Are you yet another one of those "I must be right" types, who can go on arguing until the other person falls of his chair out of pure exhaustion. And then proclaim loudly that you've won the argument, alternatively got the last post in to the message board?

please see the edit I did on my previous post.

As far as your statement goes, it is what people what people use when they run out of arguments and ideas.

I am copying my edit into this post to make it easier for you:
Edit: I took a 4 year break from Seti after boinc was introduced, and I already announced in another thread today that I am going to finish the wu's I have here, and that's it for me. I apologize if I offended anyone. It's not as easy as I thought to give up an idea I participated in for such a long time, and I might have snapped around a little. I am sorry.

you win, happy ?

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I see I might have picked a bad time to come back to SETI@Home after a break. Over the years I have built several computers just to crunch for SETI, due to a change in my circumstances all but a couple at work have been silent since last October. I built these machines to join in the search for ET, not to cure cancer, find energy sources (although I have participated). I just wanted to help find, ET a subject close to my heart.

Last month my circumstances changed again and I have been giving thought to setting my 6 machines on the search to finding ET, so imagine my surprise when I looked at the forums yesterday.

So what would people suggest, I don't wish to crunch for any other project, but I have 4 machines that have been sitting mostly idle for the last eight months, should I wait in the hope that the project sorts itself out, or finally get rid of these machines as I had intended to do last year. They are all a bit long in the tooth now and just gathering dust.

Bernie

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Be careful what you ask for...

The silly part is that "you" all have demanded the "better mousetrap" that can track hardware resource by type and adjust DCF accordingly.

So we have the new credit system and attempting to get the cache by hardware resource working. The population in Seti Beta was not large enoungh to show all the problems.

Richard has kept you abreast of many of the events (realistically he should be wearing a volunteer developer tag). Joe has answered many things.

So when you add that to the Staff is attempting to correct things that have not had time to correct in the daily outages to be FIXED. They are attempting to do just that. Not to mention they are attempting to finalize the code to pull science out of the database.

Patience?

Regards

Thanks for the kind words, Pappa.

Yes, I've done development work - but not at the level of sophistication, scale or efficiency required by either SETI or BOINC. I haven't contributed a single line of code to either program: here, I'm just an observer and a tester, and I don't deserve any tag beyond that.

But I do know what it is to be a member of a development team. My largest project had commercial (well, niche market) sales of not much over 1,000, but we still needed a project leader with the original vision and drive; myself as coder; a professional author to do the documentation; alpha and beta testers; tech support; administration; ... (It was pre-internet, so we didn't have public servers to maintain and manage). And we needed a small child, as featured in The Emperor's New Clothes. It was the author/documentor who played that role in our team: sometimes I feel that it's the best (and only) role open to me in BOINC.

And that's what I find most frustrating about BOINC (yes, I'm as frustrated as the rest of you, though I tend to bottle it up and not keep saying so on this message board): I don't get any feeling of teamwork, at least not one which includes anyone outside Berkeley as part of the team.

Of course, they can't include all 300,000 active BOINC users in the team: nor would many want to be considered as such. We had maybe half-a-dozen of our 1,000 users actively interested in taking our project further forward. But their ideas, suggestions and general feedback were valued by the core members of the team, and helped to make it a better program. And in return, they were kept in the loop with regard to our planning and future developments.

Here, that integration seems to have broken down. We seem to be in the middle of a triple 'perfect storm', but this is only what I've been able to piece together after the event, and it's surely by no means complete.

• Fermi. NVidia wrote the original SETI CUDA application, obviously for marketing purposes and to showcase GPU processing within this community. They've continued to keep the application current, with first cuda23 and then fermi variants. But I think they're pretty distant partners in the venture, and maybe their communications skills aren't very good, either: certainly the penny didn't drop at SETI/BOINC that the new architecture required the updated app until after the event.
  
  
• BOINC. I suppose we start with NVidia here as well. The whole concept of GPU processing has complicated the BOINC model. Managing multiple computing resources of vastly different speed has revealed the need for massive changes in the way BOINC works, and I don't think anyone fully anticipated the consequences of that inital SETI/CUDA release. Although I wasn't a participant at the time, I get the feeling that the initial BOINC was more of a pre-planned, structured development (there are a lot of very careful, very clever aspects to the way it works), and the later versions have been more of a piecemeal reaction to events.
  
