Hannah (Apr 16 2009)

Don't forget the dedicated crunchers who are part of a team with ongoing potm's. I am constantly on those except for the occasions when projects are selected that I have no interest in & then choose a project to crunch for that month.

In the case for May, I have switched over to seti.

Also, I have had no choice but to permanently shutdown 8 rigs & shutdown remaining net during the night due to a shocking power bill for the last quarter (£1310) which is way beyond my budget.

@ Matt

Please keep your posting style as there are those who enjoy both the on topic & off topic news.

PS: - Any chance of persuading Eric/Angela for some raccon updates?
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If you want credits to stay steady and at the level they were a few months ago, then start protesting against the CUDA app, and its incorrect claims and processing times.

Somehow don't think you will get a lot of support, or win any popularity contests, but you never know.

On the RAC side, I was assuming each project can choose their own half-life for the RAC calculation, influencing the responsiveness of the RAC. If this is not the case then I should say . . . Never mind.

Does anyone know if projects can choose their own RAC half-life?

Bob

Yeah, credit-per-flop on SETI is the gold standard

... I'm not saying we should give more credits for work completed. I am suggesting a much shorter time for RAC gratification.
...
Shorter recovery times for RAC would greatly decrease user frustration after an outage. For example, maybe the RAC rampup should be no longer than the typical MTBF of the SETI@home server system.
...
Bob Mahoney

Ned Said:
Sorry to present the contrary argument, but if SETI raises credit (intentionally) then that does two things...

No offense taken or meant, but this is not the old credit-whore argument.

Bill,

Most of what you are suggsting and asking have been proposed and attempted to be put into action as far as can be done by external groups (such as teams).

The problem is more of the "ivory tower" issue where the core people that can help us dig out of this mess are too busy looking inward to bother to invest even a modicum of time looking outward.

Even less helpful, many efforts die aborning because there is no project / UCB developer recognition. I won't go into the history of a lot of this as it is a long tale of woe and my heart could not stand the trip ...

One more data point is that there is a survey on the BOINC site that has some interesting data most of which is being ignored as hard as can be ... again there is a limitation because the survey is "self-selecting" and pretty well hidden, but it is interesting.

There were also many threads that MAY still be available in time machine caches for the old SETI Classic site (url anyone?) where many of the big time contributers simply stopped when Classic did ...

As far as the study of the project as a whole, well, what do you think I have been doing all this time ... the trouble is that the conclusions are not what people want to hear so the most common reaction is to shoot the messenger.

A complex subject which is easier to talk about than to type about and I would be more than happy to spend time talking to you about my perspective, for what that is worth ... Skype is free ... :)

what do you consider an older computer i have a 1.8ghz amd pushed to 2.6something and drop'd like $120 on a 9800gt just so i could smash S@H wu's. AP wu's take too long on my pc at 150~200hrs. so i dont usually run Ap unless i have too and when that isnt a option i jump over to gpugrid for a day to keep everything busy. one thing i must say tho is ive had to set my vidcard to stock clocks and im thinking about lowering my cpu OC due to the warmer months closing in

I think we are getting a very skewed view of the "big picture" on these forums. Maybe somebody can repeat the statistic, but I seem to recall somebody recently saying that only a few thousand of the 100,000+ SETI users take part in the forums. This means perhaps a few % of SETI crunchers are even aware of some of the forum related reasons other posters put forward for the drop in membership (alleged indifference by "Them", Matt's charming and utterly human posts, etc.).

I don't think we have a way to tell how many readers there are on the forums, but we've got 24914 users who have posted at least once to the forums. 12877 who have posted at least twice. And 8554 who have posted at least 3 times.

Of those, 101 have posted in the last day. 708 have posted in the
last month, and 4224 have posted in the last year. Even if readers
outnumber posters by a factor of 10, the forums are only read by
40,000 people.

You all have some great thoughts...sorry this will be long.

@Kenzie--Amen-I wish I could go as well...hope someone brings a video camera (hint!)

Credits-Yes, I am a credit freak but the science interests me as well. Please don't turn this thread into a credit war. Thanks! :)

Personally, in my efforts for fundraising and recruiting for more hardware I've had a great deal of interaction with Matt & Eric and the crew. I've also had the pleasure of getting to know Eric's wife Angela. I feel like I've been privileged to get a taste of the behind-the-scenes action. These guys do have a life outside of Seti and deservedly so.

Matt's glimpses into the hills and valleys don't bug me as long as there is an equal/greater reference to the Seti hardware/science in the same post. Keep it balanced..makes it fun.

IMHO In terms of the future we need to focus on 2 major points...recruitment and fundraising. People have seen my attempts and efforts. If you haven't felt like participating, that's ok-noone will down you for not donating, least not in my threads. If you have, you have my personal appreciation. People have taken a beating in this economy and a lot have shut down their hardware for survival needs. I myself have been furloughed from work but have been able to make it up in other ways and I feel blessed. If we can bring the people, the money shall follow.

I myself have talked more than a few people into joining the efforts. Simple conversations in the right places and times can do wonders.

I shall keep doing my fundraising drives and I will do my best to keep them interesting and unique.

I will say, that despite some differences that have occurred over the time I've been involved, I have a great deal of appreciation for the knowledge, time and effort shared by all of you. Even a simple act of translation (Kudos to Ark) helps us all to share our opinions and ideas to better the project.

IT DOES MATTER.

Blurf
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In my view one of the reasons for lack of interest is the perception that the project is dying on its feet. It appears that vlunteers are just crunching for the sake of it. The website is in need of a makeover with information as to what has been discovered. Look at the newsletters - nothing since September !

In my view one of the reasons for lack of interest is the perception that the project is dying on its feet. It appears that vlunteers are just crunching for the sake of it. The website is in need of a makeover with information as to what has been discovered. Look at the newsletters - nothing since September !

It seems to me that there is only one kind of "real" news, and that announcement can only be made once. It also signals the end of the project.