Why so far behind?

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Profile cwburch

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Message 1182692 - Posted: 4 Jan 2012, 2:24:14 UTC

I've noticed the WUs I get are 2 or more months old. It seems to me with all the computers on the planet that are crunching these WUs, we should be waiting for WUs to be recorded and digitized. Why am I getting WUs recorded 2 or more months ago?
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Message 1182693 - Posted: 4 Jan 2012, 2:40:48 UTC
Last modified: 4 Jan 2012, 2:41:58 UTC

The WU's that I typically get now is some 6 weeks or so old since the date (meaning time) they originally were recorded at the Arecibo Radio Observatory.

In my opinion, this it not too bad. If I do not get it wrong, the recorded data (which are stored on tapes) still have to be shipped from Arecibo to Berkeley by means of planes. Please correct me if I am wrong on this.

When arriving at Berkeley, the tapes will have to be analyzed for signs of RFI, which particularly means terrestrial (or man made) RFI.

RFI stands for Radio Frequency Interference.

In order for we, or us, the users, to be able to process the raw data which becomes available from the Arecibo Radio Telescope, everything needs to become split up into segments or "chunks" of data which are suitable for our computers to be able to process in order to be able to find whether a possible signal of interest is present in these data.

We are out for finding possible intelligent signals coming from other places in our Milky Way Galaxy. There is no point of pre-censorship, even though such a possibility or scenario is quite possible and plausible. However, I do not think that this is ever meant to be done.

Still we are looking for Intelligent Radio Signals, not someone possibly flying silently around in the sky looking down and having a full knowledge of everything we are doing.

Theoretically, we could finally be successful in what we are currently doing.
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Message 1182704 - Posted: 4 Jan 2012, 4:17:04 UTC - in response to Message 1182692.  

I've noticed the WUs I get are 2 or more months old. It seems to me with all the computers on the planet that are crunching these WUs, we should be waiting for WUs to be recorded and digitized. Why am I getting WUs recorded 2 or more months ago?


After the data is recorded and shipped to Berkeley on hard disks, they are randomly loaded into the splitter in a non-sequential order. We could easily receive workunits from two years ago, but that doesn't mean they've been crunched before.
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Profile Bob DeWoody
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Message 1182721 - Posted: 4 Jan 2012, 6:23:07 UTC

I think generally that the SETI@home project, at least at the user end is running quite smoothly. I rarely pay attention to the date that any one batch of data my computer is analyzing was recorded. The only time I get concerned is when it goes more than a few hours idle.
Bob DeWoody

My motto: Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow as it may not be required. This no longer applies in light of current events.
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Message 1183120 - Posted: 6 Jan 2012, 5:42:51 UTC

Hiya all.

I'm sure that when I joined SETI/BOINC years ago, it used to tell me the date the data was collected as well as where from and the direction from whence it came for each task/workunit. (The WUs were much older then, by the way)

Now, all I see is the complicated name that tells nothing useful to the uninitiated.

Is there any way to set BOINC's advanced view up to also tell me the extra info I've mentioned on the Tasks tab without using the screensaver, or a reference source for decoding the task names?

Thanks in advance...
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Message boards : SETI@home Science : Why so far behind?


 
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