  
• SETI. For a long time, it's felt as if a high proportion (too high a proportion?) of the staff's time and energy has gone to sticking band-aids on the processing pipeline - notably the servers. We've kept hearing tantalising snippets about Ntpcker, but in general all questions about results (have we found anything yet?) have been met with silence. I'm prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt, and accept that the switch of emphasis from raw processing to more scientific analysis was pre-planned (though I have my doubts about the timing), and should be welcome to the community - we've asked for it enough. As Pappa says, be careful what you ask for...
  

But did they all have to happen at once? That's the $64,000 dollar question. Fermi was external, unexpected and rushed. BOINC was simmering on the Beta project, but that was often down because staff were fire-fighting the main project: I don't feel confortable that what I tested, observed and reported there had found its way into code improvements before the deployment here. SET was - well, I really don't know. Even the "weekly" meeting updates at http://seti.berkeley.edu/ don't provide a clue.

What's to be done? As I've said often enough before, I really feel that both development groups (SETI and BOINC) really need some teamwork input from the wider community, even though they seem not to realise it. But given the numbers involved, and our present collective mood, I can quite understand why they've put up the one-way mirrors, and refuse to look over the parapet to the besieging hordes below.

At other projects, volunteers - wearing the Moderator tag, because that's the only tag BOINC provides with enhanced message board rights - fill the gap. People like Bikeman and Gary Roberts at Einstein, mo.v and Thyme Lawn at CPDN, are the glue that bind the developers and the wider community together. SETI has Pappa, and BOINC has Jorden, but I don't think they're enough on their own. How can we help them?

Let's see here..............

<much snarkiness deleted>

Maybe I'll come back when this project is run by someone who is NOT insane!

I'm gone too, but not in the way Geek@Play threatens. I've crunching along just fine for the past 2 1/2 months, just not reading the drivel here in the forums.

SETI@Home is working. It's not working well, and in fact it's showing how important fault-resilience can be. I've not run out of work. I'd express my ideas on how to make it run better, but clearly this isn't the place for it.

There should be a line between complaints and observations, and personal insults hurled toward those running the project, and even between fellow forum members, and in a polite society, that line should never be crossed.

There should be a place in these forums for civil discourse.

But no. It's all childish complaints and personal attacks.

I think it's time to revive and revise Godwin's Law because in my opinion, when you stop talking about the problems, and start talking about the people, you might as well compare them to Hitler.

It's rude. It's indecent. It's obscene. It's incredibly bad Karma. Were you raised by wolves?

Where are your manners? Do you always kick people when they're down?

I see that you have actually proven Godwin's Law - was that your intention? :)
You also seem dangerously close to taking part in the rudeness you decry. I do agree with you that personal attacks in these forums are rude & could even be interpreted by some as cowardly and bullying. Come on guys, I know this is a very sore point for many of us but lets be civilised or at least civil about it.

search without result is not proof, so it is not science.

Huh?? So, you think all the scientists looking for a cancer cure, a diabetes cure, etc...is not science?

I think a few folks might disagree with that. But, you are entitled to your own opinion.

BACK ON TOPIC:

Are you (anyone) really going to leave just because the SETI BUS turned a corner and is now on an untravelled road? Do you really want David to write in his memoirs, years from now, that SETI itself didn't fail, but that the users failed in their support of the project? I DON'T THINK SO!

Stay the course.

Keep crunching.

That's my opinion.

Martin

search without result is not proof, so it is not science.

Huh?? So, you think all the scientists looking for a cancer cure, a diabetes cure, etc...is not science?

I think a few folks might disagree with that. But, you are entitled to your own opinion.

BACK ON TOPIC:

Are you (anyone) really going to leave just because the SETI BUS turned a corner and is now on an untravelled road? Do you really want David to write in his memoirs, years from now, that SETI itself didn't fail, but that the users failed in their support of the project? I DON'T THINK SO!

Stay the course.

Keep crunching.

That's my opinion.

Martin

I'm buckled in, but methinks the bus is headed for a cliff.....

---

"Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting." Alan Dean Foster

I'm buckled in, but methinks the bus is headed for a cliff.....


