Could be really useful for situations like the one we have at the moment.

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Will SETI ever support the BOINC cache settings?

If their hardware is ever able to support the load, yes.
Given the lack of funds for staff, I doubt that obtaining such hardware would be likely given it would be even more expensive than the necessary staff.

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Grant
Darwin NT

It's always the lack of money. But hey, wasn't there something about a huge donation lately? And overall, doesn't the limit of tasks in progress make less and less sense with GPUs becoming more and more powerful? At least scale it to the power of the GPU in use.

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One thing I have found is ... don't ask for more work than you can handle.

If my CPU loads up with AP tasks, it is about 4 days worth, so that is my setting, and it seems to download much better that a 10 day cache.

Ask for too much, you get nothing. So it seems for me anyways.

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But hey, wasn't there something about a huge donation lately?

For Seti research in general, of which there are dozens (if not hundreds) of different projects, not for Seti@home specifically.

And overall, doesn't the limit of tasks in progress make less and less sense with GPUs becoming more and more powerful? At least scale it to the power of the GPU in use.

The limit on tasks in progress isn't concerned with the processing abilities of various hardware. The issue is the size of the database, and the input/output issues that come along with it. The more work held in caches, the greater the problem for the database.

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Grant
Darwin NT

But hey, wasn't there something about a huge donation lately?

For Seti research in general, of which there are dozens (if not hundreds) of different projects, not for Seti@home specifically.

And overall, doesn't the limit of tasks in progress make less and less sense with GPUs becoming more and more powerful? At least scale it to the power of the GPU in use.

The limit on tasks in progress isn't concerned with the processing abilities of various hardware. The issue is the size of the database, and the input/output issues that come along with it. The more work held in caches, the greater the problem for the database.

1: Well, they announced it with "Big boost for SETI@home" so I guess they will get their share.

2: Sure, that's the problem. On a project like this hardware and software needs to be upgraded from time to time.

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1: Well, they announced it with "Big boost for SETI@home" so I guess they will get their share.

My reading of that announcement wasn't so much a cash influx as it is the ability to get workunits from other parts of the sky. The actual announcement said there would be very little cash going to SETI@home.

2: Sure, that's the problem. On a project like this hardware and software needs to be upgraded from time to time.

Sure, got some money for parts and labor? ;-) They only need about half a million a year to operate efficiently.

Sure, got some money for parts and labor? ;-) They only need about half a million a year to operate efficiently.

No. I do my part by crunching, upgrading my hard-/software and donating a bit of money from time to time. I guess thats all you can ask from a volunteer. The rest really is up to them, it's their job to keep the project running, not mine.

And for the first part of your post: Even a small fraction of those 100 millions can be a lot of money. But maybe we should ask ourselves why they don't receive a bigger slice of the cake.....?

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Sure, got some money for parts and labor? ;-) They only need about half a million a year to operate efficiently.

No. I do my part by crunching, upgrading my hard-/software and donating a bit of money from time to time. I guess thats all you can ask from a volunteer. The rest really is up to them, it's their job to keep the project running, not mine.

And they've been doing exactly that: keeping the project running, donating their free time to keep stuff going for all the volunteers.

And for the first part of your post: Even a small part of those 100 millions can be a lot of money.

That's $100 Million over 10 years, spread across dozens of projects, with 1/3 going to telescope time, 1/3 going to fund research, and the other 1/3 to hire astronomers.

But maybe we should ask ourselves why they don't receive a bigger slice of the cake.....

Do tell? What are your thoughts on why?

I would speculate that its because nobody cares about the enormous amount of number crunching that makes it possible for those expensive telescopes and guys with phd's to do their work, until something breaks and inconveniences them. That's how it works in the commercial sector; I doubt its any different in the realm of big budget academia.

I would speculate that its because nobody cares about the enormous amount of number crunching that makes it possible for those expensive telescopes and guys with phd's to do their work,

?
The processing of data by Seti@home & many other BOINC projects is done with data that has been recorded for other uses. Our & the other BOINC projects use of it is incidental to the original project that got the funding for the research time.

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Grant
Darwin NT

That was a generalization; You need massive data processing to do anything with radio telescopes, whether you're watching a sun explode and trying to model it from the data or looking for ET in the same RF noise. Nobody ever sees the computational layer until it suddenly becomes unavailable.

That was a generalization; You need massive data processing to do anything with radio telescopes, whether you're watching a sun explode and trying to model it from the data or looking for ET in the same RF noise. Nobody ever sees the computational layer until it suddenly becomes unavailable.

I imagine most of those kinds of people factor in however many hours they needs on a super computer to crunch their data.

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SETI@home classic workunits: 93,865 CPU time: 863,447 hours
Join the [url=http://tinyurl.com/8y46zvu]BP6/VP6 User Group[

If you ever have the chance to have a chat with Eric you will very quickly realise that a large chunk of the budget for a radio telescope is the computer and communications systems needed to collect, distribute, analyse and store the data collected.

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?