framework. However, the high-level problem is the same. There is no real notification to the user-community as to what is going on. I'm not referring to some technical description (though one could be made available optionally). I am referring to something even the most basic user can use. Now that SAH and so many other projects rest under the Boinc framework, doesn't it make sense to make Boinc earn it's keep? Let Boinc notify users that there is a problem.

Perhaps an unsolicited message - though that would need some serious consideration first. If absolutely nothing else, strategically place some buttons around on the Boinc UI, and on each project the user is "connected" to. Perhaps that button would have an icon next to it (green light, stop sign, yield, etc.) to clearly show whether the project is up and running.

When the button itself is pressed the user can be shown the state of the project on their local machine, with respect to communication to each of the servers, and with respect to the health of the servers themselves.). Only if *everything* is good will the user get a green light. Only if all local action is done/in error, communication with the server is down or the server health is poor will the user get a red light.

Perhaps that dialog would then have a "Details" button that can be pressed so the user can see the specific status of each component or data path.

Also, perhaps providing a link to give them more information from the web site - be it a special page for the problem if one can be communicated, or to a general status page where they can see whatever they want.
Absolutely do not requre the user to log in to see any status information. Passwords to Seti@home are rarely remembered in my experience - and that applies to myself. If a person needs the status and they can't find a password, they are as good as gone when they get frustrated enough.

Most of all, if the user has any sort of Boinc or Seti@home interface up and running, give the user that high-level status of their active (on-screen) projects *and* a button to get them back to that high-level status with the option of getting "Details".

I hope this sparks some ideas if nothing else.

I absolutely recognize that I am proposing changes to Boinc and/or the Seti@home application, that implementing changes require significant effort (work), and that resources for the Seti@home project are clearly limited.

One last thing... Who is actively developing SAH and Boinc? Does SAH and Boinc desire volunteers for development?

All my best,
Joe

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And I knew one of those 9,000 people very, very well, She was My Mother. A copper plaque on the Lunar Lander(Apollo 11, Under the Steps), My Mom did touch up on It, Some places say It's stainless, Don't believe them as stainless steel is expensive and and copper doesn't corrode in a Vacuum.

bdraft,
Hat's off to your Mother!
I was born just as Apollo 8 brought Lovell and crew around the dark side of the moon for the very first time. 7 months later Armstrong and Aldrin landed on the moon then 12 months later the infamous Apollo 13, again commanded by Lovell.
As such I am forever pleasantly plagued with a love for most everything analytical and astronomical.
Joe

Much of these conversations seem off-topic for "Technical News". Is there a better place to have these talks - business, design, etc. or is it OK to talk about these things here?
JJ

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Hi!

I ask again!!
When I goes to seti@home webpages from BOINC manager, I dont get the most recent files.
At Set@home index page, in the News section iyt's like this:
NEWS
May 12, 2007
Update: We got the new server yesterday, inserted our old disks and booted it up. It came right up, but verifying the file systems took overnight. The work is being created, the splitters and assimilators are working. It will be a while before we catch up. Thank you for your continued patience and support.

Yesterday there was also News about the longest outtake dated May 16, 2007.

Is it anybody else that also have notice it?
Or, is it maybe a local fault??

** Keep up the good work. We all are very happy that the project is up an running again, though small difficulties left.**

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It's the same for everyone. When Matt is running for a bus, it's much easier to blog here than to edit the front page. Same for the others - they do the work first, and think about tidying up the website last. Don't worry about it.

It's the same for everyone. When Matt is running for a bus, it's much easier to blog here than to edit the front page. Same for the others - they do the work first, and think about tidying up the website last. Don't worry about it.

Thanks for the explonation...

/Peter

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Hi,
re: Dr.Okun

1. University funding is politics. At least on the governor's table.
2. The politics assume relatively feasible results on a funded project (which SETI in general does not have [results]).
3. It's a free market for anyone to get more credits on the site. So I call it being a hobby.

Everyone quits complaining, and all will be fine.

Olli from Finland

You call it complaining, I call it open discussion. Agree to disagree as I will discuss what I want when I want.

Your political observation is far too vague to be accurate. In fact, if they can't keep it going, then who will take it? Give that thought for the future when this project runs out of funding. Some collaboration between Universities does seem in order assuming people can get off their high horses and loose the ego's.

Hi, just wanted to add my voice to all those others wishing to send thanks for all the hard work and dedication of all those involved in keeping this project going. Many, many thanks.

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Hello again,

I'm sorry Sir, if I didn't understand the issue. No meaning of diminishing anyone.
Simply, what I understood was that the collaboration between university sites is not that easy, without involving monetary politics.
That should be self-evident in the US. But not necessarily in the other countries, where public funding helps. I myself am not involved in anything like that (the politics).

However, thank You very much for the conversation, I really enjoy some mind-acceleration, especially after the long hours with the chatting sequence (which is right now what we're doing).

Cheers, Jari / Olli

You guys do an awesome job and I hope that the work we all do helping to process the work units results in something. But, is it my understanding from the forums that you rely on one to three servers to upload/download units and process them? With no backup servers? A single server down should not have resulted in a 2 week or more downtime. I have just now started getting work, but my uploads are not working. We understand that it is based on donations, but a project this large should have backup servers in place before operating.. Can we as a community petition Sun to donate more server hardware to enhance the program?

Hi, I agree that the team does a fantastic job. However, I can't agree with petitioning Sun Microsystems for more hardware. Sun is aleady one of Seti's biggest sponsors and do more than their fair share. What about all those huge computer hardware and software multinationals out there who make plenty of money out of all of the computer using community, but give sweet fanny addams back (Microsoft comes to mind for some reason!!!). So, if you feel like compiling a petition to all the organisations that DON'T contribute, I'll gladly sign. In the meantime many thanks to all the people and organisations who do keep this marvel going. Long may you prosper.

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You guys do an awesome job and I hope that the work we all do helping to process the work units results in something. But, is it my understanding from the forums that you rely on one to three servers to upload/download units and process them? With no backup servers? A single server down should not have resulted in a 2 week or more downtime. I have just now started getting work, but my uploads are not working. We understand that it is based on donations, but a project this large should have backup servers in place before operating.. Can we as a community petition Sun to donate more server hardware to enhance the program?

Hi, I agree that the team does a fantastic job. However, I can't agree with petitioning Sun Microsystems for more hardware. Sun is aleady one of Seti's biggest sponsors and do more than their fair share. What about all those huge computer hardware and software multinationals out there who make plenty of money out of all of the computer using community, but give sweet fanny addams back (Microsoft comes to mind for some reason!!!). So, if you feel like compiling a petition to all the organisations that DON'T contribute, I'll gladly sign. In the meantime many thanks to all the people and organisations who do keep this marvel going. Long may you prosper.

I agree BUT consider that only about .23% of the SETI users have donated to the cause, we should look a little closer to home.

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is this why i can not get any new work from seti?????