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTozaJesY9o

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Rig name: "x6Crunchy"
OS: Win 7 x64
MB: Asus M4N98TD EVO
CPU: AMD X6 1055T 2.8(1,2v)
GPU: 2x Asus GTX560ti
Member of: Dutch Power Cows

Are you (anyone) really going to leave just because the SETI BUS turned a corner and is now on an untravelled road? Do you really want David to write in his memoirs, years from now, that SETI itself didn't fail, but that the users failed in their support of the project? I DON'T THINK SO!

Stay the course.

Keep crunching.

That's my opinion.

Martin

I'm buckled in, but methinks the bus is headed for a cliff.....

The bus tends to survive the fall, but not all the passengers. Unfortunately it's those in the front seats who get crushed most...

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Carola
-------
I'm multilingual - I can misunderstand people in several languages!

search without result is not proof, so it is not science.

Huh?? So, you think all the scientists looking for a cancer cure, a diabetes cure, etc...is not science?

I think a few folks might disagree with that. But, you are entitled to your own opinion.

funny way to read my statement, cause they obviously get result in cancer etc studies, are they what they wish for is entirely different thing.

this is different, even if we found something it might not exist anymore.
(and there is a good chance of that)

search without result is not proof, so it is not science.

Huh?? So, you think all the scientists looking for a cancer cure, a diabetes cure, etc...is not science?

I think a few folks might disagree with that. But, you are entitled to your own opinion.

funny way to read my statement, cause they obviously get result in cancer etc studies, are they what they wish for is entirely different thing.

this is different, even if we found something it might not exist anymore.
(and there is a good chance of that)

Well...don't we all turn in results everyday? Sometimes, not including what we are looking for? But we continue looking...

Martin

Well, I slept on it overnite, or tried to anyway. Silence now is distracting and I know that for the first time in many years I am not actively looking for ET. All conspired to make for a restless night. I still am up in the air about running SETI. Can't make up my mind to come back or not.

For me it was about searching for ET. It was never about the credits. In fact, when Boinc started up if the credits had been dropped I would have continued on anyway. My view was that if a computer was going to find ET, I wanted to own that computer. That was and always has been my goal.

SETI has always sent out the word that "we need more crunchers". More, more. Now to suddenly limit the work available to crunchers and the number of days that work will be available is confusing to say the least. AT least for me it is anyway.

I only carry a 4 day cache. Enough to last through a long weekend if needed. I increased it to 5 days when the 3 day science fair was announced. That coupled with weekends that normally see problems when humans are not in the office to tend to the servers. I felt more comfortable with 5 days. Never felt comfortable with more than that because what if my computer failed and dumped all the work units. Too much work to lose in my opinion.

I understand that the purpose of the 3 day science fair is to allow nit-picker to search the data base for signals we have located. And also to allow time for improvements in software to be made. I know all that. Why are we limited to only one science data base? Let nit-picker search all it wants while be begin another new science data base. Is that not feasable? Do we have to have only one massive science data base?

Boinc and SETI have always relied on donations and grants for their survival. Because of this we have always been on a budget that is barely adequate and certainly restricted us in reaching our goals. We must find ways to increase donations to SETI. Everyone knows that SETI servers do not do well when unattended by humans. Outdated equipment and a weary staff. I am amazed we have come so far on so little. I will not suggest a yearly SETI membership fee again. I took too much heat on that the last time. I mention it only in passing?

Seti is now the test project for Boinc and that is the only reason that SETI still exists. Apparently the staff at Berkeley is content to let SETI membership decline in order to allow for the advancement of Boinc. So be it. I will note with interest in whether I receive a mass email in December or not.

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Boinc....Boinc....Boinc....Boinc....

Be careful what you ask for...

The silly part is that "you" all have demanded the "better mousetrap" that can track hardware resource by type and adjust DCF accordingly.

So we have the new credit system and attempting to get the cache by hardware resource working. The population in Seti Beta was not large enoungh to show all the problems.

Richard has kept you abreast of many of the events (realistically he should be wearing a volunteer developer tag). Joe has answered many things.

So when you add that to the Staff is attempting to correct things that have not had time to correct in the daily outages to be FIXED. They are attempting to do just that. Not to mention they are attempting to finalize the code to pull science out of the database.

Patience?

Regards

Papa, why didn't you come in here asking for more volunteers, explaining what they were trying to do. I would have come had I been asked, I bet many more would have also. A total failure to communicate, it's amazing what you can get if you only ask.....

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Official Abuser of Boinc Buttons...
And no good credit hound!

I don't know what everybody is griping about, the 20 work units I currently have will take me 3-4 days to burn through. Not a hardship at all.

ROFL.............

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Official Abuser of Boinc Buttons...
And no good credit hound!

Many invested a lot of money to be able to do that specifically to HELP the
SETI@home project. Can you try to understand their frustration, and the disrespect they feel

I think it's probably more "buyer's remorse" that they're feeling. I know I'd feel pretty silly if I dumped a wad of money for a long-shot effort that offered no return on the investment, and then even the bragging rights and ego boosts were removed.

I think you are dead wrong on this scarecrow....I honestly don't think you have a clue about it....REALLY.

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Official Abuser of Boinc Buttons...
And no good credit hound!

I understand that the purpose of the 3 day science fair is to allow nit-picker to search the data base for signals we have located. And also to allow time for improvements in software to be made. I know all that. Why are we limited to only one science data base? Let nit-picker search all it wants while be begin another new science data base. Is that not feasable? Do we have to have only one massive science data base?

I'm beginning to think that Seti has collected more results over the last 10 years than it knows what to do with. It certainly wasn't expecting the sheer onslaught of work that GPU's threw at it. I think they have decided to go back to the original purpose of Seti, which is to search for meaningful signals, and use Nitpicker to do that.

What is the point of generating more work for the sake of it, to keep crunchers happy, if they can't analyse it.

Exactly the point I've been trying to hammer in today.

They've got enough results for analyzing in the databases to last them and NTPCkr a very very long time. If and when NTPCkr finds some interesting region, then it's time to let loose some crunching power again with WU's from such a region.

Until then, analyzing is what must come as number one. Sending out new WU's which results only will collect dust for years again, must be considered as very low down on the to-do list.

First they must catch up with the results already crunched. What's the use of finding an interesting signal in a result from 1999, and then go back and send out a new WU for the same region from 2010, and find nothing.

No, results should be analyzed quickly after they've been received, and then send out new WU's for the same region (if interesting) as soon as possible, or at least not years apart from the initial signal.

Except the limit will/should be removed tomorrow. So unless I've missed it, they are not into stopping results from coming in.

Except the limit will/should be removed tomorrow. So unless I've missed it, they are not into stopping results from coming in.

No, not stopping. But they are indeed slowing down the flow of work. Just look at the "Data Distribution State" and particularly the field for "Results out in the field". It's about 2 million results lower, than what it usually is.

And removing the limit tomorrow, just one day before the 3 day outage, is not going to raise that to a "normal" level. What it more likely will do, is crash the servers and make the outage start one day early, this time lasting 4 days.

So either they DO want less results or the 20 WU limit is wrong. I think it's the last :)

Good I guess with the limit after the 3 days outage, but not good it's still 20 here Sunday.

How about "Volunteer tester" tags for all current crunchers. :D

How about a "volunteer test subject" tag instead?

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PROUD MEMBER OF Team Starfire World BOINC

if they have tomuch data alrdy to go through then it would be np to have less member in seti

i started to look for other ptojects

sofar included einstein as backup prog and started climate and gpugrid

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Joined Seti@home on 20 June 1999 (id:797875)
Made This1 to Join the Eve Team

http://www.eveonline.com/seti/

I assume 20 was an arbitrary value, which was planned to be increased once the initial run had leveled off. What with mork crashing and the long weekend on top that did not happen. Increasing on Monday - and please remember anybody coming in or doing it remotely is doing it on a holiday - is likely going to be too late for effective cache filling.

As somebody else stated we are in uncharted territory - they will have to work out what numbers (outage, caps, time of head start of uploads etc.) work best for the overall workflow.

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Carola
-------
I'm multilingual - I can misunderstand people in several languages!

I assume 20 was an arbitrary value, which was planned to be increased once the initial run had leveled off. What with mork crashing and the long weekend on top that did not happen. Increasing on Monday - and please remember anybody coming in or doing it remotely is doing it on a holiday - is likely going to be too late for effective cache filling.

As somebody else stated we are in uncharted territory - they will have to work out what numbers (outage, caps, time of head start of uploads etc.) work best for the overall workflow.

At one point, they actually had increased it to 60, but when the system crashed and was brought back up, it was either reset or defaulted back to 20.

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"Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting." Alan Dean Foster